Czechoslovakian - Scientist | December 9, 1943 -
Collaboration and augmentation are the foundational principles of innovation.
Vaclav Smil
InnovationCollaborationPrinciples
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?
LifeLiveEnjoy LifeSmartPeople
The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking.
HopeGreatEnergyThinkingQuick
The history of energy use is a sequence of transitions to sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more flexible.
HistoryEnergyFlexibleMoreCleaner
People shouldn't be living in certain places - on earthquake faults or on flood plains. But they do, and there are consequences.
PeopleConsequencesLivingPlaces
Our increasingly electrified, electronic, and data-driven society places steadily rising demand on reliable baseload power - that is, on electricity available 24/7/365. Servers never sleep, nor does air conditioning during hot nights, and in Asia's megacities, subways and electric trains take only brief naps between midnight and 5 A.M.
PowerSleepSocietyElectricityHot
I appreciate and love blue-green algae.
LoveAppreciate
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.
SocietyEnergyProblemsAmerican
We insist on celebrating lone heroic path-finders, but even the most admired and the most successful inventors are part of a more remarkable supply chain of innovators who are largely ignored for the simpler mythology of one man or one eureka moment.
MomentManMoreSuccessfulMythology
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.
FoodPlantEvolutionGrowingMatter
Behind every morsel of bread, fruits, or meat is a large amount of transformed fossil fuels.
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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.
DecisionBestGovernmentEnergyDone
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