Vaclav Smil - Drivers of environmental change: focus on energy transitions
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
- Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by St. John's College. Vaclav Smil is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He completed his graduate studies at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Carolinum University in Prague and at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of the Pennsylvania State University. His interdisciplinary research interests encompass a broad area of energy, environmental, food, population, economic, historical and public policy studies, and he had also applied these approaches to energy, food and environmental affairs of China. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy) and the first non-American to receive the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology. He has been an invited speaker in more than 250 conferences and workshops in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa, has lectured at many universities in North America, Europe and East Asia and has worked as a consultant for many US, EU and international institutions.
This needs more views, and comments. This man is good.
UA-cam has a deficit of videos from Vaclav Smil. I think I already saw them all. :(
It's interesting to see that this video was posted almost 8 years ago and the problems remain almost the same.
There is indeed more information on these problems that suggest that wind and solar are not really viable options due to their intermittency, and biomass which needs huge areas for growing forests and the like which screws the biosphere a bit more.
Nuclear.
@@pvdl11 Sadly in the US we regulated it away.
Vaclav is wrong about biomass, he is looking at biomass purely for its energetic value
@@ProLudicrous Yes so it fails. Because biomass is being marketed as the future of mankind all across Europe. It is really annoying knowing how bad these energy forms are.
Skander it is yet to start, besides Europe is not the future of biomass. There is far too little to support intense global consumption
Truly impressive. Few people see the strength & courage required to maintain his integrity w/ such calm & class. He's giving the world hope for humanity.
This is more relevant than ever.
Awesome man and great presentation and oratory skill. A 10 year old vdo that moves more and more in truthfulness and vision!!
Great speech on energy! 1:12:00 "People have to face reality"
I like the fact Bill Gates has Vaslav on his channel and has quoted Mr. Smil often
thank you! i couldn't hear the questions from the audience but still a captivating and enlightening talk...
Excellent video. More please!
Everything good comes from electricity and diesel fuel. Steel telecom. And understanding basic #’s and right order of magnitude! Most people cannot estimate within 2 orders of magnitude yet scream over irrelevant errors in the third significant figure!
I love this guy. "I wish you were right and I were wrong more often." haha
He should be listened to more. Not only because of the content, which is fantastic. but also he sounds like Gru in despicable me :-D
The main suggestion of the video of to "reduce". Everyone immediately eat less meat, drive smaller car not SUV, insulate your house. Civilization will collapse without steel.
Great scientist from Czechia! Strangely he didn't mention Nikola Tesla. What would he say about Tesla today?
Love how he was bashing Tesla even before the Model S came out 😀! Basically after 10 years nothing has significantly changed. Except that we here in germany have to pay already the highest electricity prices in the whole world because of stupid "Energiewende" and it's only going up. If I come back here in 2031 still basically nothing will have changed other than there are another billion on this planet that rely to at least 80% prime energy use on fossil fuels.
Yep, lm sure yould be right..
55:00 mixed grid
More lectures?
I looked at the daily high weather temperatures in Winnipeg, Canada for 2020 and so far 10 days were above 90 degrees that does not include all the days in the 80s...
is it not possible makeing steel with nuclear ?
The energy used to make steel isn't what he's talking about. We use carbon (coke) in a chemical reaction to reduce the raw iron ore (iron oxide) to pure iron, the carbon combines with the oxygen in iron oxide leaving iron and carbon dioxide as the final product. In this case Carbon is used as a reducing agent. You could use Hydrogen instead of Carbon as the reducing agent which would make Iron and water as the product. That's something that's in the works now in Scandanavia, Texas and South Korea.
Argh! You would have thought that in 2011 a prominent university would have mastered the technology required to run a Q&A session where you could actually hear the question?
Honda Civic.
Couple minutes in... Struggling..
Not sure if I like his solution/recomendation. AKA just use less. It might slow down the problem but it's not a solution. Kinda like our current economy just kick that can a little further down.
I think the only real solution to start using nuclear thorium reactors (which is known to work) till we can get fusion working successfully.
There are now 8 billion people living on the earth. That should not be doubled in 50 years. That should be 4 billion people in 50 years. Reason: Fewer people need less steel, amonia, plastics and cement, which cannot be made by electricity. We need amonia to increase the yield of the soil, for food. If there are fewer people, we also need less fossil fuel. The reduction to go from coal to gas combustion is already 40 percent less carbon dioxide, so less people on this earth, from 8 to 4 billion people from 2023 to 2073, that really is the solution. the quality of life also increases.
I think he draws a very good picture of the energy scenario, but I have to point out that he fails to draw some very important conclusions. He fails to recognize that many of the greatest stress factors that act upon an energy network can be avoided by policy. He fails to recognize that the main obstacle in the way of a rational approach to the energy, food and water problems is a socio-economic system that is almost exclusively driven by profit. Capitalism is not capable of solving the greatest challenges that humanity is facing in this century. We must make laws based on what is best for most people in the long term, and for that we need driving forces other than profit.
Why can we only discuss better ways for people to commute every day in their personal vehicle, and not radically diminishing the ownership and usage of personal vehicles altogether?
Why can we only envision possible solutions for an energy network to put up with personal usage of a personal air-conditioner at a time that is personally adjusted to one's personal schedule? Why can't we force the building industry to build integrated and passive systems for indoor environment control, and promote the spreading of people out of these mega cities?
Some irrational luxuries that the dominant culture tries to identify with the freedom of the individual (to do everything as he pleases, when he pleases), not only don't contribute at all to the well-being and happiness of the individual, but are hindering the freedom of peoples as a whole do make the decisions that serve their common interests and may ultimately lead us to the extinction of the human species.
I think scientists should acknowledge the limitations of our socio-economic system and keep their minds open to alternatives. Somehow most scientists are open to discuss anything at all, except the dogma of capitalism.
I think thats because he realizes he cant make capitalism or human greed go away .. He is dealing with what it is in reality
Very difficult to put these things back in the box essentially.
Oh, and people don't like change.
I guess socialism will work. Tell me where I can find an example of that working ...
Vaclav: "You have 70% efficiency furnace, not even 50% efficiency and I have 97% efficiency furnace so 50% more I mean 35% more than that"
Me: Does this genius know how to do math and %s or is his english that backwards? Either or pshhh
Hmm, you must be the genius.
Not..
China accounts for around 80% of the world's garlic production, India about 5%. Man his math is terrible...
Really, what you want him to mention all the other countries that may be 4 percent or 3 or 2 or l.6 percent.. work that one out yourself
Vaclav: "It's always she driving the escalade to get slurpees."
Me: Totally false which makes it sexist and unscientific! Males are 57% of the SUV buyers and 86% of truck buyers. GMC 74.3% male buys, Land Rover 72% male, Hummer 67.9% male, Mini 47.9% female (top brand purchased by women), Subaru 45% women (according to Edmunds and CBS News). You get the point. Some mothers who car pool and have larger families buy mini vans and suvs but it's not a majority..
he just ilustrates the point .. its not meant to be taken seriously... learn to read between the lines please