LONDON, England (CNN)-- Amory Lovins is an environmentalist and the chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). That is, the core truth of today’s energy dilemma is that whether you care about security, climate or prosperity, you should do exactly the same things about energy. Unlike standards, it rewards continuous innovation and improvement, and it makes more profit for the automakers. Under a fee-bate system, the less efficient ones would pay a corresponding fee, that would then be used to pay a rebate on the more efficient ones. Hardly lacking in confidence or ambition, Lovins — in conjunction with his colleagues at the institute — has published Reinventing Fire, his step-by-step blueprint for how to transition to a renewable energy economy by mid-century. As Big Energy Gains, Can Europe’s Community Renewables Compete? And that explains exactly how to save half the oil and gas at average costs of roughly 12 bucks a barrel and under a dollar per million BTU. The car has, I think, 3,000 miles a year, most of which is driving to and from the airport. When you go to the dealer to buy a vehicle of the size you want, there are more and less efficient models on offer. The Plowboy Interviews spotlights Amory Lovins, energy Analyst and environmentalist and author of the 1976 essay, "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?" In his 2011 book - Reinventing Fire - Lovins made a case for energy transformation in society using business- and market-driven techniques. Can Geothermal Power Play a Key Role in the Energy Transition? Remember, though, that many of the big energy choices are not made in Washington, although that matters. And you’ll find in there a slate of innovative policy measures, going well beyond fee-bates, to support rather than distort the business logic that makes it very profitable to get completely off oil, led by business, at an average cost of $15 a barrel. And in the retrofit projects we typically save 30 to 60 percent of the energy with two- or three-year paybacks. Most encouraging, he says, is … On U.S. Public Lands, Can Biden Undo What Trump Has Wrought? And another important way to make retrofits much cheaper is to coordinate them with retrofits and renovations you’re doing anyway for other reasons. That’s because we use integrated design to get expanding, not diminishing returns. I’ve given you at least a quick sketch of the big three things. And I should emphasize, RMI is completely apolitical and nonpartisan. Amory Lovins on Why Energy Efficiency is the Key In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Amory Lovins, co-founder and chairman of Rocky Mountain Institute, says that world’s biggest untapped energy source is efficiency. What do you drive?Lovins: I drive a 2001 Honda Insight aluminum hybrid that is rated at 64 miles a gallon. Yet its potential is far larger. This was the capping event of Verge 2013, a conference on commerce and sustainability run by Makower’s GreenBiz Group.. Amory Lovins is one of the country's foremost leaders in renewable energy and energy efficiency. For example, most gas and electric utilities are regulated very largely at the state level.e360: What would be the first concrete thing that President Obama and/or the new Congress ought to do here?Lovins: It’s not for me to say what their political priorities should be. Just move the electrons and leave the heavy nuclei at home. Amory Lovins lectures at Stanford University as the visiting MAP/MING Professor of Energy and Environment Let’s use it!e360: Do you find that people respond to that? Forest Defenders: A Panamanian Tribe Regains Control of Its Lands, As World’s Deltas Sink, Rising Seas Are Far from Only Culprit. For example, the point is to cool people or materials, not buildings or equipment. It is rated (mileage) the highest in the market, although they pulled it off the market some months ago, because it sold poorly, not because it isn’t a great car, but because the two-seat segment in extremely small. You used the word jargony, for me it sounds gimmicky.Lovins: Well, tastes differ. If they are concerned about national security, energy efficiency is probably the best way to get it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he talks about his latest book, which describes his vision of how the world can attain a green energy future by 2050. For four decades, Amory Lovins has been a leading proponent of a renewable power revolution that would wean the U.S. off fossil fuels and usher in an era of energy independence. RMI engages businesses, communities, institutions, and entrepreneurs to accelerate the adoption of market-based solutions that cost-effectively shift from fossil fuels to efficiency and renewables. Then I took a lot of video conferencing, rather than flying. By barrier-busting, I mean enabling people to respond to the price signals they see, and use energy in a way that saves money, by turning into a business opportunity each of the 60 or 80 well-known obstacles or market failures in buying efficiency. