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FEATURES THE REALIST Vaclav Smil looks to history for the future of energy. What he sees is sobering

By Paul Voosen Downloaded from

s a teenager in the 1950s, Vaclav lenge of trying to curb climate change by Smil spent a lot of time chopping weaning itself from fossil fuels, Smil’s work wood. He lived with his family in on energy transitions is getting more atten- a remote town in what was then tion than ever. But his message is not neces- Czechoslovakia, nestled in the sarily one of hope. Smil has forced climate mountainous Bohemian Forest. advocates to reckon with the vast inertia http://science.sciencemag.org/ On walks he could see the Hohen- sustaining the modern world’s dependence bogen, a high ridge in neighboring on fossil fuels, and to question many of the West Germany; less visible was the rosy assumptions underlying scenarios for minefield designed to prevent Czechs from a rapid shift to alternatives. “He’s a slayer Aescaping across the border. Then it was back of bullshit,” says David Keith, an energy and home, splitting logs every 4 hours to stoke climate scientist at . the three stoves in his home, one downstairs Give Smil 5 minutes and he’ll pick apart and two up. Thunk. With each stroke his one cherished scenario after another. Ger- body, fueled by goulash and grain, helped many’s solar revolution as an example for

free the sun’s energy, transiently captured in the world to follow? An extraordinarily in- on March 24, 2018 the logs. Thunk. It was repetitive and tough efficient approach, given how little sunlight work. Thunk. It was clear to Smil that this the country receives, that hasn’t reduced was hardly an efficient way to live. that nation’s reliance on fossil fuels. Elec- Throughout his career, Smil, perhaps the tric semitrailers? Good for little more than world’s foremost thinker on energy of all hauling the weight of their own batteries. kinds, has sought clarity. From his home of- Wind turbines as the embodiment of a low- fice near the (UM) in carbon future? Heavy equipment powered Through dozens of books, Winnipeg, Canada, the 74-year-old academic by oil had to dig their foundations, Smil Vaclav Smil has helped has churned out dozens of books over the notes, and kilns fired with natural gas shape how people past 4 decades. They work through a host baked the concrete. And their steel towers, think about the past and of topics, including China’s environmental gleaming in the sun? Forged with coal. future of energy. problems and Japan’s dietary transition from “There’s a lot of hopey-feely going on in plants to meat. The prose is dry, and they the energy policy community,” says David rarely sell more than a few thousand cop- Victor, an expert on international climate ahead—not as a justification for inaction. ies. But that has not prevented some of the policy at the University of California, San And he says he has no ax to grind. “I have books—particularly those exploring how so- Diego. And Smil “revels in the capability to never been wrong on these major energy cieties have transitioned from relying on one show those falsehoods.” and environmental issues,” he says, “be- source of energy, such as wood, to another, But Smil is not simply a naysayer. He cause I have nothing to sell.” such as coal—from profoundly influencing accepts the sobering reality of climate Despite Smil’s reach—some of the world’s generations of scientists, policymakers, exec- change—though he is dubious of much most powerful banks and bureaucrats rou- utives, and philanthropists. One ardent fan, climate modeling—and believes we need tinely ask for his advice—he has remained

Microsoft co-founder in Redmond, to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. He intensely private. Other experts tap dance S K I Washington, claims to have read nearly all has tried to reduce his own carbon foot- for attention and pursue TED talks. But W of Smil’s work. “I wait for new Smil books,” print, building an energy-efficient home Smil is a throwback, largely letting his books V I D L PN O

Gates wrote last December, “the way some and adopting a mostly vegetarian diet. He speak for themselves. He loathes speaking A O : D

people wait for the next Star Wars movie.” sees his academic work as offering a clear- to the press (and opened up to Science only T

Now, as the world faces the daunting chal- eyed, realistic assessment of the challenges out of a sense of duty to The MIT Press, his PH O

