Amory Bloch Lovins (born November 13, 1947) and former chairman/chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has written on energy policy and related areas for four decades, and served on the US National Petroleum Council, an oil industry lobbying group, from 2011 to 2018.

Lovins has promoted energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy sources, and the generation of energy at or near the site where the energy is actually used. Lovins has also advocated a "negawatt revolution" arguing that utility customers don't want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services. In the 1990s, his work with Rocky Mountain Institute included the design of an ultra-efficient automobile, the Hypercar. He has provided expert testimony and published 31 books, including Reinventing Fire, Winning the Oil Endgame, Small is Profitable, Brittle Power, and Natural Capitalism.

Early life and education

Lovins was born in Washington, DC. His father, Gerald H. Lovins worked as an engineer and his mother, Miriam Lovins, worked as a social services administrator. Lovins is the brother of Julie Beth Lovins, a computational linguist who wrote the first stemming algorithm for word matching.

In 1964, Lovins entered Harvard College as a National Merit Scholar. After two years there, he transferred to Oxford. In 1969, he became a junior research fellow at Merton College, Oxford, as a result of which he had a temporary Oxford master of arts status. He left without a degree in 1971, because the university would not allow him to pursue a doctorate in energy. Lovins moved to London to pursue his energy work, and returned to the United States in 1981. He settled in western Colorado in 1982.

Lovins' four grandparents emigrated to the United States from small villages lying between Kyiv and Odesa in Ukraine in the early 20thcentury. Most of his remaining family are believed to have been killed by German Nazis in the 1941 Tarashcha massacre. Lovins spent about a decade as British representative for Friends of the Earth.

During the early 1970s, Lovins became interested in resource policy, especially energy policy. The 1973 energy crisis helped create an audience for his writing and an essay originally penned as a U.N. paper grew into his first book concerned with energy, World Energy Strategies (1973). His next book was Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy (1975), co-authored with John H. Price.

Rocky Mountain Institute

By 1978, Lovins had published six books and consulted widely. In 1982, he and his wife, Hunter Lovins founded Rocky Mountain Institute, based in Snowmass, Colorado. Together with a group of colleagues, the Lovinses fostered efficient resource use and sustainable development.

Since 1982, RMI has grown into a broad-based "think-and-do tank" with more than 600 staff and an annual budget over $120 million. RMI has spun off five for-profit companies.

Ideas

Soft energy paths

thumb|Solar energy technologies, such as [[solar water heaters, located on or near the buildings which they supply with energy, are a prime example of a soft energy technology.]]

Amory Lovins published an article in Foreign Affairs called "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?" in 1976. Lovins argued that the United States had arrived at an important crossroads and could take one of two paths. Residential solar energy technologies are prime examples of soft energy technologies and rapid deployment of simple, energy conserving, residential solar energy technologies is fundamental to a soft energy strategy.

Lovins on the Soft Path is a documentary film made by Amory and Hunter Lovins. It received "Best Science and Technology Film, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1983; Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival, 1982; Best of the Festival, Environmental Education Film Festival, 1982; Best Energy Film, International Environmental Film Festival, 1982; and Chris Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film Festival, 1982."

Nuclear power limitations

Regarding nuclear power in the United Kingdom, Amory Lovins commented in 2014 that:

<blockquote>Britain's plan for a fleet of new nuclear power stations is&nbsp;... unbelievable&nbsp;... It is economically daft. The guaranteed price [being offered to French state company EDF] is over seven times the unsubsidized price of new wind in the US, four or five times the unsubsidized price of new solar power in the US. Nuclear prices only go up. Renewable energy prices come down. There is absolutely no business case for nuclear. The British policy has nothing to do with economic or any other rational base for decision making.</blockquote>

Negawatt revolution

thumb|A "negawatt revolution" would involve the rapid deployment of electricity-saving technologies, such as [[compact fluorescent lamps.]]

A negawatt is a unit in watts of power saved. It is basically the opposite of a watt. Amory Lovins has advocated a "negawatt revolution", arguing that utility customers don't want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services such as hot showers, cold beer, lit rooms, and spinning shafts, which can come more cheaply if electricity is used more efficiently.

