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A. Menon

Excellent reality check on fundamental bottlenecks that occur in the material world

Beoordeeld in de Verenigde Staten 🇺🇸 op 2 december 2022

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Often these days it seems there is much motivated talk of the great changes that humanity must undertake to adjust its behavior to influence the biosphere less without an appreciation of what that would truly take. The motivated talk is not without good intention, nor should it be dismissed because there are aspects which are unrealistic. Nonetheless to get a more honest picture of how great change can truly take place from a bottoms up perspective in our material world one should read How the World Really Works to appreciate the complexity we really face and the many bottlenecks which we have no current solutions to.

Vaclev Smil does not limit himself to narrow questions in this book but instead tries to take a step back and appreciate the problems humanity faces and reflect on how to think about solution forming. The book is not optimistic or pessimistic and attempts to be a scientific realist about the current trajectory of the biosphere and what can be done given the material requirements of the population base. The author starts out by highlighting the fundamental differences between exponential growth in tech hardware and logistic like growth in most material economics, in particular the challenges to further productivity gains in energy production, agricultural yields while the roadmap for further density increases in semiconductors can be clearer and we should not get confused about the inability to advance material sciences the way miniaturization has done elsewhere. The author starts with the critical ingredient to human progress, energy. The main observations are around our inescapable need for fossil fuels. The statistics on alternative energy proportion going up while absolute demand for fossil fuels still increases or at best remains flat highlight how we have not solved our diversification problem and one can draw the quick inference that more wind power for Germany wont solve their gas deficiency. The reconstruction of our energy infrastructure to support a non fossil fuel world is currently a complete fantasy. The author moves onto food and highlights there crop yields over time and how real growth in yield was really catalyzed by the growth of fertilizers dependent on the Haber-Bosch process. This is another massive energy drain highlighting that mass food production and further scale is completely dependent on further energy availability and the yields from moving away from nitrogen fixing would require an order of magnitude more arable land for farming. The author then starts to focus on material production with the likes of steel, cement and overall structures required for human habitation and how these cannot be imagined away. He also discusses the growing risks humanity faces and touches about the pandemic. The author does not highlight the challenges of going to carbon neutral as an excuse to do nothing and is deeply worried about the irreversibility of our actions on the biosphere, as such the author discusses how we are affecting the environment and what the subsequent consequences are of those changes. In putting this together the author tries to give perspective that rising tides wont be the end of humanity nor will tech solve our material constraints and that we need to be completely realistic about the challenges we face so that we start to work on honest solutions to the problems we are causing.

All in all How the World Really Works does a good job at framing the problems humanity faces in scale. This is not a political book on right or wrong but a calculated book on the quantities involved and the material constraints on inputs and outputs. This should very much be understood by those framing policies that are intended to be effective and the book is essential reading for those who want to understand this issues better. Both informative and interesting, definitely a good book to gain the proper context to think about what needs to be done and how it can be done.

22 mensen vonden dit nuttig

Vertaal recensie in het Nederlands

Fascinated explorer

Explain what he considers the essential needs of human civilization and their interactions.

Beoordeeld in de Verenigde Staten 🇺🇸 op 16 oktober 2022

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How the world really works Vaclav Smil ****

The author’s purpose is to explain what he considers the essential needs of human civilization and often their interaction. They are energy, sufficient food, transportation, health care, producing necessary materials such as ammonia, steel, concrete, and plastics. Also our individual needs for oxygen, water, shelter, and food influenced and cause to some degree global warming. and other major problems.

He claims to be a realist and not pessimistic, but emphasizing the negative shows in most of his conclusions. Perhaps his best remarks are in the last few pages recounting how difficult it has been historically to predict approaching major catastrophes and then finding major solutions to these catastrophes. He seems to conclude it is best to realize it is probably going to take longer to make positive changes than we realize. He backs up his ideas with 65 pages of footnotes so you can check his sources.

One of his favorite topics is the synthesis of ammonia, a major ingredient in most fertilizers, using the industrial Haber Bosch process. This particular reaction is quite efficient, but it still requires enormous amounts of energy to produce the ammonia for use as a fertilizer to grow more food. His point is that all of the different ingredients methane, water, energy have to be transported to a huge chemical site. The ammonia produced has to be transported several times to get to the actual farmer, or gardener using it. I've just become aware of a new method of making the ammonia using lithium and a little electrolyte to help react the chemical species. It shuts off side reactions almost completely resulting in almost all the electricity producing pure ammonia rather than being mixed with many side reaction products. This can be done on a small scale on individual farms perhaps even in Third World countries. All of which will probably be much cheaper than our present industrial process. The important factors are that since they can be done on a very small scale with materials that are already present on the typical farm greatly simplifies and decreases the overall energy requirements to make the ammonia. The inventors are getting almost 100 times the amount of ammonia for the same amount of energy put in. Whether it will work or not long-term in many different climates and situations will certainly be challenging, but looks like a vast improvement.

