Quotes from Vaclav Smil

Claims about the dematerialization of modern economies and about a postindustrial world in which manufacturing does not matter are costly misinterpretations of fundamental realities.

In two centuries, the human labor to produce a kilogram of American wheat was reduced from 10 minutes to less than two seconds.

energy is the only truly universal currency, and nothing (from galactic rotations to ephemeral insect lives) can take place without its transformations.

The SI specifies seven fundamental measures: length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity.

we create the modern world's material wealth with no more than a quarter of all energy we use.

Educational achievements of US students (or a lack thereof) are scrutinized with every new edition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The latest results (2018) for 15-year-olds show that, in math, the United States ranks just below Russia, Slovakia, and Spain, but far

lower than Canada, Germany, and Japan. In science, US schoolchildren place just below the mean PISA score (497 versus 501); in reading, they are barely above it (498 versus 496)—and they are far behind all the populous, affluent Western nations. PISA, like any such study, has its weaknesses, but large differences in relative rankings are clear: there is not even a remote indication of any exceptional US educational achievements.

I wrote this book because I wanted to narrate the great, and a truly nation-building, story of US manufacturing—and because I believe that without the preservation and reinvigoration of manufacturing, the United States has little chance to extricate itself from its current economic problems, meet the challenges posed by other large and globally more competitive nations, and remain a dynamic and innovative society for generations to come.

In 1800 New England farmers (seeding by hand, with ox-drawn wooden plows and brush harrows, sickles, and flails) needed 150–170 hours of labor to produce their wheat harvest. By 1900 in California, horse-drawn gang-plowing, spring-tooth harrowing, and combine harvesting could produce the same amount of wheat in less than nine hours

No forecasts then – only brief reviews of some key factors that will determine the world's future quest for a reliable and affordable energy supply, and the major resource and technical options we can use during the next half-century.

extrasomatic

American draft horses reached their highest number in 1915, at 21.4 million animals, but mule numbers peaked only in 1925 and 1926, at 5.9 million (USBC 1975).

material for the records. The rubber was soon replaced by shellac, and that material was used

during the second decade of the twenty-first century Airbus received more orders for new jetliners than Boeing in all but two years.

In 1871 about 24% of all workers were in "muscle power" jobs (in agriculture, construction, and industry) and only about 1% were in "caring" professions (in health and teaching, child and home care, and welfare), but by 2011 caring jobs claimed 12% and muscle jobs only 8% of the labor force, and many of today's muscle jobs, such as cleaning and domestic service and routine factory line jobs, involve mostly mechanized tasks.

And long-distance electricity-powered commercial flight (equivalent to a kerosene-powered Boeing 787 from New York to Tokyo) is the outstanding example of the last category: as we will see, this is an energy conversion that will remain unrealistic for a long time to come.

Monoclonal antibodies are molecules engineered to restore, boost, or mimic the immune system's attack on alien cells. The first one was approved for dealing with acute transplant rejection, but anticancer and anti-inflammatory therapies are now most common, and in 2020 the FDA authorized two compounds for the treatment of COVID-19.

electronics and software now represent up to 40% of the cost of premium vehicles:

of schooling) with the gross national income per capita—but (not surprisingly) it correlates highly with the average per capita GDP, making the latter variable about as good a measure of the quality of life as the more elaborate index.

The oldest crude stone tools came more than three million years ago, larger, well-crafted (bifacial) hand axes and cleavers followed only about 1.5 million years ago, wooden stone-tipped spears appear to be about half a million years old, and only about 25,000 years ago did the Upper Paleolithic hunters master the artisanal production of an array of composite tools, including adzes, axes, harpoons, needles, and saws, and accompanying pottery.

Actualmente, un habitante medio del planeta tiene a su disposición casi setecientas veces más energía útil que sus antepasados de principios del siglo XIX. Es más, durante la vida de las personas nacidas después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el índice se ha más que triplicado, de unos 10 a los 34 GJ/cápita entre 1950 y 2020.

nitrogen is the most common growth-limiting factor for all plant species, and yet evolution furnished only a small number of them with the means to alleviate this constraint.

The widespread adoption of crop cultivation was predicated on the invention of numerous farm tools. The domestication of horses for riding started with bits and bridles (stirrups and saddles came much later). Draft animals required many specific designs for their harnessing to plows, carts, or wagons—collars, reins, traces, bellybands for horses, yokes for oxen.

Machines belong to the second category of inventions, that of new and more or less complex devices or mechanisms deployed for both stationary use and transportation.