Vaclav Smil is a polymath who has written more than 40 books and some 500 papers on numerous topics including energy, power, population, food production, and the history of innovation. Smil declined to appear on the podcast, so in this episode, I discuss my favorite books of his (I have 13 of them), his distaste for publicity and politics, and read some excerpts from a recent interview Smil did with the New York Times.