Energy: Muscle, steam and combustion

Abstract

Admired by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, Smil is a prolific writer on energy and environmental issues, with a penchant for history This is especially valuable today, when renewables such as wind and solar power are set to disrupt the fossil-fuel-based energy system. [...]a lesson from history is that solving one environmental problem often leads to another: increased energy consumption. Because of the vast literature on energy written since Smil's 1994 history, this radically revised version is 60% longer.