Energy Guru To Carmakers: Time To Bet Big

Amory Lovins Says It's Time For Bold Changes In Energy And Transportation, Focusing First On Efficiency

(CNET)  Amory Lovins, a renowned author and big thinker on energy, specializes in making the impossible real.

His 4,000-square-foot Colorado home has no furnace, uses a few dollars' worth of electricity a month, and features an indoor tropical garden with banana trees and papaya plants. In conversation, he's quick to pull out his iPhone to show a car prototype inspired by the Hypercar, which is three to five times more efficient than conventional cars.

He's the chief scientist and co-founder of nonprofit advisory firm Rocky Mountain Institute, which develops environmentally friendly solutions using business as a lever. Among the organizations it advises are Ford Motor, Wal-Mart, and the Pentagon.

On Tuesday, Lovins spoke to investors and entrepreneurs at a forum on clean tech organized by Xconomy, where he was interviewed by venture capitalist Paul Maeder about energy and the environment. (On Wednesday, he spoke at Harvard University.)

With the U.S. automakers' financial woes and an incoming president high on everyone's minds, Lovins offered his trademark unconventional thinking bolstered by a blizzard of data.

The biggest danger to cash-strapped U.S. auto companies is making incremental changes to their product lines, he argued. Instead, they need to make radically more efficient cars by adopting several technologies aimed at efficiency. (Lovins coined the term "negawatts," which refers to watts that are not used.)

"Right now they view accelerated transformation as a risk and a distraction. I think it's actually a low-risk strategy. When your competitors new and old all around the world are coming up with radically more efficient, safe, (and) durable cars, you can't afford incrementalism," Lovins said in an interview after his talk.

"It would be tragic to bail out the industry now and see it go under in another five years as competitors' faster innovation takes hold," he said.

Pinning incumbent automakers' turnaround on electric powertrains through plug-in electric cars is a myopic view of the available technologies.

Cars can be made half as heavy as they are today by using composite materials such as light but strong carbon fiber, a choice that gives manufacturers more flexibility and reduces costs in production. "Lightweighting" lowers the engineering bar for alternative powertrain technologies as well, he argues. With less weight to haul around, expensive batteries can be smaller and fuel cell vehicles become feasible.

The other technology changes required to set automakers on the right path are aerodynamics and software for remote diagnostics and other tasks.

"Whatever your advanced powertrain is, especially if it's all-electric, it will be a great deal smaller and cheaper and lighter if you first get the platform physics right--making the car light and slippery," he said. "If you don't do that and your competitors do, you're toast."

Many businesses fail to make high-performing products because they don't practice what he calls "integrative design," or making design choices to optimize the entire vehicle rather than individual components. In the case of U.S. auto companies, there's a cultural bias toward powertrain engineering.

Carbon pricing or negawatts?
In buildings, too, existing practices and delay-ridden business processes slow down adoption of efficient home energy systems.

In its projects, the Rocky Mountain Institute has found that building owners can get energy savings of 60 percent with a three-year payback for energy-efficiency retrofits. The group found that new green building constructions can be done for lower capital costs than traditional methods, contrary to the prevailing view.

When asked what words of advice he offers President-elect Barack Obama, Lovins said the new administration needs to coordinate efforts between the Department of Energy and any climate initiatives.

Many investors and consumers expect that putting a price on carbon emissions--through a cap-and-trade system or tax--will make many clean technologies more economical. Lovins thinks carbon pricing is a good idea but it's not essential.

"You could make lots of money off of efficiency with zero carbon price. We know how to save half the oil and gas and three quarters of the electricity in this country," he said. There are, however, "institutional barriers" that block adoption of energy efficiency practices, he said, apparently referring to incumbent fuel and energy companies.

Longer term, he said it's not clear that carbon prices will remain high enough to drive emissions reductions as intended.

Policy and geoengineering
On specific policy levers, he offered two ideas: "decoupling" in the electric utility industry and a "feebate" structure in transportation, even if they are both implemented first at the state level.

Regulations in about 40 states are structured so that utilities make more money by selling more electricity to consumers. With decoupling, utilities are incented to introduce more efficiency.

The per-capita electricity usage in the state of California, for example, has held steady since the 1970s, while its economy has grown, he noted.

The goal of a feebate--combining the words "fee" and "rebate"--is to incent consumers and automakers to value efficient vehicles.

When consumers purchase cars, there is a sliding scale where they receive a rebate for purchasing the most-efficient vehicles and a fee for the least-efficient.

"It widens the price spread between the most- and least-efficient models and...automakers can make more money because there is more technology content in the cars."

With his emphasis on energy efficiency and practical solutions, it's probably not surprising that he, like many other scientists, are wary of geoengineering ideas, such as putting sulfur particles in the air to cool the earth or seed the ocean with iron to stimulate carbon-sequestering algae blooms.

"Geoengineering is pretty scary. We really don't know what we are doing," Lovins said. "On climate science, there's a whole lot we don't know and most of the surprises are bad surprises...When you've got one planet and you've got to keep living there, you don't want to try anything irreversible."

