Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Enriching the Earth

Enriching the Earth

Vaclav Smil
2001
T1 358 pages · about 5h 58m to read Open Librarygoodreads

About Vaclav Smil

Distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba; writes quantitative histories of energy, food, materials and technical change.

Each book counts the physical inputs an economy consumes - joules, tonnes of steel, ammonia, cement - and establishes the historical rates at which past energy transitions actually moved. Those numbers let an investor size decarbonisation timelines and test claims about how fast an energy system can be rebuilt.

University of Manitoba

Vaclav Smil’s page →University of Manitoba →

Who recommended it 2 · 1 direct

Mohnish PabraidirectSource
Bill Gatesreported

Similar books 6

Chosen by shared topics, the entries that hold them, and the people who recommended both.

Energy: A Beginner's GuideEnergy: A Beginner's Guide
T1 Energy: A Beginner's Guide
Vaclav Smil · 2006
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A short primer on energy: its forms, units and role in nature and economies.

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg

How the World Really WorksHow the World Really Works
T1 How the World Really Works
Vaclav Smil · 2022
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The physical basics of modern life: energy, food, materials and globalisation.

Recommended by: Bill Gates

Making the Modern World: Materials and DematMaking the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization
T1 Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization
Vaclav Smil · 2013
Open LibraryGoodreads

How much steel, cement and plastic the world uses, and whether growth needs less.

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Mohnish Pabrai

Should We Eat Meat?Should We Eat Meat?
T1 Should We Eat Meat?
Vaclav Smil · 2013
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Meat in human evolution and modern farming, and the costs of heavy meat-eating.

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Mohnish Pabrai

GrowthGrowth
T1 Growth
Vaclav Smil · 2019
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How organisms, populations, machines, economies and civilisations grow, and stop.

Recommended by: Bill Gates

Numbers Don't LieNumbers Don't Lie
T1 Numbers Don't Lie
Vaclav Smil · 2020
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Seventy-one short pieces that correct common impressions with plain arithmetic.

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and 1 other

Where it sits in the reference 1

Vaclav Smil
Academics

Topics

Environment and EnergyScienceEnergy, climate and the EarthWater, food and land