Smil completed his undergraduate studies and began his graduate work (culminating in the RNDr., an intermediate graduate degree similar to the Anglo-AmericanMaster of Philosophy credential, in 1965)[5] at the Faculty of Natural Sciences ofCharles University in Prague, where he took up to 35 hours of lectures a week, 10 months a year, for five years.[4] "They taught me nature, from geology to clouds," Smil said.[4] After graduation he refused to join theCommunist party, undermining his job prospects, though he found employment at a regional planning office.[4] He married Eva, who was studying to be a physician.[4] In 1969, following theSoviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Eva's graduation, the Smils emigrated to the United States, leaving the country months before a Soviet travel ban shut the borders.[4] "That was not a minor sacrifice, you know?" Smil says.[4] Smil then received hisPh.D. ingeography from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences ofPennsylvania State University in 1971.[5][4][6]
In 1972, Smil took his first job offer at theUniversity of Manitoba where he remained for decades, until his retirement.[4] He taught introductory environmental science courses among other subjects dealing with energy, atmospheric change, China, population and economic development.[4]
Smil is skeptical that there will be a rapid transition to clean energy, believing it will take much longer than many predict.[4] Smil said "I have never been wrong on these major energy and environmental issues because I have nothing to sell," unlike many energy companies and politicians.[4]
Smil noted in 2018 that coal, oil, and natural gas continue to make up 90% of theprimary energy sources used in the world. Although renewable energy technologies have improved over time, the global share of energy produced from fossil fuels since 2000 has increased.[4] Smil emphasizes that replacing the use of fossil carbon in the production ofprimary iron,cement,ammonia, andplastics is a significant and ongoing challenge in the industrial sector. Together, these industries account for 15% of the world's total fossil fuel consumption.[7] Smil stresses the need for energy prices to reflect their true costs, including greenhouse gas emissions, and promotes a decrease in the demand for fossil fuels throughenergy-saving measures.[8]
Smil believes economic growth has to end, that all growth islogistic rather thanexponential, and that humans could consume much lower levels of materials and energy.[9][10][11]
Included among Smil's admirers is Microsoft co-founderBill Gates,[12] who has said: "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the nextStar Wars movie."[4] "He's a slayer of bullshit," saysDavid Keith, an energy and climate scientist atHarvard University.[4]
His wife Eva is a physician[4] and his son David is an organic synthetic chemist.
He lives in a house with unusually thick insulation, grows some of his own food, and eats meat roughly once a week.[10] He reads 60 to 110 non-technical books a year and keeps a list of all books he has read since 1969. He "does not intend to have a cell phone ever."[13]
Smil is known for being "intensely private", shunning the press while letting his books speak for themselves.[4] At the University of Manitoba, he only ever showed up at one faculty meeting (since the 1980s). The school accepted his reclusiveness so long as he kept teaching and publishing highly rated books.[4]
He has been an invited speaker in more than 300 conferences and workshops in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa, has lectured at many universities inNorth America, Europe andEast Asia and has worked as a consultant for many US,European Union andinternational institutions.
His bookHow the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going was a nominee for the 2022Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.[18]
"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".Nature453:154 (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. "International trade in meat: The tip of the pork chop".Ambio 36:622–629 (2007).
"The two prime movers of globalization: history and impact of diesel engines and gas turbines".Journal of Global History, 3:373–394 (2007).
"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, November 4–7, 2004. Los Baños (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).
