Vaclav Smil Quotes

Electricity is derived from many non-renewable energy sources like oil, natural gas and coal.

I actually think the civil service, who are the malignancy at the heart of public life, have consciously prevented, talked ministers out of, made it difficult regulatory-wise, to allow more pressure on alternative energy sources to grow.

GOP seems to stand for Gas, Oil, and Plutonium.

She felt Britain should not be so dependent on coal. She was in favour of building up nuclear energy to break the dependence on coal, and the main opposition to nuclear came from the environment movement. Mrs. Thatcher thought she could trap them with the carbon emissions argument.

One of the things that we have to realize is we cannot get off gas, we cannot get off oil, fossil fuels tomorrow - it's going to take a few decades. Maybe we can shorten it, but there's going to have to be a transition time.

When coal came into the picture, it took about 50 or 60 years to displace timber. Then crude oil was found, and it took 60, 70 years, and then natural gas. So it takes 100 years or more for some new breakthrough in energy to become the dominant source.

We need to replace coal with gas. We need to leave oil in the ground.

We have to be reminded that we still live in a world that relies a lot on fossil fuels, and that transition to new and renewable sources is not always and in all cases possible from one day to the next.

The history of energy use is a sequence of transitions to sources that are cheaper, cleaner, and more flexible.

We need to really get very serious about a transition toward new and renewable sources of energy.

Natural gas is a bridge fuel. But it's not a bridge - it's a gangplank. It's either a bridge in space or a bridge in time. The bridge in time we don't need. We have renewable technology right now.

First of all, the idea that natural gas is better than coal is a lie, especially when it comes to fracking for natural gas. It is a lie that was bought into by a lot of Democrats and a lot of environmentalists because I think they wanted to have a win against something; against coal.

I support an all of the above energy policy, so that's not only just Keystone, that's not only just drilling, that's clean coal, that's safe nuclear.

One thing you can say about nuclear power: the people who believe it is the silver bullet for America's energy problems never give up.

Much of the U.S. Midwest is already running on bitumen. Do we want to extend this addiction? And at what cost? Or should we set other goals and say one to two million barrels of oil a day from the tar sands is all we really need to make the transition?

We are already witnessing a transformation in the U.S. economy to increased production of lower carbon energy through fuel switching to natural gas and expansion of wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable non-carbon intensive energy sources.

It's going to cost trillions of dollars to rework the energy sources all over the world. Were going to have to move away from fossil fuels.

I think that the world is in the middle of a huge transition that we have to make to renewable energy. We have to transition away from fossil fuels very, very quickly.

In the world of energy politics, the sudden vanishing of the word 'coal' is a remarkable and unprecedented event.

Nuclear power is not a miracle key for the future.

When coal came into the picture, it took about 50 or 60 years to displace timber. Then, crude oil was found, and it took 60, 70 years, and then natural gas. So it takes 100 years or more for some new breakthrough in energy to become the dominant source. Most people have difficulty coming to grips with the sheer enormity of energy consumption.

We have to be aware that fossil fuel energy sources have an expiry date. A timeframe of 30, 40 or 50 years can seem a long time to get rewards for economic policy, but it's only a short time for implementing a new energy policy.

We should not just consume hydrocarbon fuel but use it to develop nuclear energy, hydro power and renewable energy sources.

Compared to coal, which generates almost half the electricity in the United States, natural gas is indeed a cleaner, less polluting fuel. But compared to, say, solar, it's filthy. And of course there is nothing renewable about natural gas.

Try everything. Do everything. Nuclear. Biomass. Coal. Solar. You name it. I support them all.