RMI has announced that Chelsea Green will publish Reinventing Fire, a central tool in the campaign to roll out the messages behind the Reinventing Fire initiative.

The book will establish a vision and explore pathways for a business-led transition from oil and coal by 2050 (with natural gas transitioning soon thereafter) to efficiency and renewable energy. Amory Lovins is the book’s principal author, and dozens of RMI staff are contributing to the content.

“We have largely finished the research and are deep in the writing,” says RMI’s Lionel Bony, director of the office of chief scientist, who is managing the project. “Reinventing Fire is really coming along, and we are very excited.”

Alongside the book, a Reinventing Fire website and other products will focus on opportunities that can jump-start the United States toward a fossil-fuel-free economy.

“Chelsea Green is delighted to be publishing Reinventing Fire,” says Joni Praded, editorial director for Chelsea Green. “Like Rocky Mountain Institute, we feel that time has grown terribly short to usher out the age of oil and coal, and usher in a more sustainable future. We’ve been publishing foundational books on sustainability with a systems approach for 26 years—and we believe that this book will provide critical tools to implement the kind of transition we need to make in this country, and make quickly. Amory Lovins and the staff at RMI have set a high bar … and it's that kind of thinking and strategizing that can get us where we need to be.”

Chelsea Green plans to release the book in the fall.

To learn more about Reinventing Fire, visit RMI's website.

Molly Miller is a senior editor at RMI.

--Published February 2011