Best quotes by Vaclav Smil on Energy

Checkout quotes by Vaclav Smil on Energy

  • The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • Energy use is merely a means to many rewarding ends: economic security, education, health.
    - 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.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • The history of energy use is a sequence of transitions to sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more flexible.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • 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 that energy transitions are subject to time spans and technical constraints that defy their reach.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • Economic and technical imperatives - not any preconceived directives - will keep propelling the process of energy transition.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • Renewable energy is very significant.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • Mass adoption of renewable energies would thus necessitate a fundamental reshaping of modern energy infrastructures.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • The problems that ail the U.S. economy and American society are one and the same: Both consume too much and refuse to make badly needed changes. This is true above all in the realm of energy.
    - Vaclav Smil
  • 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. But for decades, Americans themselves have been living beyond their means, wasting energy in their houses and cars and amassing energy-intensive throwaway products on credit.
    - Vaclav Smil