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FOR aficionados of megatrends in human affairs, Vaclav Smil has long been a favourite. Now in his 70s and still thinking and writing with huge vigour, Smil has gained a whole new audience in recent years thanks to Bill Gates describing him as his favourite source of new facts.

Unlike many big-picture gurus, Smil is not a determinist. Energy and Civilization is a magisterial history of how advances in energy technology 鈥� from fire and packhorses to solar panels and the hydrogen bomb 鈥� have driven and underpinned the advances of humanity. But he never argues that anything is predestined: we make it up as we go along, says the Czech environmental scientist, who moved to Canada after Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968.

The biggest choice we face today is whether, and how, to make the 鈥渆pochal transition鈥� from fossil fuels. They gave us two centuries of industrialisation and urbanisation, but their emissions now threaten climate catastrophe. Even now, Smil says, we haven鈥檛 really got to grips with how profound this change will be. We may not make it.

The world is awash with eco-pessimists who see us as doomed by our addiction to the fuels that are wrecking our planet. Meanwhile, set up in opposition are super-optimists like the late Julian Simon and recent acolytes such as Matt Ridley. They insist that our future is assured because Homo sapiens has always used ingenuity to get out of a jam, finding new materials or tech to do stuff better. Smil sits in neither camp. He sees the task, but refuses to predict the outcome.

鈥淭he conversion of energy is our planet鈥檚 鈥榰niversal currency鈥�, starting with photosynthesis鈥�

The conversion of energy is our planet鈥檚 鈥渦niversal currency鈥�, he says, starting with photosynthesis to turn solar energy into biomass. Human societies have progressed and grown by finding ever more and better ways to convert energy for our own purposes.

Human muscle can only deliver about 100 watts of power. But early water wheels for irrigation and grain-milling gave us 500 watts. Then came 100,000-watt steam engines 鈥� so good their inventor James Watt gave his name to our unit of power. Not that they are a patch on the billion-watt steam turbines generating electricity in modern power stations.

Such changes transformed the world. You probably never thought much happened to US agriculture between 1800 and 1900. Wrong, says Smil. Better ploughs and replacing sickles with harvesting machines raised the food output of energy and labour more than 20-fold 鈥� thereby releasing both to make America the 20th century鈥檚 greatest superpower.

As energy production has grown, it has mostly become cheaper and more efficient. A candle converts 0.01 per cent of the energy released by burning into light; modern electric light bulbs are a thousand times more efficient. We all complain about high energy bills, but Smil chastises us. 鈥淚n the year 2000, a lumen of light in Britain cost a mere 0.01 per cent of what it did in 1500 and about 1 per cent of what it did in 1900.鈥�

Presented with such facts, it would be easy to become a facile techno-optimist. But Smil is having none of that. Cheaper energy means we use more of it, with often absurd consequences. What sense, he asks, does it make for 鈥渢ens of millions of people to take intercontinental flights to generic beaches in order to acquire skin cancer faster鈥�?

And while we generally think that cheap energy allows us to save time, that idea can often be illusory. Smil revives an old statistic from a 1970s guru, Ivan Illich, about how fast a car really goes. Once you take into account all the time needed to earn the money to buy and run it, the answer is 5 kilometres per hour, or an average walking pace. That paradox still pervades energy and environmental policy-making.

Energy-transforming technologies up the stakes, whether the catapult or the steam engine, sailing ships or water wheels, the flintlock or splitting the atom. But Smil sees no general rule that more energy produces better societies: 鈥淗igher energy use by itself does not guarantee anything except greater environmental burdens.鈥� We do things differently, we get more bangs for our joule, but it isn鈥檛 axiomatic that this is always a good thing. In any case, those who see 鈥渁 future of unlimited energy鈥�, whether from nuclear fusion or solar panels, are dealing in 鈥渘othing but fairy tales鈥�.

This is a very human story of fallible technologies and societal dysfunctions. But Smil is in little doubt that we now face a genuine crossroads, and only one right road. In the next few decades, we have to ditch fossil fuels and embark on what he calls 鈥渢he unprecedented quest to create a new energy system compatible with the long-term survival of high-energy civilization鈥�.

First up, we will need a return to building nuclear plants and a breakthrough in cheap ways to store wind and solar energy. Not either/or, but both.

Will we succeed?

That鈥檚 the cliffhanger. Smil ends with questions rather than answers. This could end in Malthusian tragedy, as envisaged recently by systems theorist Geoffrey West, who argued that innovation can鈥檛 keep up with our runaway population: that we are not just on a treadmill; we have to keep jumping off one treadmill onto an even faster one. Or it might end in Simon-ite triumph, in which innovation continues to keep ahead of calamity.

Smil concludes that 鈥渢he only certainty is that the chances of succeeding鈥� remain uncertain鈥�. Should we feel cheated? Didn鈥檛 the futurologist just duck out? I think not. To be told that there is all to play for is liberating and democratic.

鈥淎l Gore is offering a surprisingly upbeat assessment of the potential of renewables鈥�

But there is work to be done. Coal-burning, once the great driver of prosperity, has become our curse. Are we up to the task of banishing the black stuff? Some believe so. Former US vice president

Al Gore has recently been offering a surprisingly upbeat assessment of the potential of renewables technologies to rapidly take over from fossil fuels. He predicts that the US will meet its Paris Agreement climate targets in spite of the accord鈥檚 repudiation by Donald Trump.

But reading two other books gives us pause. Technologically it is doable. But politically? There鈥檚 the rub. And it isn鈥檛 just the White House that might undo the commitment. There are many, in US society especially, who will go to any lengths to avoid making the decision. Behind the Carbon Curtain by Jeffrey Lockwood and Climate of Capitulation by Vivian Thomson both call them out by drilling down to state-level politics, where coal money talks very loudly.

Lockwood, who teaches environmental ethics, charts how fossil fuel companies in Wyoming silence dissent, from getting museums to destroy artwork to modifying school curriculums. And he follows in detail the travails of one boat-rocking researcher who was squeezed out of academic life for questioning corporate reassurances about their activities being safe for underground water reserves.

Meanwhile, Thomson gives an insider鈥檚 account detailing the corruption of Virginia鈥檚 environmental regulation. She sat on the state鈥檚 Air Board, and saw at first hand how clean-air decision-making fell foul of industry lobbying there and in other states.

Against the backcloth of Smil鈥檚 big story, such mendacity may look too small-scale and local to make a difference. But the real lesson from the great man鈥檚 book isn鈥檛 that the reactionaries will be trampled by history, but that, against all sanity, they could win.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淓nergy鈥檚 deadly race鈥