Hypercar

In 1994, Amory Lovins developed the design concept of the Hypercar. This vehicle would have ultra-light construction with an aerodynamic body using advanced composite materials, low-drag design, and hybrid drive. Designers of the Hypercar claim that it would achieve a three- to fivefold improvement in fuel economy, equal or better performance, safety, amenity, and affordability, compared with today's cars.

In 1999, RMI took this process a step further by launching a for-profit venture, Hypercar Inc. in which RMI has a minority interest. In 2004, Hypercar Inc. changed its name to Fiberforge to better reflect the company's new goal of lowering the cost of high-volume advanced-composite structures by leveraging the patents of David F. Taggart, one of the founders of Hypercar, Inc.</blockquote>

Criticism

The Breakthrough Institute has criticized various positions taken by Amory Lovins. One of the main points of contention is the assumption by the RMI of a linear relation between improvements in energy efficiency and reductions in aggregate energy consumption. The Jevons Paradox suggests that improvements in energy efficiency actually lead to an increase in energy use, as a result of decreasing cost. This "rebound effect" is downplayed in the analyses performed by Lovins. Similar overestimates are identified in PV (solar), where estimates are made for about 30%; this is seen as implausible. Moreover, according to the authors, no analyses are given about the need for huge volumes of electricity storage, which would be needed when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.

Awards

Amory Lovins was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1984, of the World Academy of Art and Science in 1988, and of the World Business Academy in 2001. He has received the Right Livelihood Award, the Blue Planet Prize, Volvo Environment Prize, the 4th Annual Heinz Award in the Environment in 1998, and the National Design (Design Mind), Jean Meyer, and Lindbergh Awards. and the Shingo, Nissan, Mitchell, and Onassis Prizes. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1993, and is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and an Honorary Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.

In 2009, Time magazine named Lovins as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

On March 17, 2016, Lovins received the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit) from the Federal Republic of Germany for intellectually underpinning Germany's Energiewende, most notably with his concept of "soft energy" and how that promotes peace and prosperity.

Lovins was a senior Ashoka Fellow in 2009.

Personal life

In 1979 Amory Lovins married L. Hunter Sheldon, a lawyer, forester, and social scientist. They separated in 1989 and divorced in 1999. In 2007, he married Judy Hill, a fine-art landscape photographer.

Books

This is a list of books which are authored or co-authored by Amory B. Lovins:

  • World Energy Strategies: Facts, Issues, and Options London: Friends of the Earth Ltd. for Earth Resources Research Ltd., 1975. .
  • The Energy Controversy: Soft Path Questions and Answers (1979)
  • Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy (with John H. Price) San Francisco, 1980.
  • Least-Cost Energy: Solving the CO2 Problem Andover, Mass. : Brick House Pub. Co., 1982
  • Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security (with L Hunter Lovins) Andover, Mass. : Brick House, 1982 re-released in 2001.
  • The First Nuclear World War (with Patrick O'Heffernan; L Hunter Lovins) New York: Morrow, 1983.
  • Reinventing Electric Utilities: Competition, Citizen Action, and Clean Power (1996)
  • Factor Four: Doubling Wealth – Halving Resource Use: A Report to the Club of Rome (1997)
  • Natural Capitalism (2000)
  • Small Is Profitable (2003)
  • The Natural Advantage Of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovation And Governance in the 21st Century (2004)
  • Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run: A Call to Save the Earth (2007)

Non-English

  • Faktor vier. Doppelter Wohlstand – halbierter Verbrauch (1997)
  • Facteur 4: Rapport au Club de Rome (1997)
  • Öko-Kapitalismus: Die industrielle Revolution des 21. Jahrhunderts (2002)

See also

  • Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
  • Energy security and renewable technology
  • Hermann Scheer
  • Mark Z. Jacobson
  • Renewable energy commercialization

References

  • The Rocky Mountain Institute's home page
  • The frugal cornucopian
  • Congressional testimony on nuclear power
  • Amory Lovin's presentation to the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue 2016, March 17–18, 2016