World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!

D-Index & Metrics

Social Sciences and Humanities

D-Index
54
Citations
19975
World Ranking
2093
National Ranking
118

Research.com Recognitions

  • 1997 - Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Academy of Science

Overview

Vaclav Smil is affiliated with the University of Manitoba in Canada. The scientist's work spans multiple interdisciplinary fields with a focus on energy systems, environmental impacts, and technological innovation. Their research touches on areas including Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Global and Planetary Change, Aerospace Engineering, Molecular Biology, and Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Smil's recent publications demonstrate an engagement with energy and environmental topics as well as technological histories. Notable papers include:

  • Decarbonization Algebra: The COP26 Calls for Impossibly Steep Cuts in Carbon Emissions: Numbers Don't Lie (2022, IEEE Spectrum)
  • Energiewende, 20 years later - [CrossTalk] (2020, IEEE Spectrum)
  • The Hyperloop is Hyper Old: Elon Musk Merely Renamed a 200-Year-Old Dream: Numbers Don't Lie (2021, IEEE Spectrum)
  • Crosstalk: Energy-conversion efficiency is falling (2021, IEEE Spectrum)
  • What Goes Up...: World Population Growth has Slowed, and Some Countries are Actually Declining: Numbers Don't Lie (2021, IEEE Spectrum)

The scientist has published extensively in IEEE Spectrum, with 32 papers contributed to this venue alone. Other publications include Population and Development Review, The New Scientist, Mechanical Engineering, and Inference International Review of Science.

Vaclav Smil's research interests are reflected in the main topics they address:

  • Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure
  • Advanced Aircraft Design and Technologies
  • UAV Applications and Optimization
  • Protein Structure and Dynamics
  • Origins and Evolution of Life
  • Ancient Egypt and Archaeology
  • Energy and Environment Impacts

Frequent collaborators include Paul Demeny, Raya Muttarak, Joshua Wilde, Rachel S. Friedman, and James Degroat.

Smil has also contributed to academic publishing in the form of books, notably with The MIT Press publishing "Invention and Innovation" in 2023.

Among recognized distinctions, Vaclav Smil was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1997 by the Academy of Science.

Best Publications

  • Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production

    Vaclav Smil

  • PHOSPHORUS IN THE ENVIRONMENT: Natural Flows and Human Interferences

    Vaclav Smil

  • Nitrogen in crop production: An account of global flows

    Vaclav Smil

  • Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties

    Vaclav Smil

  • Detonator of the population explosion

    Vaclav Smil

  • Energy In World History

    Vaclav Smil

  • Feeding the World: A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century

    Vaclav Smil

  • Nitrogen and Food Production: Proteins for Human Diets

    Vaclav Smil

  • Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects

    Vaclav Smil

  • Losing the Links Between Livestock and Land

    Rosamond L. Naylor;Rosamond L. Naylor;Henning Steinfeld;Walter P. Falcon;James Galloway

  • Global Population and the Nitrogen Cycle

    Vaclav Smil

  • The bad earth: Environmental degradation in China

    Vaclav Smil

  • Energy and Civilization

    Vaclav Smil

  • Energy and Civilization: A History

    Vaclav Smil

  • Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact.

    Vaclav Smil

  • China's great famine: 40 years later

    Vaclav Smil

  • China's environmental crisis : an inquiry into the limits of national development

    Vaclav Smil

  • Eating Meat: Evolution, Patterns, and Consequences

    Vaclav Smil

  • The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change

    Vaclav Smil

  • International trade in meat: The tip of the pork chop

    James N. Galloway;Marshall Burke;G. Eric Bradford;Rosamond Naylor

  • Book of numbers

    Vaclav Smil

Frequent Co-Authors

James N. Galloway
James N. Galloway University of Virginia
Oene Oenema
Oene Oenema Wageningen University & Research
Henning Steinfeld
Henning Steinfeld Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Kazuhiko Kobayashi
Kazuhiko Kobayashi University of Tokyo
Gretchen C. Daily
Gretchen C. Daily Stanford University
Jared M. Diamond
Jared M. Diamond University of California, Los Angeles
Marshall Burke
Marshall Burke Stanford University

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