Energy Systems: Transition & Innovation | Vaclav Smil

• Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy).
• Interdisciplinary researcher in the fields of energy, environmental and demographic change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment, and public policy.
• Author of 40 books and nearly 500 papers on these topics.
• In 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the top 100 global thinkers and in 2013 he was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada.
• He worked as a consultant for many US, EU and international institutions, has been an invited speaker in more than 400 conferences and workshops in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa, and has lectured at many universities in North America, Europe and East Asia.

#EnergySystems #EnergyPolicy #EnergyEconomics

[buckmanriver]

Until I read Vaclav Smil I did not realize how I could think about solutions and understand problems at a global scale using the fundamentals of energy and growth and energy use statistics. Scale is important and for understanding how viable change can be.

[othmanelahlou]

"Everything I know, like 99.9% I've read it in the books" Vaclav Smil. A life lesson!

[Skans-Gustav]

What a clever man, wonderful to listen to someone making sense in these stupid times.

[gogiat]

Energizing! So pleasure to listen to Prof Vaclav Smil.

[matthewfrancis]

Wow! Listen from 38:19 for just 10 seconds to see how prescient Smil is and how important his work continues to be!

[EngineeringHack]

2019: "It's about growth of
bacteria because when bacteria and viruses grow out of proportion well you can get a pandemic and it can kill like half of the humanity"
2020: ...

[kikax]

I had to check, if I had playing speed still at 1.75x, as usually. And no! He is just an intellectual sprinter. :)) Great talk.

[robertcallaghan]

The 4 pillars of civilzation = steel ammonia cement plastic have no substiutes and cannot be made with electricity 29:33

If you ignore traditional biomass, fossil fuels are 85% of energy use and in 2000 they were 90% in 1999 8:10

[markusfischer]

09:10 To say I believe in global warming is the same as to say I believe in rain. Hahah. Love it!

[Juan-udif]

If innovations and research were done with the wellbeing of humanity and the echosystem in mind instead of Greed and profit. As long as the driving force is wealth, profit, the progress will be flawed. It's important to be dedicated and sincere about the wellbeing and peaceful progress of humanity. A new greed free mentality will bring a much more important progress of happiness for humanity.

[TheSpasmer]

I love that he called Elon musk the greatest swindler ever. So true

[thegamechanger]

Fortran, your one of the last hardest programmers in the planet

[svwhippoorwill]

I love to hear common sense in this perpetual state of confusion.

[xxczerxx]

It's weird to me that Bill Gates is such a fan of this guy. Smil's main message (about 20:00 onwards, and made clear in his books) is very much about letting energy markets operate "organically" rather than brute force gvt approach, which to me just sounds like a more politically-viable way of voicing the old-school liberal/free market approach to energy as a market system. On this note, could a European wind engineer/cost analyst tell me honestly: can wind energy thrive without ANY subsidy? I understand they're price-takers but why isn't this ok? The truly benevolent investor will probably accept *some* return over time as long as it's a net profit.

Don't think Gates would agree with that at all. But if anything it's encouraging to see him supporting someone based on sheer intelligence rather than economic ideology.

Also, really interesting hearing Smil talk for the first time. His writing style is so academic and dry (I mean that in a good way) I wasn't expecting him to be so spirited and strongly-opinionated in person!

[smartlivingteamkellerwilli]

Dr. Smil need to read the book, Electrify: An optimists playbook for a clean energy future. He would learn exactly how we can provide clean, efficient electric heating for everyone who needs it. He needs to update his thinking!

[lrvogt]

Curious where Smil provides any positive suggestions about how to succeed. No matter where I jump in any of his talks he's describing failure. We know the problem. What's the solution?

[iutiub]

Very interesting. Anyway the Prof confuses the capacity factor with the time a renewable energy plant is in production. Even in Bavaria a solar system is producing 30% of the time eventually at limited power. In a foggy day for example a system is probably producing 1-3% of its maximum power. This is valid for all the examples he proposes.

[tomfrantz]

Liked this. I like his criticism of Musk and Kurzwell. I wish more people would watch this. Population growth in early '60s was interesting, and now decline. And (fossil fuel) ammonia as fertilizer VS real fertilizer could feed only 2 million people. I liked his criticism of "I believe in global warming." mindsets.

[garogaryvoskorian]

Human is nothing but a fact of series events that he'll adapt to it which is called habits! We create habit and get to used to live by the way we taught and developed

[firtlast]

40:50 Elon Musk fans will not appreciate that.