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longtime publisher). “I really don’t think I agencies. But the United States’s security Nothing was exceptional about his child- have anything special to say,” he says. “It’s clampdown after 9/11—its the increasing hood, Smil says. His father was a police of- out there if you want to know it.” political dysfunction—soured him on the ficer and then worked in manufacturing; country’s leaders. “This government is so his mother kept the books for a psychiatric THIS PAST DECEMBER, Smil stepped out of a inept,” he said. “It cannot even run itself in hospital’s kitchen. But even as a boy, he hotel in Washington, D.C., and pulled on a the most basic way.” was aware of the miasma of falsehood that knit cap—he’d allow no wasted heat, espe- Still, Smil can’t shake his affection for the surrounded him in Cold War Czechoslo- cially given a persistent head cold. He had United States. It goes back to his childhood: vakia, and it spurred his respect for facts. given a lecture the previous day and now was During World War II, U.S. soldiers—not Soviet “I’m the creation of the communist state,” making a beeline for a favorite spot: the Na- troops—liberated his region from the Nazis. he says, recalling how, as a child, he heard tional Gallery of Art. He was a regular in the And it was to the United States that Smil that the Soviet Union had increased pro- nation’s capital during the 1980s and ’90s, and his wife, Eva, fled in 1969, after the duction of passenger cars by 1000% in a consulting with the World Bank, the Central Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia to stymie a single year. “I looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, Intelligence Agency, and other government political uprising. but you started from nothing.’” Officials

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Energy inertia icked and left. But the couple waited for The transition from wood (“traditional biofuels”) to fossil fuels—first coal, then oil and natural gas—took Eva’s graduation, dreading a travel ban. more than a century. Today, fossil energy is dominant, with wind and solar making up a mere sliver of the mix. They finally departed in 1969, just months The pace of past energy transitions suggests that a full-scale shift to renewables will be slow. before the government imposed a travel blockade that would last for decades. “That Wind and solar electricity Hydroelectricity Traditional biofuels Nuclear electricity Modern biofuels was not a minor sacrifice, you know?” Smil Coal Crude oil Natural gas says. “After doing that, I’m not going to sell myself for photovoltaics or fusion or what- 100 ever and start waving banners. Your past always leads to who you are.” 80 The Smils ended up at Pennsylvania State University in State College, where Vaclav completed a doctorate in geography 60 in 2 years. With little money, they rented rooms from a professor’s widow, and Smil made another energy transition: Periodi- 40 cally, an oil truck arrived to refuel the base- ment furnace. Smil then took the first job F ue l c o ns um p t i n ( % ) offer he received, from UM. He’s been there 20 ever since. Downloaded from For decades until his retirement, Smil taught introductory environmental sci- 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2015 ence courses. Each year ended with a 10-question, multiple choice final exam, with a twist: “There could be no right answer, or Down the density ladder every answer was correct, and every combi- http://science.sciencemag.org/ In the past, humanity has typically adopted energy sources that have greater “power density,” packing more nation in between,” says Rick Baydack, chair punch per gram and requiring less land to produce. Renewables (green), however, are lower in density than of the environmental science department at fossil fuels (brown). That means a move to renewables could vastly increase the world’s energy production UM, who was once Smil’s student. footprint, barring a vast expansion of nuclear power. Otherwise, Smil was a ghost in his de- 105 partment, taking on only a few graduate students. Since the 1980s, he has shown Underground coal mining up at just one faculty meeting. But as long 104 as he kept teaching and turning out highly rated books, that was fine for the school. Surface Thermal electricity generation Oil and gas “He’s a bit of a recluse and likes to work 0 15 2 103 coal mining , S

on March 24, 2018 on his own,” Baydack says. “He’s continued S

down a path he set for himself. What’s hap- P RE M I T 102 pening around him doesn’t really matter.” , Solar water heaters Heat pumps Geothermal TODAY, SMIL STRADDLES the line between Rooftop photovoltaic Central solar power 101 scientist and intellectual, flashing the WE R D E N SI T Y P O Solar farm photovoltaic tastes of a “rootless bohemian cosmopoli- Large hydroelectric stations S M I L , tan,” as his old communist masters used . V

100 ; Wind 7 01

P ow er d en s i t y ( W a p q u r e m et ) Tree plantations to call him. He’s fluent in a flurry of lan- guages. He’s a tea snob and foodie who is 2

