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.

14 books of their own