He makes some interesting points in comparing different types of food and their energy costs. It turns out the chicken is by far the cheapest form of meat to produce the same amount of protein taken into account all steps: investment in feed, shelter, day to day care, transportation, refrigeration etc. needed to produce the chickens as usual protein. Virtually all of our crops and types of food can be assigned a certain amount of energy to produce. In the case of corn for instance we have gone from less than two tons corn per hectare in 1920 to 11 tons per hectare in 2020 thanks to fertilizers use etc. Work on genetic engineering of plants that are able to fix nitrogen for themselves is showing promise.

Another better known example is the fantastic progress made from 1971 to 2019 increasing the number of transistors able to be put on a single chip has increased by 17 billion times. The current chip density is even higher and there's no obvious limit in sight, though there are plenty of engineering problems getting there. He looks into the research done on which diets around the world produce the longest and healthiest lifespan. It turns out that Japan and Spain have a very similar life spans for both men and women but I have completely different types of diet. Another problem of course is all the other variables such as genes, healthcare, dangerous commutes, etc. have quite a bit to do with how long you live and how healthy you are at the end. The American diet on average is made up of much more fat, 8 kg, and especially 16 kg more sugar every year than the average Japanese adult.

He considers risk -for instance it is estimated that as many as a quarter of a million deaths occur accidentally in hospitals per year making it important to consider whether a hospital procedure is worth the risk. In a more specific assessment: an elderly male with risk of demise due to a health problem increases the risk only 20 to 30% and only during a few days of an average stay in the hospital. These probabilities make taking advantage of the procedure likely worthwhile.

17 mensen vonden dit nuttig

Vertaal recensie in het Nederlands

FABRICIO M. R. Silva

First half of the book is worth the price of admission

Beoordeeld in Brazilië 🇧🇷 op 23 december 2022

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The first three chapters of the book changed the way I see the global economy and the basis of our civilization. Dealing with energy, food production and essential materials, those three chapters, comprising a little less than half of the text, justify by themselves recommending the book. I give it 3.5 stars.

It is, however, a recommendation with many caveats. First, this is a very technical, data-heavy and dry text. The author is well aware of this, to the point of including an appendix entitled "understanding numbers." Every page of the book abounds with sentences which will be meaningless to most readers. For instance, read this passage (p.183): "Because of the rising concentrations of greehouse gases, the planet has been, for generations, re-radiating slightly less energy that is has been receiving from the Sun. By 2020, the net value of this difference was about 2 watts per square meter compared to the 1850 baseline." I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and I don't know what to make of the second sentence, except that is seems to support the first one. What is the meaning of two watts/m2 in 170 years? Is that a lot of energy? Compared to what (no pun intended)? Is the change even statistically significant? That kind of vacuous display of technical erudition is found more than once in every page of the book. But if a sentence is too technical to have meaning to most readers its place is in the notes, not the main text. The net result is a text which becomes frankly almost insufferable after a certain point, because most of it is essentially meaningless to all but the specialist. That is not helped by the stylistic limitations of the author, who relies too much on tiresome enumerations to make a point. Many passages end up reading like collages of quasi-random facts.

Ultimately, this is a book which cries out for an illustrated edition, in which half of the text would be converted into graphs, maps and pictures. Or better yet, I'd love to watch this transformed into a docuseries in the format of Cosmos, or the old Age of Uncertainty, by J.K. Galbraith.

5 mensen vonden dit nuttig

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Abe

A Realistic Appraisal of Global Challenges

Beoordeeld in de Verenigde Staten 🇺🇸 op 9 maart 2023

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"How the World Really Works" offers a realistic assessment of the challenges we will inevitably face as we transition to renewable energy. Namely, transitioning away from the use of carbon-based fuels to produce the four "basic pillars" of civilization - cement, ammonia, steel, and plastics - without which economic growth and development are impossible. This book would deserve a 5 if it were not for the author's tendency to fill every page and section with long lists of facts, which distracts from establishing the overall narrative of the book and makes it seem as if the author is more interested in showing how much he knows than getting his main and critical point across in a clear and concise manner.

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David

Before you ask ChatGPT about anything read this book first.

Beoordeeld in Zweden 🇸🇪 op 23 maart 2023

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There are just too many uninformed decisions and opinions in this world, this should be a mandatory read in schools. I bought five extra of this as gifts to friends and co-workers. It is a great read, only complaint is a lack of illustrations like diagrams and tables. Also a bit heavy, could have had shorter chapters covering a single topic at a time.

