Amory B. Lovins

Rocky Mountain Institute

Oil and coal have built our civilisation, created our wealth and enriched the lives of billions. Yet their rising costs to our security, economy, health and environment are starting to outweigh their benefits. Moreover, the tipping point where alternatives work better and compete purely on cost is not decades in the future – it is here and now. And that tipping point has become the fulcrum of economic transformation. In Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute offer a new vision to revitalise business models and win the clean energy race – not forced by public policy but led by business for long-term advantage. This independent and rigorous account offers market-based solutions integrating transportation, buildings, industry and electricity. It maps pathways for running a 158%-bigger US economy in 2050 but needing no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas and no new inventions. This transition would cost $5 trillion less than business-as-usual – without counting fossil fuels’ huge hidden costs. Whether you care most about profits and jobs, or national security, or environmental stewardship, climate, and health, Reinventing Fire makes sense. It’s a story of astounding opportunities for creating the new energy era.

Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

Reinventing Fire

L. Hunter Lovins

Ernst U. von Weizsäcker

Faktor vier. Doppelter Wohlstand - halbierter Verbrauch.

Today's electricity industry - large power stations feeding a nationwide grid - will soon be a thing of the past. This book explains why and what will replace it - decentralized and distributed electrical resources which can be up to 10 times as economically valuable. The authors - all leading experts in the field - explain very clearly and thoroughly all the benefits, so the engineers will understand the economic advantages and the investors will understand the engineering efficiencies. Here's what industry experts are saying about Small is Profitable... 'A tour-de-force and a goldmine of good ideas. It is going to have a stunning impact on thinking about electricity.' Walter C. Patterson, Senior Research Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London. 'An amazing undertaking - incredibly ambitious yet magnificently researched and executed.' Dr. Shimon Awerbuch, Senior Advisor, International Energy Agency, Paris. 'Outstanding...You have thought of some [benefits] I never considered...A great resource for the innovation in energy services that will have to take place for us to have a sustainable future.' Dr. Carl Weinberg, Weinberg Associates, former Research Director, PG&E. 'This is a brilliant synthesis and overview with a lot of original analytics and insights and a very important overall theme. I think it is going to have a big impact.' Greg Kats, Principal, Capital E LLC, former Finance Director for Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy. 'E. F. Schumacher would be proud of this rigorous extension of his thesis in Small is Beautiful. It shows how making systems the right size can make them work better and cost less. Here are critical lessons for the new century: technologies tailored to the needs of people, not the reverse, can improve the economy and the environment.' Dr. Daniel Kammen, Professor of Energy and Society and of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. 'Small is Profitable creates an unconventional but impeccably reasoned foundation to correctly assign the costs and true benefits of distributed energy systems. It has become an indispensable tool for modelling distributed energy systems benefits for us.' Tom Dinwoodie, CEO and Chairman, PowerLight Corporation. 'A Unique and valuable contribution to the distributed energy industry...Small Is Profitable highlights the societal benefits of distributed resources, and will be a helpful guide to policymakers who wish to properly account for these benefits in the marketplace.' Nicholas Lenssen, Senior Director, Primen. 'This book will shift the electric industry from the hazards of overcentralization toward the new era where distributed generation will rule.' Steven J. Strong, President, Solar Design Associates, Inc. 'Readers will understand why distributed resources are poised to fundamentally alter the electric power system. Its comprehensive review of the benefits of distributed resources [is] an important part of my library.' Dr. Thomas E. Hoff, President, Clean Power Research. 'The most comprehensive treatise on distributed generation.... Great job and congratulations.' Howard Wenger, Principal, Pacific Energy Group '..[D]ensely packed with information and insights...goes a long way to demonstrate that the former paradigm of electric power supply no longer makes sense.' Prof. Richard Hirsh, University of Vermont, Leading historian of the electric power sector. 'Amory Lovins was already the world's most original and influential thinker on the future of energy services in general and electricity systems in particular. This remarkable book is a very worthy addition to an extraordinary legacy.' Ralph Cavanagh, Energy Co-Director, Natural Resources Defense Council. 'This is a book every utility professional should have on the bookshelf.' Dr Peter S. Fox-Penner, Principal and Chairman of the Board, the Brattle Group, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy.

