Amory Lovins Named One of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 11.21.08
Video clip: Amory Lovins on climate change, geoengineering and unintended environmental consequences.
In case you’re not a regular US News & World Report reader, we’d like to point out that Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute (which is a guest contributor to TreeHugger) has been just listed as one of America's Best Leaders for his work at RMI promoting energy efficiency, and more efficient use of natural resources in general.
In describing Lovins’ work, US News had this to say
Founder of World Renowned ‘Think and Do Tank’
To many Americans, energy efficiency is still a somewhat hazy goal. Even the most green-conscious politicians prefer to talk about ways of harnessing new sources of energy—whether offshore oil or wind or solar—than about how to better use existing supplies. Among the media, "almost all of the consideration is to supply," not conservation, says Lovins.Because of recent concerns about shrinking oil supplies and volatile energy prices, Lovins, 61, is attracting new praise. But his basic approach is an old one. Twenty-six years ago, he founded RMI, a nonpartisan consulting outfit that calls itself a "think and do tank"—one part idea factory, one part laboratory. Since then, Lovins and his staff, which has grown to nearly 100 people, have worked with more than 80 Fortune 500 companies, from Chevron to Texas Instruments, as well as state governments and the U.S. military. He also has written 29 books, including 2004's Winning the Oil Endgame.
[...]
His supporters span the political spectrum. There are the usual environmentalists, of course, like ones overheard at a recent RMI conference comparing how many miles per gallon their Priuses get. But he also draws praise from business leaders and military officials concerned about profits and national security. At one talk in Denver, Lovins was joined by Democratic Mayor John Hickenlooper, a liberal alternative-energy advocate, and by former CIA Director James Woolsey, who advised John McCain's presidential campaign on energy.
In addition to Lovins, the following people were honored: Lance Armstrong, David Baltimore, Regina Benjamin, Jeff Bezos, Terence Blanchard and Herbie Hancock (jointly), Benjamin Carson, Manny Diaz, Marian Wright Edelmen, Anthony Fauci, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin (jointly), Robert Gates, Fiona Harrison and Maria Zuber (jointly), Freeman Hrabowski, Anne Mulcahy, Indra Nooyi, Linda Rottenberg, Jeffrey Sachs, Steven Spielberg, US Junior Officers (as group).
Read more about them at US News & World Report.
Amory Lovins
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At the price of being cynical, has anyone ever done a comparison of Amory's forecast vs. actual for different technologies.
It seems that his predictions from 20-30 years ago seem to always overstate a technologies' efficiency gains and underestimate costs.
Well, Mr. Smarty, by your own admission, you already have. So please, enlighten us.
Lovins is long on arm waving and short on reality. If you read his stuff carefully, he is primarily promoting natural gas in cogeneration facilities. Cogeneration is ok but it only applicable in a few very specific set of circumstances.
It is not appropriate to itentify gas fired power electric generation as low CO2 emitting. It is lower than coal but so is almost everything else. Lovins routinely calls gas fired power generation low emitting.
You have to read his stuff very critically because he plays fast and loose with his statistics. For example in a context of talking about expanding solar and wind for the US, he will say that worldwide more power is generated with renewables than with nuclear power. Strictly speaking, this is true. He doesn't say, however, that most of that worldwide renewable power is large project hydroelectric and that the US is pretty well tapped out for large scale hydroelectric.
Why does a man with such a miserable track record and few relevant credentials get a free pass as some kind of energy guru by the green movement?
The best thing Obama could do is to put him in charge of the Energy Policy.
Lovins is by far the best spokesperson I've ever heard\read on the crutial importance of conservation and efficiency.
Why isn't he being hired for this new Government?
An unsung hero for our day is Frederich Kirschenmann professor emeritus at ISU Leopald center where he has been sort of black balled because of his organic and sustainable stances that are con Monsanto, ethanol and conventional agriculture.
This would be a great treehugger report.
Can we please get a secretary of energy who knows something about science and energy instead of just economics, law, or political science? Sorry Bodman doesn't count (formerly in treasury): Chemical engineers have yet to repent for creating thousands of substances that are teratogenic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic, and that are never designed to be processed by nature.
Amory is a perfect choice for energy secretary.
BTW: Bill Young, wrong. His micropower comparisons are in regards to newly installed capacity, and micropower doesn't include big hydro. http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.22.2006-torontostar
Spend some time listening to all of Amory's energy efficiency lectures from Stanford and you'll be ready to comment on whether he is effective or not. If you haven't, you haven't given him a real chance. Cheers.