Vaclav Smil. How the World Works. 2022.

CBC review.

Contents

• Introduction: Why do we need this book?
• Understanding Energy: fuels and electricity
  • Fundamental shifts
  • Modern energy uses
  • What is energy?
  • Crude oil's rise and relative retreat
  • The many advantages of electricity
  • Before you flip a switch
  • Decarbonization: pace and scale
• Understanding Food Production: eating fossil fuels
  • Three valleys, two centuries apart
  • What goes in
  • The energy costs of bread, chicken, and tomatoes
  • Diesel oil behind seafood
  • Fuel and food
  • Can we go back?
  • Doing with less -- and doing without
• Understanding Our Material World: the four pillars of modern civilization
  • Ammonia: the gas that feeds the world
  • Plastics: diverse, useful, troublesome
  • Steel: ubiquitous and recyclable
  • Concrete: a world created by cement
  • Material outlook: old and new inputs
• Understanding Globalization: engines, microchips, and beyond
  • Globalization's distant origins
  • Wind-driven globalization
  • Steam engines and telegraph
  • The first diesel engines, flight, and radio
  • Large diesels, turbines, containers, and microchips
  • Enter China, Russia, India
  • Globalization's multiples
  • The long reach of Moore's law
  • Inevitability, setbacks, and overreach
• Understanding Risks: from viruses to diets to solar flares
  • Eating as in Kyoto-or as in Barcelona
  • Risk perceptions and tolerances
  • Quantifying the risks of everyday life
  • Voluntary and involuntary risks
  • Natural hazards: less risky than they look on TV
  • Ending our civilization
  • Some lasting attitudes
• Understanding the Environment: the only biosphere we have
  • Oxygen is in no danger
  • Will we have enough water and food?
  • Why the Earth is not permanently frozen
  • Who discovered global warming?
  • Oxygen, water, and food in a warmer world
  • Understanding, promises, and realities
  • Wishful thinking
  • Models, doubts, and realities
• Understanding the Future: between apocalypse and singularity
  • Failed predictions
  • Inertia, scale, and mass
  • Ignorance, persistence, and humility
  • Unprecedented commitments, delayed rewards
• Appendix: Understanding Numbers: orders of magnitude
• References and Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Index