Liquid biofuels G E R ,

reluctant to eat out because so much res- A E P R

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 1010 taurant food is now premade. Stand in a , Areas of energy sites (m2) garden and he can tell you the Latin names of many of the plants. He’s an art lover: A N S IT IO NS T R

would claim they had exceeded their food He got to indulge his curiosity, taking Mention the Prado Museum in Madrid Y plan, yet oranges were never available. “It 35 classes a week, 10 months a year, for and he might tell you the secret of finding G E N R was so unreal and fake,” Smil says. “They 5 years. “They taught me nature, from 5 minutes without crowds to appreciate S M I L , taught me to respect reality. I just don’t geology to clouds,” he says. But Smil de- Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, his favor- . V A)

stand for any nonsense.” cided that a traditional scientific career was ite painting, which depicts a Spanish prin- T A

As an undergraduate, Smil studied the not for him. No lab bench called: He was cess encircled by her retinue. And then ; (D natural sciences at in after the big picture. he’ll say, “I appreciate and love blue-green CIE NCE

Prague. He lived in an old converted clois- After graduation, he also realized that algae,” which helped kick off Earth’s oxy- S / U

ter. Its thick stone walls kept it chilly, sum- his future would not be in his homeland: gen age. “They are the foundation.” O Y . J mer and winter. And in the first of Smil’s He refused to join the Communist Party, Smil’s breadth feels anachronistic. In )

personal energy transitions, heat came not undermining his job prospects. He worked modern academic science, all the incentives A P H IC G R from wood, but from coal—hard black an- in a regional planning office while Eva pur- push to narrow specialization, and Smil ( thracite from Kladno or dirty brown lignite sued her medical degree. After Soviet troops believes his eclectic interests have compli- S :

from North Bohemia. invaded, many friends and neighbors pan- cated his career. But his ability to synthe- C R E D IT

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DA_0323NewsFeatures.indd 1322 3/21/18 10:59 AM size across disparate fields also has proved plied energy, in the form of muscle power. capacity, enough to match its existing elec- a strength, enabling him to trace how en- Third came industrialization and, with it, tricity generation. But because Germany ergy courses through every capillary of the the rise of fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and natural sees the sun only 10% of the time, the coun- world’s economy. gas each, in turn, rose to prominence, and try is as hooked as ever on fossil fuels: In Smil’s writing career kicked off in the energy production became the domain of 2017, they still supplied 80% of its energy. mid-1970s, just as an embargo on oil sales machines, as such coal-fired power plants. “True German engineering,” Smil says dryly. by Middle Eastern nations woke up devel- Now, Smil says, the world faces its The nation doubled its hypothetical capac- oped nations to just how hooked they were fourth energy transition: a move to energy ity to create electricity but has gotten mini- on petroleum, for transportation, heating, sources that do not emit carbon dioxide, mal environmental benefit. Solar can work farming, chemicals, even electricity. The jolt and a return to relying on the sun’s current great, Smil says, but is best where the sun came just after the publication of The Limits energy flows, instead of those trapped mil- shines a great deal. to Growth, an influential study that, using a lions of years ago in deposits of coal, oil, Perhaps the most depressing implication simple computer model, warned of a pend- and natural gas. of Smil’s work, however, is how long making ing depletion of the planet’s resources. The fourth transition is unlike the first the fourth transition might take. Time and Smil was intrigued and taught himself pro- three, however. Historically, Smil notes, again he points back to history to note that gramming to re-create the model for himself. humans have typically traded relatively energy transitions are slow, painstaking, “I saw it was utter nonsense,” he recalls; the weak, unwieldy energy sources for those and hard to predict. And existing technolo- model was far too simple and easily skewed that pack a more concentrated punch. The gies have a lot of inertia. The first tractor by initial assumptions. He constructed a wood he cut to heat his boyhood home, for appeared in the late 1800s, he might say, similar model of how carbon dioxide but the use of horses in U.S. farming Downloaded from emissions affect climate and found it didn’t peak until 1915—and contin- similarly wanting. He understood the ued into the 1960s. physics of the greenhouse effect and “You could take a paragraph from one Fossil fuels have similar iner- the potential for a carbon dioxide of his books and make a whole career tia, he argues. Today, coal, oil, and buildup to warm Earth, but models natural gas still supply 90% of the seemed too dependent on assump- out of it. [He] does a really good job of world’s primary energy (a measure tions about things like clouds. Ever being nuanced.” that includes electricity and other http://science.sciencemag.org/ since, he’s held models of all kinds in types of energy used in industry, contempt. “I have too much respect Elizabeth Wilson, Dartmouth College transportation, farming, and much for reality,” he says. else). Smil notes that the share was Instead, he scoured the scientific litera- example, took a lot of land area to grow, actually lower in 2000, when hydropower ture and obscure government documents and a single log produced relatively little and nuclear energy made up more of the for data, seeking the big picture of how energy when burned. Wood and other bio- mix. Since then, “we have been increasing humanity generates and deploys energy. mass fuels have relatively low “power den- our global dependence on fossil fuels. Not What ultimately emerged in several blandly sity,” Smil says. In contrast, the coal and oil decreasing,” he says. titled books—including General Energetics: that heated his later dwellings have higher A key factor has been the economic boom