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Amory Lovins, co-founder and chairman of Rocky Mountain Institute, says that world’s biggest untapped energy source is efficiency. And it has a very efficient, slightly-under-one-liter engine with an electric hybrid, boosted by a 10-kilowatt motor on the upper shaft, and it’s got also a very good aerodynamics and tires. They favor supply over efficiency and big over small, nonrenewable over renewable, nuclear over everything. And government, Lovins says, “should steer, not row.”Yale Environment 360: You have called energy efficiency “the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest, fastest way to provide energy services.” How do you quantify that claim? Amory Lovins; Download. We moved in in January 1984, after a year and a half of construction. Those terms are unambiguous. And if that happened, that would be the most single powerful lever in getting utilities excited and engaged in efficiency, rather than averse or at least indifferent to it because it hurts their profits.Second, to get efficient cars on the road quickly, the federal government should incubate at a state and regional level and then take nationwide a system of size-neutral and revenue-neutral “fee-bates”. Amory Lovins Lays Out His Clean Energy Plan, Fraser's Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica. Most climate modelers explicitly or tacitly use economic theory as the dominant framework for assessing potential technological gains in energy end-use efficiency (Lovins 2018a) 1.Economic theory tends to treat energy efficiency as a limited and dwindling Ricardian resource (like … Amory B. Lovins is fond of referring to the Rocky Mountain Institute, where he serves as chairman and chief scientist, as a “think and do” tank, and it’s clear that to Lovins the doing is every bit as important as the thinking. On energy efficiency and the “negawatt” revolution: “There is an enormous amount more to be done: we could improve the efficiency of US buildings by 2050 at historically reasonable rates by a factor of three or four, with about a 33% internal rate of return.” On carbon removal: “I haven’t yet seen an economically attractive CCS option…I think the way forward on … Using his own home in the Colorado Rocky Mountains as an example, Lovins shows how simple … And, of course, they are in a race with Toyota and everybody else to do that. Amory Lovins founded the Rocky Mountain Institute in 1982 to promote energy efficiency. [You’ll find the taxonomy of those on pages 11 to 20 of our 1997 paper Climate: Making Sense and Making Money, which is in the climate publications library of rmi.org.] The talk (preceded by my performance of … It’s a more powerful method than either fuel taxes or efficiency standards. The rowing, the heavy work, will and should be done by the private sector in its co-evolution with civil society. Sign up for the E360 Newsletter →. The key is integrating all four energy-using sectors—and four kinds of innovation. A $500 billion investment in energy efficiency right now would pay off in $1.2 trillion in savings down the road, says Jon Creyts, a program director at Lovins’ think tank, Rocky Mountain Institute. There is no trade-off or compromise required. More about Fen Montaigne →, Never miss a feature! "Engaging, intense, informative, exhausting at times, wonderful, completely worthwhile" -Student, 2020. Who should apply? Energy efficiency the keyLovins’ basic premise is that improving the way we use energy is the key to the future. In 1976, as an obscure consultant, he published an article in … I would predict that those not in favor will include all the incumbents, who are quite happy with the present arrangements they paid a lot of money for.e360: What are the top three things the federal government needs to do right now to get the rules right?Lovins: Well, I won’t include the utility reform I referred to earlier, which is technically called decoupling and shared savings, because that’s done by state utility commissions. More importantly, though, I don’t commute by car, because my trip to work is 10 meters across the jungle in the middle of my passive solar banana farm.e360: And how long has that been your situation?Lovins: Oh, let’s see. In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they are not. Regardless of the application, integrative design for radical energy efficiency starts with shedding all previous conceptions and assumptions, and instead cultivating “beginner’s mind,” Lovins explained in the lecture. That reform is adopted in a handful of states but pending in about another two dozen. People are starting to realize that this actually works for passive buildings, but most of them don’t realize you can do the same trick in industry and vehicles. It happens to be a two-seater because that’s all I need. I am driving in a lot of snow and slush and mostly in snow tires, and it gets 61-point-something.e360: How does that get that mileage?Lovins: Well, it weighs only 1889 pounds. A fee-bate is a combination of a fee and a rebate. • Overview: Transforming Land and Sea for a More Sustainable World, In Boost for Renewables, Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is on the Rise, Filthy Water: A Basic Sanitation Problem Persists in Rural America, How Non-Native Plants Are Contributing to a Global Insect Decline, How Biden Can Put the U.S. on a Path to Carbon-Free Electricity, Amid Tensions in Myanmar, An Indigenous Park of Peace Is Born, As South Africa Clings to Coal, A Struggle for the Right to Breathe. Saving half the gas could be a good deal faster, probably about 20 years. But don’t call it “conservation.”In an interview conducted by science writer Carole Bass for Yale Environment 360, Lovins, the co-founder and chairman of Rocky Mountain Institute, says that word connotes “privation, discomfort and curtailment.” By contrast, “efficiency” means “doing more and better with less energy and money, but with more brains and technology,” he says.The longtime renewable energy advocate and author says retooling for energy efficiency will require “barrier-busting” at many levels. If you want to know how, please go to rmi.org/Stanford.e360: What is the importance of language choice in trying to spread these ideas and their adoption?Lovins: It’s extremely important. Lovins argued that the United States had arrived at an important crossroads and could take one of two paths. You have to speak to people’s concerns in their language.e360: How do we get people to focus on these issues right now, given everything else that’s going on in the country and the world?Lovins: By speaking to their concerns in their language. