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Vaclav Smil Looks to History for the Future of Energy. What He Sees Is Sobering

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Vaclav Smil Looks to History for the Future of Energy. What He Sees Is Sobering NEWS 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 Harvard University. 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 University of Manitoba (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 I K Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in Redmond, to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. He intensely private. Other experts tap dance S W Washington, claims to have read nearly all has tried to reduce his own carbon foot- for attention and pursue TED talks. But O PN I of Smil’s work. “I wait for new Smil books,” print, building an energy-efficient home Smil is a throwback, largely letting his books L D I V Gates wrote last December, “the way some and adopting a mostly vegetarian diet. He speak for themselves. He loathes speaking A D : O 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 O 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 1320 23 MARCH 2018 • VOL 359 ISSUE 6382 sciencemag.org SCIENCE Published by AAAS DA_0323NewsFeatures.indd 1320 3/21/18 10:59 AM Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on March 24, 2018 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 SCIENCE sciencemag.org 23 MARCH 2018 • VOL 359 ISSUE 6382 1321 Published by AAAS DA_0323NewsFeatures.indd 1321 3/21/18 10:59 AM NEWS | FEATURES 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 n o i 60 in 2 years. With little money, they rented t p rooms from a professor’s widow, and Smil um made another energy transition: Periodi- ns o 40 cally, an oil truck arrived to refuel the base- c l ment furnace. Smil then took the first job ue F 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 ) er 104 as he kept teaching and turning out highly et rated books, that was fine for the school. e m 15 r Surface Thermal electricity generation “He’s a bit of a recluse and likes to work 0 2 a Oil and gas , u 103 coal mining S on March 24, 2018 S q on his own,” Baydack says.
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