Man Group Interview: Vaclav Smil

Man Group is one of the larger active managers, assets under management around $140 billion last time I looked, probably lower with the recent market unpleasantness.

From the Man Institute, December 2022. The interviewer is Head of Responsible Investment Research, Man Group.

A Sustainable Future: Vaclav Smil, author of How the World Really Works

What does the data say about our net zero ambitions? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Vaclav Smil, academic and author of the New York Times bestseller How the World Really Works, what the energy transition by 2050 realistically means; how energy transitions have evolved historically; and what are the real implications when people talk of a climate ‘earthshot’

Recording date: 22 September 2022

Vaclav Smil

Vaclav is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. Regarded as being among the most important thought leaders of our time, he’s the author of forty-five books and over 500 papers, including the New York Times bestsellers How the World Really Works and Energy and Civilization: A History. One of Bill Gates’ favourite authors, Vaclav has spent his career exploring new ground in the fields of energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment and public policy. He’s been named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.

 Episode Transcript

Note: This transcription was generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. As a part of this process, this transcript has also been edited for clarity.

Jason Mitchell:
I'm Jason Mitchell, head of Responsible Investment Research at Man Group. You're listening to A Sustainable Future, a podcast about what we're doing today to build a more sustainable world tomorrow.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast and I hope everyone is staying well. Here's a special holiday present to you from the team behind A Sustainable Future podcast. For context, I've been after Vaclav Smil for several years now to get him on the podcast. As one of the preeminent thinkers and authors on historical development and transitions, Vaclav has long been a go-to research source for me. I finally managed to interview him at a Man Group conference this past September, and I can confirm that he is indeed a force of nature. Frankly, that probably comes across best in his prolific body of work, rather than a live interview, which, at least in my experience, is always a bit challenging.

Add to the fact that I was almost surreally interviewing a 12-foot image of his disembodied head via Zoom, and you'll get what I mean. But because Vaclav does so few interviews, it's an immense privilege to be able to have this conversation with one of the leading thinkers of the energy transition. And I think his data-driven approach and his sometimes sobering candidness about the challenges we face are obvious in this episode. But I don't see this as pessimism. I read his message as a voice of uncomfortable but necessary truths.

With more than 10 books on energy, Vaclav's work is important because he brings a clear-eyed perspective on the implications of the energy transition. We talk about what the energy transition by 2050 realistically means. How energy transitions have evolved historically and why the analogy of a climate earthshot is fundamentally different from that of a moonshot.

Vaclav is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, regarded as among the most important thought leaders of our time. He's the author of 45 books and over 500 papers, including the New York Times bestseller, How the World Really Works and Energy and Civilization. Vaclav has spent his career exploring new ground in the fields of energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment, and public policy. He's been named by foreign policy as one of the top 100 global thinkers. Welcome, Vaclav.

Vaclav Smil:
Hello.

Jason Mitchell:
Excellent. You have the books. The one thing I would say if you're not familiar with his work... My favorite quote is from Bill Gates. It's actually a tweet that he sent and he said that he looks forward to Vaclav books like some people look forward to Star Wars movies. So, it's sort of a testament to his influence.

Vaclav, let's start with some scene setting. There are a number of pervasive topics in your research. Two of them specifically. First, you talk about the almost incomprehensible immensity of the primary energy system, the fact that it's still 85% fossil-fuel based. And you also talk about the fact that energy transitions are nothing new. You've written about the fact that we've transitioned from wood to coal, from coal to oil, oil to natural gas. What does history teach us about these transitions? And I also want to be a little bit more provocative. Are we naive in thinking that we can compress and accelerate this current energy transition all while cutting carbon emissions 50% by 2030?

Vaclav Smil:
Some very simple calculations here so you could judge for yourself. Suppose you know nothing at all about the world energy system or energy consumption, you have never had a single course in engineering, you don't know any mark beyond simple algebra. But just think of these numbers. Basically, now people say by 2050 people... like these zero and five endings. So, 2050 there'll be zero carbon in the world. So, we have 28 years to get a zero carbon.

So, let's back 28 years back to 1994. In 1994, the global primary energy consumption, all fuels, all primary electricity was 86% fossil fuel. 1994, 86% fossil. 2022 is 82% fossil. So, we've gone down 4% relatively, but in absolute terms actually we have massively increased fossil fuel consumption because of the rise of China and rise of India, actually. But relatively speaking, we've gone down 4% in last 28 years. Now I ask simple question, how likely it is that we will go down 82% in next 28 years, right?

As simple as that. We can go home basically after this statement, right? Because the acceleration needed in still going 4% down in 28 years to 82% down in 28 years, I just don't know any historical parallel to that. As you noted, I never start telling people how massive the system is... And we could spend the rest of the day reciting the numbers. More than eight billion, all these tons... 10 to nine, 10 to... more than eight billion tons of coal, more than 4 billion tons of crude oil, more than 4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and so, down the road.

When you do these numbers like that, you cannot just simply say like an old telephone, a new mobile. Well, billions and trillions necessarily the infrastructure, simply the material behind it, steel, concrete, copper behind it, you just simply cannot say by 2030 or 2035. Maybe just one example of which we have been largely deprived in past two years, and has been flying. By 2019 we reach this [inaudible 00:05:57], eight trillion revenue passenger kilometers. Eight trillion.

More than eight billion people traveled. Basically every person statistically speaking, traveled on a jetliner. These are massive machines which can get 300, 400, 500 people and they can fly also for 17 hours, thanks to what? Thanks to fossil fuel. Because the energy density of kerosine, which has this airplane is 12,000 watt hours per kilogram. The best better is today at 300 watt hours per kilogram. That's 40 times more in kerosine. So, how can you change this massive things rapidly? It's just simply impossible. So little bit of basic engineering, scientific literacy would go a long way to say that we just cannot do it that rapidly. Just it's easy to say 2035, 2050, but to accomplish that practically, not so easy....

....MUCH MORE