Energy in the Biosphere and Civilization power densities, because they produce in China, a nation Smil has studied since the on March 24, 2018 (1991), Energy in World History (1994), and more energy per gram and are extracted 1970s, and its burgeoning appetite for coal. Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, from relatively compact deposits. But now, Smil was among the first Western academ- Prospects (2010)—is an epic tale of innova- the world is seeking to climb back down ics invited to study the Chinese energy sys- tion and transformation, worked through the power density ladder, from highly con- tem. He sounded early warnings about the one calculation at a time. centrated fossil fuels to more dispersed nation’s cooked farm statistics and perilous That work has guided a generation to renewable sources, such as biofuel crops, environmental state. Now, Smil is disheart- think about energy in the broadest sense, solar parks, and wind farms. (Smil notes ened by China’s consumer culture: Instead from antiquity to today, says Elizabeth that nuclear power, which he deems a “suc- of aiming to live more modestly, he says the Wilson, director of the Institute for Energy cessful failure” after its rushed, and now Chinese are “trying to out-America America.” and Society at Dartmouth College. “You stalled, deployment, is the exception walk- Meanwhile, despite years of promotion could take a paragraph from one of his ing down the density ladder: It is dense in and hope, wind and solar account for just books and make a whole career out of it,” power, yet often deemed too costly or risky about 1% of the world’s primary energy mix. she says. And yet Smil has avoided men- in its current form.) In part, he notes, that’s because some of the tal traps that could come with his energy- One troubling implication of that density key technologies needed to deploy renew- oriented view, she adds. “[He] does a really reversal, Smil notes, is that in a future pow- able energy on a massive scale—such as good job of being nuanced.” ered by renewable energy, society might higher-capacity batteries and more efficient In essence, Smil says, humanity has expe- have to devote 100 or even 1000 times solar cells—have seen only slow improve- rienced three major energy transitions and more land area to energy production than ments. The bottom line, he says, is that the is now struggling to kick off a fourth. First today. That shift, he says, could have enor- world could take many decades to wean it- was the mastery of fire, which allowed us mous negative impacts on agriculture, bio- self from fossil fuels. to liberate energy from the sun by burning diversity, and environmental quality. plants. Second came farming, which con- To see other difficulties associated with SMIL SEES FEW OPTIONS for hastening the verted and concentrated solar energy into that transition, Smil says, look no further transition. And that is where he and some food, freeing people for pursuits other than than Germany. In 2000, fossil fuels pro- of his biggest fans—including Gates— sustenance. During that second era, which vided 84% of Germany’s energy. Then the diverge. Smil’s realism appeals to Gates, who ended just a few centuries ago, farm animals country embarked on a historic campaign, first mentioned Smil on his blog in 2010. and larger human populations also sup- building 90 gigawatts of renewable power Like many tech tycoons, Gates had made

