Vaclav Smil Quotes - 9quotes.com

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Meat is undoubtedly an environmentally expensive food.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Some countries that grow lots of pork, like Denmark and the Netherlands, are either eliminating antibiotics or reducing them. We have to do that. Otherwise we'll create such antibiotic resistance, it will be just terrible.
Written by Vaclav Smil
You cannot increase the efficiency of photosynthesis. We improve the performance of farms by irrigating them and fertilizing them to provide all these nutrients. But we cannot keep on doubling the yield every two years. Moore's law doesn't apply to plants.
Written by Vaclav Smil
We're a society that demands electricity 24/7. This is very difficult with sun and wind.
Written by Vaclav Smil
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. It's part of our evolutionary heritage! Meat has helped to make us what we are. Meat helps to make our big brains.
Written by Vaclav Smil
The history of energy use is a sequence of transitions to sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more flexible.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Exceptional circumstances can accelerate the gradual process of energy transitions: France's decision to develop nuclear energy on a grand scale is perhaps the best example of how that can be done by government fiat. In contrast, America's accelerated shift from coal has been driven by an inevitable embrace of cheaper natural gas.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Economic and technical imperatives - not any preconceived directives - will keep propelling the process of energy transition.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Renewable energy is very significant.
Written by Vaclav Smil
This is the question I'm asking: Do Americans live twice as long because they consume twice as much energy as Europeans? Are you people twice as smart as the average Frenchman? Do you enjoy life twice as much as the average Danish guy? What have we gotten for consuming twice as much energy as Europe? What have we gotten in return?
Written by Vaclav Smil
When you talk in terms of electricity, renewable is very important. Hydro in Manitoba. Hydro in Sweden. Wind in Denmark. Of course, those are very important.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I live in a province where we have the cheapest electricity in North America - indeed, in the Western world - but all of it is perfectly renewable because we have beautiful Manitoba Hydro. Every few tens of kilometers, we can put a river dam. Bingo. One gigawatt here. One gigawatt here.
Written by Vaclav Smil
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 social polarization. The whole lower middle class sinks.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Most innovation is not done by research institutes and national laboratories. It comes from manufacturing - from companies that want to extend their product reach, improve their costs, increase their returns. What's very important is in-house research.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Innovation usually arises from somebody taking a product already in production and making it better: better glass, better aluminum, a better chip. Innovation always starts with a product.
Written by Vaclav Smil
The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Mass adoption of renewable energies would thus necessitate a fundamental reshaping of modern energy infrastructures.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I appreciate and love blue-green algae.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I really don't think I have anything special to say.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I just don't stand for any nonsense.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Your past always leads to who you are.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I wouldn't put a big trust in what people in Silicon Valley say. They may be good at manipulating ones and zeroes and writing software, but beyond that, their contribution to human progress has been pretty dismal. I'm not impressed.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I am probably one of the last people on the planet without a cell phone.
Written by Vaclav Smil
I'm old fashioned. I'm not one of these young guys who think they are so smart that they can prescribe what humanity ought to do. Humanity never learns any lessons. Prescriptions don't matter. We already know exactly what to do. We just don't do it.
Written by Vaclav Smil
There is no reason we can't design a car to last for 35 years instead of six or seven.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Behind every morsel of bread, fruits, or meat is a large amount of transformed fossil fuels.
Written by Vaclav Smil
If everyone wants to eat like people in Bangladesh, then we would have food coming out of everybody's ears.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Evolution has made us omnivores, and substantial quantities of meat can be produced by feeding plant matter whose production does not directly compete with growing food crops: crop residues, food processing waste, low-quality grain, and controlled grazing by ruminants.
Written by Vaclav Smil
All I want is to be left alone to write my books.
Written by Vaclav Smil
Most of the energy in North America is just consuming - Wal-Mart, shopping centres, government offices - or personal consumption: houses, cars, flying to Hawaii, gambling in Las Vegas. We could live affluent lifestyles with half as much energy.
Written by Vaclav Smil

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