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Scott M

Excellent read!!

Beoordeeld in de Verenigde Staten 🇺🇸 op 25 maart 2023

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Clear, concise, and easy to read. Very well documented. The best part of this book is it is not political. It is just plain, easily understood scientific facts about our world.

I recommend any person from high school and up to read this book!

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Mlangefeld62

Good book from a scientist on past, present and future.

Beoordeeld in de Verenigde Staten 🇺🇸 op 23 maart 2023

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Smil writes an informative history up to the present day on energy, food production, population growth, globalization and risk. I found it to be a delightful perspective and packed full of unadulterated facts and figures. Enjoyable read.

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Amazon Customer

Net Zero is doomed to failure or at best a muddling through over many many decades.

Beoordeeld in het Verenigd Koninkrijk 🇬🇧 op 19 januari 2023

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A good book if you can take the barrage of numbers. The conclusion is Net Zero is unachievable by 2050 and maybe for many decades after if at all. A conclusion that anyone who doesn’t believe everything our politicians say probably came to some time ago.

The author is a fully paid up member of the AGW club so he is to be congratulated on giving it straight and not soft soaping us with wind and solar will do it or the, as yet to be commercialised, solutions such as fusion or carbon storage.

It’s broad brush stuff so some things are not quite right such as his piece on photosynthesis where he points to potential water problems as plants transpire more in warmer temperatures. He doesn’t mention (or know?) that the increase in CO2 has greened the planet and reduces the dependence of plants on water. A benefit bestowed by more CO2, there are many more but hey ho.

He reports the history of the greenhouse gas theory pretty accurately but fails to mention that Tindall, who did all the early experimental work, pointed to water vapour as the main GHG saying that gardeners in England should be grateful for aqueous vapour without which any frost tender lands would freeze overnight even in Summer.

Interesting stuff but with an axe to grind.

5 mensen vonden dit nuttig

Vertaal recensie in het Nederlands

Antoinette Montague

Essential

Beoordeeld in Spanje 🇪🇸 op 24 maart 2023

Geverifieerde aankoop

Essential reading to understand how the world really works!

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Rw Lawson

It will educate the ill informed

Beoordeeld in het Verenigd Koninkrijk 🇬🇧 op 14 februari 2022

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It is important for everyone to understand what factors are driving the world’s economies. This is particularly so when there are concerns about global warming and the alleged degradation of the environment as the world’s population continues to increase.

A good primer on this subject this recently published book by Prof. Vaclav Smil entitled “How the World Really Works”. The author covers wide ranging topics from energy supply to food supply in a very analytic way based on established facts rather than polemics which he criticises as being far too common in the modern world.

His chapter on food production is particularly interesting and he shows how we now manage to feed 8 billion people reasonably well which would have been inconceivable 100 years ago. How do we do it? By using energy supplied mostly from fossil fuels to create fertilizers and by manufacturing farm machinery and road/rail/shipping transport to distribute the products efficiently. The author points out that if we reverted to solely “organic” farming methods we would be lucky to feed half the world’s population.
He covers the supply of key products such as steel, plastics and cement which are essential for our modern standard of living and how they are not only energy intensive in production but that there are few alternatives. He clearly supports the view that the climate is being affected by man’s activities but points out that the changing of energy production, food production and the production of key products cannot be easily achieved. Certainly it will be difficult to achieve that in the timescales demanded by European politicians when the major carbon emitters of China, India, USA, and Russia are moving so slowly.

The author looks at the risks in the future for the world, many of which are uncertain. He mentions the risk of a big “Carrington event” - a geomagnetic storm occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical grid. If that is not enough to scare you he suggests that another pandemic similar to Covid-19 is very likely as such epidemics have happened about every 20 years in the past and might be more virulent in future. But planning for such events, which were historically well known, was minimal and continues to be so.

He does not propose solutions to global warming other than that we do have many tools to enable us to adapt and cope with the issue. For example, farming could be made more efficient and wasted food reduced. Electrification of vehicles might help in a minor way and he is particularly critical of the increase in the use of SUVs in the last 20 years which has been particularly damaging. But this is not a book containing simple remedies to the world’s problems. It is more one that gives you an understanding of how we got to where we are now and where we might be going.

Altogether the book is worth reading just to get an understanding of how the world currently works – as the book’s title suggests.

24 mensen vonden dit nuttig

Vertaal recensie in het Nederlands

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How the World Really Works: A Scientist's Guide to Our Past, Present and Future

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