quest," daniel yergin is the author. he won a pulitzer for his last book, "the prize." mr. yergin, thank you for being with us here on booktv. >> guest: it's great to be here. >> host: and we're trying something different this year, and we have a guest interviewer. and, now, we have an expert. if you've ever asked our "after words" show, we bring an expert along to interview an author, and we're pleased to be joined by steve mufson of "the washington post," the energy reporter. mr. mufson, it's your show -- by the way, you'll see the numbers up on the screen if you would like to talk with daniel yergin as the show goes on. mr. mufson.

>> host: thanks, good to be here. good to be with dan since i've known him, knowing dan haseen great,m covering energy again now for "the washington post," and there are very few people who, like dan, can really help frame a lot of the big issues in energy and who can tell the narrative of what's really happened. i think that's part of what makes him unusual. and also he has a sort of holistic approach. there are a lot of energy books out there. people often ask me what kind of book to read, and not that many of them are covering all the geopolitics in a broad way like dan is. but there are a couple of questions i wanted to ask. one, a kind of relatively simple one about the book because i know originally you were interested in history, and you wrote your first book was actually about the cold war. what kind of drew you into the energy issue and has kept you in the energy issue for 30 some odd

years as opposed to doing something different? >> guest: i think what i discovered about energy is it includes everything. it goes from geopolitics to economics to technology, so it's an always-changing story, and it has this whole framework of tying all these different things together and then, as you said, trying to find the story to convey it. >> host: so one thing that interests me, and you were just talking about this in the other tent here at the festival is that you think of yourself as an optimist about the future of energy. that you believe that technology will solve a lot of problems about energy shortages and maybe there isn't the kind of energy shortage people often worry about. and i was just wondering whether, you know, if you could put that in some perspective. it seems to me sometimes there's a lot of talk now about energy independents about how the country commands the energy independence, and a lot of politicians and drillers who

seem to be saying we really don't have anything to worry about if only we would just drill everything. >> guest: right. >> host: what's the limit to your optimism, or isn't there any? >> guest: well, i think there are a lot of things to worry about, and i try and -- i would say optimistic by realistic at the same time. there are enormous number of challenges, there are things that can go wrong. we can look right today and see some of these really big risks that are out there. so i wanted to make that clear. the optimism side of it is that when you just look at this whole unfolding history, you see that technology really does respond to challenges. obviously, one question is will the technological answers be there in time to meet the specific challenges, and, you know, we've seen this big surprise in the last three or four years. last time we had a presidential election, we're going to run out of energy. now we actually have a surplus of energy, so these things do change. but as i said, i want to be realistic about it, too, and i really want readers to

understand what the real risks are. >> host: so do you actually believe the united states can be energy independent? >> guest: no, i don't think so. >> host: and mostly we're talking about oil independence. >> guest: yeah, really when people say oil independence, going all the way back to richard nixon, it's really been about oil independence. and i think we have turned the corner. i think we have the opportunity to be a lot less dependent. and if you tie it together with canada and elsewhere in the western hemisphere, i think we could see a western hemisphere isn't necessarily in fife or ten years importing as much oil from the eastern hemisphere. that's a big change. and we'll feel we're more resilient, we will be, and we'll get the economic benefits of development in our country, but i think it's a little too soon to actually proclaim the imminence of oil independence. >> host: well, and you mentioned this issue about the western hemisphere m becoming more

independent, but this is another issue that i think is challenging because it seems to me as lock -- as long as there's 17 million barrels of oil a day flowing through the strait of hormuz, isn't that going to be a red line in terms of geopolitical strategy? we're not going to let japan and europe, if they're buying oil from that area -- >> guest: as it is, we only get about 12% of our oil from the persian gulf as it is today. china gets more oil. and it's kind of one of the questions i really leave on the table. how in five or ten years will the strategic balance change. but i think it is, you know, that region is still going to be central to the world's economy and central to the countries we're most closely involved in. so i think there's a strategic interest which is greater than whether a barrel has an american flag on it or not. >> host: and here is the cover of the book. it is called "the quest." daniel yergin won the pulitzer for his last book on energy

called "the prize." 202-585-3885 if you live in the east and central time zones, 585-3886 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. steve mufson of "the washington post", energy reporter, is also with us live at the national book festival. the first call for our guest, daniel yergin, comes from russell in bell month, pennsylvania. russell, you're on booktv on c-span2. please, go ahead. >> caller: well, hello, i'm happy to speak to you. this past week i saw a line on nbc television which said that a study by a major university indicated that there was a possibility of powering the entire east coast of the united states with windmills. located out in the ocean. i think it was stanford research institute, but i'm not sure of the exact quote. something like this seemed preposterous five or ten years ago, but now why isn't that a