Small is Profitable

Enough about the oil problem. Here?s the solution.Over a few decades, starting now, a vibrant US economy (then others) can completely phase out oil. This will save a net $70 billion a year, revitalize key industries and rural America, create a million jobs, and enhance security.Here?s the roadmap ? independent, peer-reviewed, co-sponsored by the Pentagon ? for the transition beyond oil, led by business and profit.

Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security

Winning the Oil Endgame

Jane Goodall

Bill McKibben

John Chryssavgis

James Edward Hansen

Michele Lynn Goldsmith

A Conversation on Environment, Ethics, and Innovation

Sacred Commerce

Ernst Ulrich Weizs?cker

Since the industrial revolution progress has meant an increase in labour productivity. Factor Four describes a new form of progress, resource productivity, one which meets the overriding imperative for the future: sustainability. It shows how at least four times as much wealth can be extracted from the resources we use. As the authors put it, the book is about doing more with less, but this is not the same as doing less, doing worse or doing without.In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, which sent shock waves around the world by arguing that we were rapidly running out of essential resources. This Report to the Club of Rome offers a solution. It lies in using resources more efficiently, in ways which can already be achieved, not at a cost but at a profit. The book contains a wealth of examples of revolutionizing productivity, in the use of energy, from hypercars to low-energy beef; materials, from sub-surface drip irrigation to electronic books; and transport, from video conferencing to CyberTran, demonstrating how much more could be generated from much less, today.It explains how markets can be organized and taxes re-based to eliminate perverse incentives and reward efficiency, so wealth can grow while consumption does not. The benefits are enormous: profits will increase, pollution and waste will decrease and the quality of life will improve. Moreover, the benefits will be shared: progress will no longer depend on making ever fewer people more productive. Instead, more people and fewer resources can be employed. While for many developing countries the efficiency revolution may offer the only realistic chance of prosperity within a reasonable time span. The practical promise held out in this book is huge, but the authors show how it is up to each of us, as well as to businesses and governments, to take it.

Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use : the New Report to the Club of Rome

Factor Four

Paul Hawken

jak se rodí další průmyslová revoluce

Přírodní kapitalismus

The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size

L. Hunter

Points out how vulnerable America's energy system is to sabotage, technical failures, and natural disasters, and discusses the advantages of decentralization

Energy Strategy for National Security

Brittle Power

The first Industrial Revolution inaugurated 200 years of unparalleled material development for humankind. But the costs and the consequences are now everywhere evermore apparent: the living systems on which we depend are in retreat. Forests, topsoil, grasslands, wetlands, oceans, coral reefs, the atmosphere, aquifers, tundra and biodiversity are limiting factrs - the natural capital on which all economic activity depends. And they are all in decline. Add to that a doubling of the world's population and a halving of available per capita resources in the first 50 years of the 21st century and the inevitability of change is clear.This work offers forms of industry and commerce that can not only enhance enormously the wellbeing of the world's growing population, but will reverse the destruction and pollution of nature and restore the natural processes so vital to the future.The book introduces four central and interrelated strategies necessary to perpetuate abundance, avert scarcity and deliver a solid basis for social development. The first of these is: Radical Resource Productivity - getting two, four, or even ten times as much from the same quantities of materials and energy. A revolution in efficiency that provides the most immediate opportunities for businesses to grow and prosper.The second strategy is: Ecological Redesign - eliminating the very idea of waste by designing industrial systems on the model of ecological ones. Instead, for example, of digging merals out of the ground only to return them to landfill at the end of the product cycle, industrial processes will be designed to reuse materials constantly, in closed circles.The third strategy involves creating: A Service and Flow Economy - shifting from an economy of goods and purchases to one of service and flow, and redefining the relationship between producer and consumer. Affluence will no longer be measured by acquisition and quantity, but by the continuous receipt of quality, utility and performance.The final strategy is: Investing in Natural capital - reversing the worldwide ecosystem destruction to restore and expand the stocks of natural capital. If industrial systems are to supply an increasing flow of services in the future, the vital flow of services from living systems will have to be maintained or increased as well.

The Next Industrial Revolution

Natural Capitalism

Amory B. Lovins

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