Vaclav Smil (2022). How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future. Penguin Books: New York.

Vaclav Smil’s How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future (2022) provides a solid compilation of available data related to the energetics of our economy, particularly on the essential aspects of modern civilization (food, energy and material supply). And he offers some personal perspectives, unfortunately with the same confidence as the embodied energy values he cites.

What is troubling, for me, about this book is the insistence with which Smil plods along the golden mean – eschewing both doomism and slack-jawed techno-optimism. He wishes to portray the image of sober observer of destiny as played by the numbers. In the introduction, Smil says:

“Complete decarbonization of the global economy by 2050 is now conceivable only at the cost of unthinkable global economic retreat, or as a result of extraordinarily rapid transformations relying on near-miraculous technical advances. But who is going, willingly, to engineer the former while we are still lacking any convincing, practical, affordable global strategy and technical means to pursue the latter? What will actually happen? The gap between wishful thinking and reality is vast, but in a democratic society no contest of ideas and proposals can proceed in rational ways without all sides sharing at least a modicum of relevant information about the real world, rather than trotting out their biases and advancing claims disconnected from physical possibilities” (p.7).

This may be a valid perspective, but it doesn’t stress the importance of beginning  the transition both in magnitude and speed (even without a complete plan) to address the scientifically obvious challenges and, more importantly, it doesn’t address targeting something more achievable than ‘complete’ decarbonization.

And this is the gist of my complaint about the book: Smil over and over again illustrates why we cannot meet demands of our current system for cement, steel and food – and perhaps this is valid – but what about meeting the needs of a planet full of people with lower expectations (particularly for the favoured fifth of humanity)? What about building a lifeboat first and expand from there? In a crisis, doesn’t it make sense to secure the basics of life before despairing about the lack of foie gras?

Take for example, electric cars, a topic on which Smil expends some pages. The discussion is about converting the whole fleet of internal combustion engines to electric and the challenges to battery storage and infrastructure – battery life-cycle impacts, generating electricity, providing charging stations, the capacity of electric transmission lines, etc., not to mention the challenges of long-distance travel and additional difficulties in cold climates. What seems to happen at this point in the conversation is that ‘it can’t be done’ which often means ‘we shouldn’t do anything’.

What about something less ‘complete’? What about converting urban commuter travel to electric vehicles where people might limit themselves to one car per family & where ICE vehicles would still be available to rent for (necessary) long distance travel until the infrastructure is able to meet this demand? What we are talking about here is a significant reduction in emissions from transportation with only inconvenience and reduction of luxury travel.

A similar argument could be made for all of the cases Smil explores: that is, reduce waste, reduce luxury consumption, transition where you can as fast as you can, and work at catching up where we are falling short. Smil says just this: “Solutions, adjustments, and adaptations are available. Affluent countries could reduce their average per capita energy use by large margins and still retain a comfortable quality of life. Widespread diffusion of simple technical fixes ranging from mandated triple windows to designs of more durable vehicles would have significant cumulative effects. The halving of food waste and changing the composition of global meat consumption would reduce carbon emissions without degrading the quality of food supply” (p.235). This was presented en passant, almost an afterthought.

It is like Smil dipped into his past books (which were typically more abstracted from social and environmental concerns), but added an introduction and conclusion that better reflected the current context. In the end, one could find an argument for almost any position you have on energy, society and the environment. His data point to grave concerns, but his more conservative worldview holds him back from expressing solutions in these terms.

Smil concludes by flinging out a real downer, asking: “Are the young citizens of affluent countries ready to put these distant benefits ahead of their more immediate gains? Are they willing to sustain this course for more than half a century even as the low-income countries with growing populations continue, as a matter of basic survival, to expand their reliance on fossil carbon? And are the people now in their 40s and 50s ready to join them in order to bring about rewards they will never see?” (p.260). And he notes, with respect to the reaction to the latest pandemic, “Failures revealed during crises offer costly and convincing illustrations of our recurrent inability to get the basics right, to take care of the fundamentals” (p.260). Yes, an energy transition will mean that the world’s affluent will have to do with less; and, okay Boomer, people are going to resist giving up their luxuries or what they believe to be their rights and freedoms; and certainly, governments will come up short on the courage and leadership required for a transition. We get it.

In summary, How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future says that we aren’t able to meet the material needs of a world economy based on ever-growing consumption of food, energy and materials; and that we (the favoured fifth who matter) will not likely give anything up for the future of civilization; and that we will punish any government that tries.

How does the world really work? It doesn’t.