Energy at the Crossroads

"Vaclav Smil is one of the world’s leading figures on energy. This book provides a basic grounding in the mathematics of energy – where we get our energy from, the momentum of the global energy system and the scale of change we might be talking about if we want to alter that system and take it in a different technological direction. One reason our policies on climate change have run aground is that many people have underestimated the scale of the challenge. A few years ago it was easy for people to think: ‘I’ll change my light bulbs and I’ve made my contribution.’ You don’t hear a lot of talk like that from Al Gore and others any more. I think there’s an awareness that it’s not just the policies that are challenging, those are difficult enough, but at its core there’s a significant technological challenge that’s monumental. At some level there’s very little that individuals can do. This may be common sense but there’s a lot of messaging about what you or I can do about climate change. The reality is that you and I can do very little to alter the global energy system. It doesn’t mean throw your hands up and do nothing, but it does mean that those sorts of policies on the large scale are what’s important. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded, incorrectly, that we have all the technologies that we need to reduce emissions to these very low levels and that, I think, has set back the case for action. This is what Smil does very well, is set out that we clearly don’t have the technology on the scale we need to achieve the monumental task. Yes. That has potential. In every sector you find people who are very optimistic about the potential of their technology to make a big difference and I think that’s great. That’s the view we want technologists to have, but we know from history that not everything pans out. We need a large portfolio. We should invest in taking carbon out of the atmosphere, but also wind, solar, advanced nuclear power, tidal power and so on. We don’t know what the winners are going to be. The historical record of governments and others trying to pick winners in the technology race is not very good."