Making the Modern World (eBook)

VACLAV SMIL, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Manitoba, Canada.

Preface: Why and How ix

1. What Gets Included 1

2. How We Got Here 7

2.1 Materials Used by Organisms 8

2.2 Materials in Prehistory 11

2.3 Ancient and Medieval Materials 15

2.4 Materials in the Early Modern Era 22

2.5 Creating Modern Material Civilization 27

2.6 Materials in the Twentieth Century 34

3. What Matters Most 45

3.1 Biomaterials 46

3.2 Construction Materials 52

3.3 Metals 57

3.4 Plastics 62

3.5 Industrial Gases 65

3.6 Fertilizers 70

3.7 Materials in Electronics 72

4. How the Materials Flow 77

4.1 Material Flow Accounts 79

4.2 America's Material Flows 83

4.3 European Balances 87

4.4 Materials in China's Modernization 90

4.5 Energy Cost of Materials 94

4.6 Life-Cycle Assessments 103

4.7 Recycling 111

5. Are We Dematerializing? 119

5.1 Apparent Dematerializations 120

5.2 Relative Dematerializations: Specific Weight Reductions
122

5.3 Consequences of Dematerialization 129

5.4 Relative Dematerialization in Modern Economies 137

5.5 Declining Energy Intensities 143

5.6 Decarbonization and Desulfurization 150

6. Material Outlook 157

6.1 Natural Resources 158

6.2 Wasting Less 165

6.3 New Materials and Dematerialization 168

6.4 Chances of Fundamental Departures 173

Appendix A Units and Unit Multiples 181

Appendix B US Material Production, GDP and Population,
1900-2005 183

Appendix C Global Population, Economic Product, and Production
of Food, Major Materials, and Fuels 1900-2010 185

Appendix D Global Energy Cost of Major Materials in 2010 187

Appendix E 189

References 191

Index 223

Vaclav Smil receives 2015 OPEC Award for Research

"Summing Up: Recommended. Academic, general, and professional readers." (Choice, 1 October 2014)

"Vaclav Smil keeps turning out amazing books. Making the Modern World, I just finished, and it's pretty fantastic." (Interview with Bill Gates, 22 January 2014)

"This makes the book particularly suitable for students, and not just those in obviously-related disciplines: it's a good example of fact-based reasoning, one material we can always use more of." (Chemistry & Industry, 1 January 2014)