OIL shaped the 20th century. In war,the French leader Georges Clemenceau said, petroleum was “as vital as blood”. In peace the oil trade dominated stockmarkets, or bankrolled despots and propped up the economies of entire countries. But the 21st century will see oil’s influence wane. Cheap natural gas,renewable energy, electric vehicles and co-ordinated efforts to tackle global warming together mean that the power source of choice will be electricity.
That is welcome. The electricity era will diminish the clout of the $2trn oil trade, and reduce the choke points that have made oil a source of global tension,do energy production into local hands and make power more accessible to the poor. It will also make the world cleaner and safer—reassuringly uninteresting, even. The disaster is getting from here to there. Not just oil producers, and but everyone else,too, may find the transition perilous.
Oil and electricity are a study in contrasts (see our Continue reading
Source: economist.com