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failed investments over the previous decade lessons of the past. “Sometimes I’ve heard typically come down to encouraging indi- in biofuels, a technology Smil has scorned him speak too confidently” about how vidual action, not sweeping government because it is so land-hungry. Over the next slowly technology transitions occur, says policies or investment strategies. If we all year, Gates, who declined to be interviewed Keith, another Gates adviser. History, Keith cut consumption, lived more efficiently, for this story, publicly detailed his conver- notes, offers a small sample size. and ate less meat, he suggested at one re- sion to Smilism. It was not an easy one: Af- Smil says he would be delighted to be cent lecture, the biosphere would do fine. ter reading his first Smil book, Gates “felt a proved wrong—as he has been, twice, in Fewer livestock, for instance, might mean little beat up. … Am I ever going to be able the past. In particular, a breakthrough in farmers would stop overfertilizing soy- to understand all of this?” But he ultimately cheap energy storage would change the beans to feed to animals. Less fertilizer, concluded that “I learn more by reading game. “Give me mass-scale storage and I in turn, would drastically cut emissions Vaclav Smil than just about anyone else.” That don’t worry at all. With my wind and photo- of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse enthusiasm has written Smil’s epitaph: “I’ll voltaics I can take care of everything.” But gas, from the soil. “Less pork and less beef, forever be Bill Gates’s scientist,” Smil says. “we are nowhere close to it,” he says. right? That’s it,” Smil says. “Nobody is re- The two have met just a few times, but they ally talking about it.” email regularly. And Gates has opened doors WHEN NOT ON THE ROAD, Smil lives a quiet Such statements can make Smil sound for Smil: Swiss banks weren’t calling for his life in Winnipeg. He cultivates hot pep- as though he were an author of The Lim- advice before. But they keep the relationship pers, tomatoes, and basil in containers. its to Growth—not a critic. And the reality pure. “I would never ask him for any favor— (Deer would eat a traditional garden.) He is that “there are many Vaclavs,” says Ted never ever,” Smil says. “As simple as that.” cooks meals in Indian or Chinese styles, Nordhaus, an environmentalist and execu- tive director of The Breakthrough Institute, Downloaded from an environmental think tank in Oakland, California. There is the hard-edged skeptic, and then “there are times where Vaclav will be an old-fashioned conservationist. We could all be perfectly happy living at the level of consumption and income as French- men in 1959.” http://science.sciencemag.org/ Smil doesn’t apologize for his contra- dictions. And for all his insistence on documenting reality, he accepts that many concepts cannot be defined. What does a healthy society look like, and how do you measure it? He abhors gross domes- tic product, the traditional measure used by economists, because even horrendous events—natural disasters and shootings,

for example—can prompt spending that on March 24, 2018 makes it grow. But the alternatives don’t look great, either. Happiness indexes? Some of “the happiest nations on the planet are Colombia and the Philippines,” Smil says. “What does that tell you?” Lately, he’s been thinking about growth, the obsession of modern, fossil-fueled econ- omies and the antithesis of Smil’s lifestyle of efficient, modest living. How do children grow? Energy systems? Cyanobacteria? Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is an avid reader of Vaclav Smil’s books, including Energy and Civilization, at the Empires? His next book, in 195,000 words, bottom of this stack. “I learn more by reading [him] than just about anyone else,” Gates has written. will examine growth in all forms. “I’m try- ing to find the patterns and the rules,” he But when it comes to the future of en- eating meat maybe once a week. He drives says. “Everything ends. There is no hyper- ergy, they make an odd couple. In 2016, a Honda Civic, “the most reliable, most ef- bolic growth.” Gates helped start Breakthrough Energy ficient, most miraculously designed car.” Still, although Smil can see the present Ventures, a billion-dollar fund to speed He built his current home in 1989, a mod- better than most, he is loath to predict the clean energy innovations from the lab to est house of about 200 square meters. He future. Those two times he was wrong? market. “I am more optimistic than [Smil] used thicker-than-standard studs and joists, He could not have imagined, he says, how is about the prospects of speeding up the so he could stuff 50% more insulation into soon the Soviet Union would fall. Or how process when it comes to clean energy,” the walls, and all of the windows are triple- fast China would grow. And he is not about Gates has written. Smil puts it another paned. There’s a 97% efficient natural gas to say that a collapse is inevitable now— way: “He’s a techno-optimist, I’m a Euro- furnace. “My house,” he says, is “a very ef- not even with humanity on a problematic pean pessimist.” ficient machine for living.” course and unlikely to change direction Smil says that pessimism is rooted in his Despite those choices—and all that can soon. “You ask me, ‘When will the collapse understanding of history. But even some of be learned from his work—Smil is not com- come?’” Smil says. “Constantly we are col-

his fans say he puts too much stock in the fortable offering solutions. Any he suggests lapsing. Constantly we are fixing.” j LLC NOTES, GATES THE PHOTO:

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