The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Energy use is merely a means to many rewarding ends: economic security, education, health. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Economic and technical imperatives - not any preconceived directives - will keep propelling the process of energy transition. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Mass adoption of renewable energies would thus necessitate a fundamental reshaping of modern energy infrastructures. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Energy is the only universal currency: one of its many forms must be transformed to another in order for stars to shine,… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
U.S. industries from steel-making to plastics synthesis are among the world's most energy-efficient; American agriculture is highly productive, as are America's railroads.… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
The problems that ail the U.S. economy and American society are one and the same: Both consume too much and refuse to… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
America tends to assume Silicon Valley-style innovators can drive quick and transformative changes, but even Silicon Valley's would-be masters of the universe… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Most of the energy in North America is just consuming - Wal-Mart, shopping centres, government offices - or personal consumption: houses, cars,… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
The history of energy use is a sequence of transitions to sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more flexible. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Exceptional circumstances can accelerate the gradual process of energy transitions: France's decision to develop nuclear energy on a grand scale is perhaps… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
This is the question I'm asking: Do Americans live twice as long because they consume twice as much energy as Europeans? Are… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Meat eaters don't like me because I call for moderation, and vegetarians don't like me because I say there's nothing wrong with eating meat.… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
America tends to assume Silicon Valley-style innovators can drive quick and transformative changes, but even Silicon Valley's would-be masters of the universe have discovered… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
When you talk in terms of electricity, renewable is very important. Hydro in Manitoba. Hydro in Sweden. Wind in Denmark. Of course, those are… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
...no matter how complex or affluent, human societies are nothing but subsystems of the biosphere, the Earth's thin veneer of life, which is ultimately… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Energy use is merely a means to many rewarding ends: economic security, education, health. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
In every society, manufacturing builds the lower middle class. If you give up manufacturing, you end up with haves and have-nots, and you get… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
There is no reason we can't design a car to last for 35 years instead of six or seven. — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
I've read about 80 books a year for the past 50 years. I come from cultural breeding. I don't have a cellphone. When you… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
“I wrote this book because I wanted to narrate the great, and a truly nation-building, story of US manufacturing—and because I believe that without… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
Apple! Boy, what a story. No taxes paid, everything made abroad—yet everyone worships them. This new iPhone, there’s nothing new in it. Just a… — Vaclav Smil Copy Share Image
![“Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they look up and see a sliver of the sky. They know everything about that little sliver of sky and nothing else. I scan all my horizons.” quote by Vaclav Smil](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/643/vaclav-smil-11559_bottom_everyone-in-higher-education-was-what-i_528472.jpg)
