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 Charles 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 recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology in 2000. 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. His wife Eva is a physician and his son David is an organic synthetic chemist.
2010 : Why America is Not a New Rome The MIT Press Cambridge, 322 p. ISBN 978-0-262-19593-5
2008 : Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next Fifty Years, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xi + 307 p.
2008 : Oil: A Beginner's Guide, Oneworld Publishers, Oxford, xiii + 202 p.
2007 : Energy in Nature and Society: General Energetics of Complex Systems, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xi + 480 p.
2006 : Transforming the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations and Their Consequences, Oxford University Press, New York, x + 358 p.
2005 : Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact, Oxford University Press, New York, xv + 350 p.
2005 : Energy at the Crossroads Global Perspectives and Uncertainties, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xiv + 427 p.
2004 : China’s Past, China’s Future, RoutledgeCurzon, New York et Londres, xvi + 232 p.
2002 : The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics and Change, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xxviii + 360 p.
2001 : Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch and the Transformation of World Food Production, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xvii + 411 p.
2000 : Cycles of Life: Civilization and the Biosphere, Scientific American Library, New York, x + 221 p.
2000 : Feeding the World: A Challenge for the 21st Century, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xxviii + 360 p.
1998 : Energies: An Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization, The MIT Press, Cambridge, xi + 217 p.
1994 : Energy in World History, Westview Press, Boulder, xviii + 300 p.
1993 : Global Ecology: Environmental Change and Social Flexibility, Routledge, London, xiii + 240 p.
1993 : China's Environment: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, xix + 257 p.
1991 : General Energetics: Energy in the Biosphere and Civilization, John Wiley, New York, xiii + 369 p.
1988 : Energy in China's Modernization, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, xiv + 250 p.
1987 : Energy Food Environment: Realities Myths Options, Oxford University Press, Oxford, ix + 361 p.
1985 : Carbon Nitrogen Sulfur: Human Interference in Grand Biospheric Cycles, Plenum Press, New York, xv + 459 p.
1984 : The Bad Earth: Environmental Degradation in China, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, xvi + 245 p.
1983 : Biomass Energies: Resources, Links, Constraints, Plenum Press, New York, xxi + 453 p.
1982 : (in collaboration with P. Nachman and T.V. Long, II) Energy Analysis in Agriculture: An Application to U.S. Corn Production, Westview Press, Boulder, xvi + 191 p.
1980 : (in collaboration with W. E. Knowland) Energy in the Developing World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 386 p.
1976 : China's Energy: Achievements, Problems, Prospects, Praeger Publishers, New York, xxi + 246 p.
Articles
Energy innovation as a process: Lessons from LNG. Master Resource: A Free-Market Energy Blog. January 11, 2010.
Two decades later: Nikkei and lessons from the fall. The American, December 29, 2009.
The Iron Age & coal-based coke: A neglected case of fossil-fuel dependence. Master Resource: A Free-Market Energy Blog. September 17, 2009.
U.S. energy policy: The need for radical departures. Issues in Science and Technology Summer 2009:47-50.
Long-range energy forecasts are no more than fairy tales. Nature 453:154; 2008.
Moore’s curse and the great energy delusion. The American 2(6): 34-41; 2008.
Water news: bad, good and virtual. American Scientist 96:399-407; 2008.
On meat, fish and statistics: The global food regime and animal consumption in the United States and Japan. Japan Focus, October 19, 2008. .
James N. Galloway, Marshall Burke, G. Eric Bradford, Rosamond Naylor, Walter Falcon, Ashok K. Chapagain, Joanne C. Gaskell, Ellen McCullough, Harold A. Mooney, Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Henning Steinfeld, Tom Wassenaar and Vaclav Smil. 2007. International trade in meat: The tip of the pork chop. Ambio 36:622-629.
The two prime movers of globalization: history and impact of diesel engines and gas turbines. Journal of Global History 3:373-394; 2007.
Global material cycles. Encyclopedia of Earth, June 2, 2007.
The unprecedented shift in Japan’s population: Numbers, age, and prospects. Japan Focus, May 1, 2007.
Light behind the fall: Japan’s electricity consumption, the environment, and economic growth. Japan Focus, April 2, 2007.
21st century energy: Some sobering thoughts. OECD Observer; 2006.
Peak oil: A catastrophist cult and complex realities. World Watch 19: 22-24; 2006.
Naylor, R., Steinfeld, H., Falcon, W., Galloway, J., Smil, V., Bradford, E., Alder, J., Mooney, H. Losing the links between livestock and land. Science 310:1621-1622
The next 50 years: Unfolding trends. Population and Development Review 31: 605-643; 2005.
Feeding the world: How much more rice do we need? In: Toriyama K., Heong K.L., Hardy B., eds. Rice is life: scientific perspectives for the 21st century. Proceedings of the World Rice Research Conference held in Tokyo and Tsukuba, Japan, 4—7 November 2004. Los Baņos (Philippines): International Rice Research Institute, pp. 21—23.
The next 50 Years: Fatal discontinuities. Population and Development Review 31: 201-236; 2005.
Improving efficiency and reducing waste in our food system. Environmental Sciences 1:17-26; 2004.
