One of the biggest themes at Davos this year — and one that was not there last year — was "competitiveness." This concern, however, was hardly limited to the annual conclave in the Swiss Alps. It reverberated with simultaneous developments in both Brussels and Berlin that point to the beginning of a major, if difficult, rethink of Europe's energy policies. It all comes down to shale gas and the energy revolution it has triggered in the United States. All this puts European industrial production at a heavy cost disadvantage against the United States. The result is a migration of industrial investment from Europe to the United States — what one CEO called an "exodus." It involves, not only energy-intensive industries like chemicals and metals, but also companies in the supply chains that support such industries. --Daniel Yergin,CNBC, 27 January 2014
