[LINK] The man who’s tutoring Bill Gates ...

[Kim Holburn]

Interesting article.


Here are two paragraphs from it worth reading:

> For example, take the notion (heavily promoted by Al Gore) that we  
> could wean ourselves off fossil fuels in a few years if only we  
> really wanted to. This is about as realistic as the notion that we  
> could fly to the moon on gossamer wings if we really wanted to. Some  
> day it may be possible - but not any time soon. "We are structurally  
> cooked," he recently explained. "Every new technology takes 40 to 50  
> years before it captures the bulk of the market. As of today, there  
> are no clean-energy technologies that can replace fossil fuels on a  
> large scale."
>
> Prof. Smil is an expert on the history of technological innovation.  
> He points out that the U.S. energy industry - which includes  
> production, processing, transportation and distribution, coal and  
> uranium mines, oil and gas fields, pipelines, refineries, fossil- 
> fuel fired, nuclear, and hydroelectric power plants, tanker  
> terminals, uranium enrichment facilities, and transmission and   
> distribution lines - constitutes the world's most massive, most  
> indispensable, most expensive and most inertial infrastructure. Its  
> principal features change on a time scale measured in decades, not  
> years. That's why "we're going to be a fossil-fuel society for  
> decades to come."




http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-man-whos-tutoring-bill-gates/article1609926/

> The most-published and least-known thinker in Canada doesn't want to  
> be interviewed. He says he has 77 deadlines to meet (perhaps an  
> exaggeration, but probably not) before he flies off to a scientific  
> conference in Europe. Besides, he thinks media interviews are  
> pointless. He detests our sound-bite culture, which shrinks  
> enormously important and complex subjects into meaningless bits of  
> info-kibble. "All I want is to be left alone to write my books," he  
> insists.
>
> That may be one reason why hardly anyone in Canada has heard of  
> Vaclav Smil. But Bill Gates has. He believes Prof. Smil is one of  
> the smartest guys around today. He plugs several of Prof. Smil's  
> recent books on his website, and says that he has "opened my eyes to  
> new ways to think about solving our energy and environmental issues."
>
> The sometimes irascible Prof. Smil hangs his hat at the University  
> of Manitoba (which may be another reason everyone east of Winnipeg  
> ignores him). He is a distinguished professor in the faculty of  
> environment, but really, he is an incorrigible interdisciplinarian.  
> His interests encompass the broad areas of energy, the environment,  
> food, population, the economy and public policy. He seems to know a  
> lot about almost everything. He has published 20-something books and  
> hundreds of academic papers, and has another four books coming out  
> this year. He is (almost) resigned to the fact that our great  
> debates about energy and the environment are largely pointless,  
> because they are hugely distorted by politics and sadly uninformed  
> by basic facts. We are a culture of scientific ignoramuses.


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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