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he talks about his latest book, which describes his vision of how the world can attain a green energy future by 2050. Students will also get to tour Amory Lovins's famous energy efficient home in Snowmass, CO - and check out his indoor greenhouse / banana crop! I talked to a wide range of audiences and for some it is not appropriate. But they are going to replace it under the same name with a four- or five-seat hybrid. You need to drop in a lease rider to share equitably the costs and benefits of the retrofit.e360: You do focus mainly on the business side, is that right?Lovins: Yeah. e360: How do you find people respond to it?Lovins: Generally, very well. I’ve saved a lot of commuting by now. Actually, if you look at move.rmi.org/oilendgame, you’ll find our detailed, Pentagon-co-sponsored study of four years ago, Winning the Oil Endgame. If they are concerned about education, they may like to know that students learn 20 odd percent faster in well day-lit classrooms and efficient schools have money left to hire teachers and buy books. Why should I fix up the building if the landlord owns it, and why should the landlord fix it if I pay the bills? Germany’s Unlikely Champion For example, how large, how cheap, how fast? Amory Bloch Lovins … Amory B. Lovins, an American consultant experimental physicist and 1993 MacArthur Fellow, has been active at the nexus of energy, resources, economy, environment, development, and security in more than 50 countries for over 40 years, including 14 years based in England. Lovins has always focused on solutions that conserve natural resources while also promoting economic growth; Texas Instruments and Wal-Mart are just two of the mega-corporations he has advised on improving energy efficiency. Energy efficiency, a bigger energy “source” than oil, avoids at least twice as much global greenhouse gas emissions as renewables’ remarkable growth. So if what we mean is, as in my case, doing more and better with less energy and money, but with more brains and technology, then we should call it energy efficiency or raising energy productivity. They’re very lopsided. Lovins, who participated in Principal Voices in 2006, has advocated the "soft energy path," which promotes efficiency and renewable energy. Our next fab design after that, by the way, will save about two-thirds of the energy and half the capital costs. They have a habit of producing the most efficient cars on the market in any given time. There are arguments here for essentially every constituency and political view. According to energy expert, Amory Lovins, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, the energy industry has vastly misunderstood the scope of the energy efficiency resource. This is, of course, consistent with the policy framework I suggested a moment ago, in which all technologies should compete on merit, not by lobbying power.e360: How important are (the recent) elections in moving in the direction you’re talking about?Lovins: Well, we’ll see. The most important way to speed it up would be to reward utilities for cutting our bills, not selling us more energy. Our current energy technologies are grossly inefficient and result in abundant waste, Lovins said, which threatens our resources, security, environment, health, geopolitical stance, social development and wallets. Energy efficiency is limited by the laws of thermodynamics, but by one global estimate, 2005 global Second Law efficiency (AIP 1975) of energy conversion systems was only ~11% (Cullen and Allwood 2011), i.e., energy use was 9× the theoretical minimum, so including also passive systems, '85% of energy demand could be practically avoided using current … We published an example where that coordination would enable you to save three-quarters of the electricity used by a typical 20-odd-year-old glass office tower at a slightly lower cost than the regular 20-year renovation you have to do anyway, that saves nothing.e360: Now, you mentioned that barrier-busting is needed at all levels of government. But in the new facilities we save more — typically 40 to 90 percent — and the capital cost almost always goes down. Amory Lovins: Oh, for example, in the United States we could save at least half the oil and gas and three-quarters of the electricity we use, and that efficiency investment would cost only about an eighth [of] what we’re now paying for those forms of energy.e360: How fast could we do that?Lovins: To get completely off oil — half from the supply side and half by redoubling the efficiency of using oil — would take ’til the 2040s, if we did it about a third slower than we saved oil from 1977 to ’85, when we were last paying attention. It