Amory Lovins is a guy the world has finally caught up to. A proponent of the "soft" energy path, his ideas got their initial boost during the 70's oil pinch.
Like E.F. Schumacher and the whole small is beautiful movement, Lovins and his micro renewables are coming back and getting some serious consideration.
The mere mention of Lovins evokes the Eugene, Oregon of my youth, when bicycles were mass transit, showers were shared to save water, and UV lights supported the local indoor cash crop.
Check out this brief Q and A with Mother Jones:
Mother Jones: What will it take for renewables to go mainstream?
Amory Lovins: We have obsolete rules that favor big over small, supply over efficiency, and incumbents over new market entrants. It's the very opposite of a competitive market. So a good dose of conservative economic principles would get us even further than trying to give technologies we like subsidies as big as the ones we don't like are already getting. Desubsidizing the whole energy sector would be a wonderful advance--level the playing field, but also let [renewables] in. The barriers that renewables and efficiency face come less from our living in a capitalist market economy and more from not taking market economics seriously, not following our own principles.
MJ: What energy policies should the next president try to enact right away?
AL: I think the important policies need to happen at a state rather than a federal level. With modest exceptions, our federal energy policy is really a large trough arranged by the hogs for their convenience.
MJ: So how could Washington best cut fuel consumption?
AL: For cars, the most effective thing would be a "feebate": In the showroom, less-efficient models would have a corresponding fee, while the more-efficient ones would get a rebate paid for by the fees. That way when choosing what model you want you would pay attention to fuel savings over its whole life, not just the first yea r or two. It turns out that the automakers can actually make more money this way because they will want to get their cars from the fee zone into the rebate zone by putting in more technology. The technology has a higher profit margin than the rest of the vehicle.
MJ: What's the most promising new energy source in terms of supply?
AL: Micropower---cogeneration, wind, sun, small hydro, geothermal, biomass, and waste fuel--is now providing about one-third of the world's new electric capacity.
MJ: If you had $1 million to invest in the energy sector, where would you put it?
AL: Efficient use. I want to do the cheapest things first to get the most climate protection and other benefits per dollar. Buying micropower and "negawatts" [Lovins' term for efficiency measures] instead of nuclear gives you about 2 to 11 times more carbon reduction per dollar, and you get it much faster.
MJ: Would you rather live next to a nuclear plant or a coal-burning plant?
AL: This is like a stupid multiple-choice-test question: Would you prefer to die of climate change or oil wars or nuclear holocaust? The right answer is none of the above.
MJ: Do you have any energy-use guilty pleasures?
AL: I take long showers, but they are 99 percent solar, so I guess it's not really guilty.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Foundation for National Progress
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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