[djconklin]

"LETS JUST ALL GO UNDERGROUND WHERE THE TEMP STAYS THE SAME ALL THE TIME." At 30 feet that''s at 55 degrees. I''d like it a tad warmer than that.

[djconklin]

"That''s their prescription and in the case of the guru, the alternative, as stated in the article, is a home of 4,000 square feet, more than DOUBLE the size of a typical American abode." His house uses as much energy as 2 120 watt light bulbs _and_ has no furnace. Now check your electric bill--how much energy did you use? How much of his 4,000 sg. feet was for the banana trees and papaya plants? If your house didn''t have the plants and was 2,000 sq. feet how much would your electric bill be (and no furnace)? That would be nice, eh?

This is an honest question I would like answered. I live in Wisconsin, where high winds, blizzards and heavy rain storms are common. In this article, it is said they can make vehicles half the weight. But in many cases, it seems like the only thing that keeps a vehicle on the road during harsh weather is the weight of the vehicle. I''m concerned light vehicles would blow all over, therefor making the driving of such a vehicle very dangerous. How would you combat this?

This is an honest question I would like answered. I live in Wisconsin, where high winds, blizzards and heavy rain storms are common. In this article, it is said they can make vehicles half the weight. But in many cases, it seems like the only thing that keeps a vehicle on the road during harsh weather is the weight of the vehicle. I''m concerned light vehicles would blow all over, therefor making the driving of such a vehicle very dangerous. How would you combat this?

[cariboubarbi]

Wingnuts,


The times are changing and we''ve got a lot of problems to solve in a very short time.

If you don''t have any solutions or forward thinking ideas then just shut up.

If you can''t help, just get out of the way.

[edintex]

When the switch to socialism is complete, these "big thinkers" or self proclaimed "geniuses", who have never started or ran a real business that made a real profit, will be rounded up just like in pre-soviet Russia.

Energy Guru: "Time to Think BIG". Here is the English translation of that catchphrase: In particular, according to RMI, and like "efficiency" organizations, "The solution to profligacy is to devise ALTERNATIVE profligacy." That''s their prescription and in the case of the guru, the alternative, as stated in the article, is a home of 4,000 square feet, more than DOUBLE the size of a typical American abode. So, "alternative" profligacy is actually the goal, albeit unstated, and that''s all they do...the same mindless march "forward" like lemmings, except that the profligate lifestyle will be more efficient and based on more advanced technology in the next phrase. The next time somebody comes at you with some drivel about how ALTERNATIVE energy is going to save us, might I suggest that you can stop then dead in their tracks with the rejoinder, "So, you think the solution to profligacy is ALTERNATIVE profligacy, eh?" These non-profit orgs sucking up the public''s money are actually worse than the capitalist leeches who destroyed the planet. Usually, with the leeches, the goal of "growth" is stated out in the open. Compare that with the non-profits, who lead you down what''s always described as an "alternative" path to GROWTH but ending up INVARIABLY at the SAME end point as the leeches, if not a worse end point (ironically)!

[mikezembill]

LETS JUST ALL GO UNDERGROUND WHERE THE TEMP STAYS THE SAME ALL THE TIME.

[tburzio]

So, if our gas and electricity usage goes to zero, where will the government get the taxes they need to run their welfare programs? The government makes more *profit* from oil than Exxon...

[demdump]

Looks like we are starting to head in the right direction!! Beginning to leave the economics of dung behind. The laws of physics are beginning to prevail!!

Posted by rightbehind

The Middleeast and Venezuela Russia are nervous and it about time..

The story states that the guru lives in a 4,000 square foot house. That''s palatial compared to most already oversized homes in America. Worse, the building materials and resources used in building such an oversized house eat up the supposed "energy" savings ballyhooed in the article. Since when is a 4,000 square foot house "unconventional". Such a home is as CONVENTIONALLY profligate as you can get, represents the prototypical playground of the well-off, and if all 6 billion denizens of Earth aspired to that size home, there would be no space left to walk around. This is hardly "unconventional" thinking...indeed, it''s THOUGHTLESS.

[hober_mallow]

Hey man !!! No COBOL jokes !!!

I work on a JES3 system.

[random_radar]

I work for a software company that is already free of Microsoft. The only Microsoft box we have is for testing web browser compatability.

The only real reason to use Microsoft software is to play games, which is why Microsoft has a monopoly on the home market. For business use, there is not any compelling reason to patronize Microsoft and many good reasons to avoid Microsoft.

Of course, turning to Big Blue may not be the greatest alternative, but Linux is a viable platform in many incarnations and open software has produced every kind of application needed for most businesses for free.

[loublain]

If this pushes corporate customers into a closer look at *nix it will force Microsoft to be competitive ... maybe

[larryh022002]

Good going IBM, in addition to the Display Writer, OS2 and VSAM, JCL Cobol, this will be really a big hit. What will they think of next..