seems as though your work focuses very much on the private sector.Lovins: Well, barrier-busting is needed in the public and private sectors, and in fact many of the biggest obstacles are at the level of the firm. Amory Lovins: energy visionary sees renewables revolution in full swing. Most economic theorists assume that energy efficiency—the biggest global provider of energy services—is a limited and dwindling resource whose price- and policy-driven adoption will inevitably deplete its potential and raise its cost. That’s because, in order to move their vehicles from the fee zone to the rebate zone, they add technology content that tends to have a higher profit margin than the rest of the vehicle.The third important thing I’d suggest is to de-subsidize the entire energy sector systematically. And saving three-quarters of the electricity would take several decades, because we would need both to build new things in a much smarter way and to retrofit existing buildings and factories — bearing in mind that about 70 percent of our electricity goes to buildings and 30 percent to factories.Now, there are ways to speed this up, like mass retrofits. However, the federal government could certainly encourage that, as it has encouraged many other previous utility reforms, without preempting state authority. Shares. And let’s see who’s not in favor of that. Amory Lovins came to prominence in 1976 when he published an article in Foreign Affairs called "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?" The world’s biggest untapped energy source, according to energy expert Amory Lovins, is efficiency. The first, supported by U.S. policy, promised a future of steadily increasing reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear fission, and had serious environmental risks. The topic that most occupies Lovins thinking nowadays is energy efficiency. The candidates had quite different energy platforms. I think it is important to get the result, not to get it for the reason you want. Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)’s mission is to transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. Lovins claims that it’s design, not technology that can achieve incredibly energy efficiency gains. In this intimate talk filmed at TED's offices, energy innovator Amory Lovins shows how to get the US off oil and coal by 2050, $5 trillion cheaper, with no Act of Congress, led by business for profit. But for people not in the energy business they are jargony, so instead of negawatts, we can say just “saved electricity.”e360: So the term negawatts actually came to you by spotting a typo?Lovins: Yes, they meant to type megawatts, but it came out negawatts, and I said: What a nice term! Or, there’s the well-known split incentive. And there’s a lot of barrier-busting needed at all levels of government as well as firms and households. For four decades, Amory Lovins has been a leading proponent of a renewable power revolution that would wean the U.S. off fossil fuels and usher in an era of energy independence. Can Geothermal Power Play a Key Role in the Energy Transition? Forest Defenders: A Panamanian Tribe Regains Control of Its Lands, As World’s Deltas Sink, Rising Seas Are Far from Only Culprit. Amory Lovins, the owner of the house, is exactly the guy you’d expect to live here. For example, many, if not most, Americans think of the term “energy conservation” as connoting privation, discomfort and curtailment, that is, doing less, worse or without. We’re working on a refinery that will probably need no natural gas, no electricity and no outside water, but cost less and work better.These examples are among a much larger list, totaling over $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors, that we’ve recently redesigned for radical energy efficiency with our private-sector partners. And retooling for energy efficiency will require “barrier-busting” at many levels. Sign up for the E360 Newsletter →, Amory Lovins on Why Energy Efficiency is the Key. So that would be 24 years, now almost 25. If they are concerned about climate protection, they may like to know that energy efficiency can provide it not at a cost but at a profit. February 20, 2012. This widens the price spread between more and less efficient models, enough so that you will pay attention to lifecycle fuel savings, not just the first year or two. Never miss a feature! ... We can see a very clear way forward to trebling energy efficiency by 2050." Similarly, if you are proposing to examine someone’s house or factory to look for energy saving opportunities, I’d suggest do not call it an energy audit, which makes people think of the IRS, perhaps an energy survey would be more interesting.e360: What about coinages like fee-bates and negawatts?Lovins: I think they’re in fairly common usage by now, especially “negawatts”, which was a typo I spotted in a Colorado PUC document several decades ago and spread around, or the economists’ term “micro-power” to embrace both co-generation and distributive renewables is a very useful term. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, and other magazines. For example, a company or an individual hiring an architect or an engineer would do well to pay that designer for — or, pay those designers for what they saved, not for what they spend, which is the traditional method of compensation. In 1976, physicist and environmental activist Armory B. 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