Policy of Energy Change

In this interview, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Amory Lovins discuss energy policy. Topics discussed include walkable cities, how to drill for efficiency, and what governments can do to accelerate clean energy. The importance and opportunity of legislation on a local level are emphasized. Domestic drilling, funding sources for clean energy, putting a price on carbon and motivating change are other topics discussed. Amory concludes by describing the security issues related to our electric grid, and the necessary steps to build a more reliable and localized energy infrastructure.

Senate Testimony: How Innovative Technologies, Business Strategies, and Policies can Dramatically Enhance Energy Security and Prosperity

In this invited testimony to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (SD-366, 0930-1130), Amory Lovins explained how innovation in business strategies, technologies, and policies can lead to energy independence, energy security, and prosperity. Lovins argued that the surest path to an energy policy that enhances security and prosperity is free-market economics: letting all ways to save or produce energy compete fairly, at honest prices, no matter which kind they are, what technology they use, where they are, how big they are, or who owns them. That would make the energy security, oil, climate, and most proliferation problems fade away, and would make our economy and democracy far stronger.

Energy Performance Contracting for New Buildings

This guide describes energy performance contracts and performance-based fees for new buildings. Performance contracting provides an incentive for architects to design and construct efficient buildings and promotes better integration between architects, engineers, builders, owners, and operations and maintenance staff. The contracts provide an incentive to the design and construction community to go beyond minimum code requirements and they can provide excellent return on investment with low risk. This document describes the elements of a performance contract, what one can expect from a performance contract, the relationships between individuals involved in a performance contract, a step-by-step guide to creating a performance contract, as well as case studies from successful contracts.

Reforming the Automobile Fuel Economy Standards Program: Letter to the NHTSA

In this 2004 letter to the NHTSA, Amory Lovins challenges the agency's proposed policy about the Automobile Fuel Economy Standards Program. He argues that NHTSA's policy should be performance-based, not prescriptive; that the standards should be neutral as to vehicle mass, or favor the down-sized vehicles; if fuel-economy choices are desired to be decoupled from vehicle-size-class choices, then this is done by normalizing to size; and the standards should be technology-neutral or technology-forcing.

We Can Take Politics Out of Energy Policy

This editorial describes the 2001 National Energy Policy Initiative, an effort by bipartisan energy policy experts to come to a consensus on the nation's energy needs for security, prosperity, justice and environmental quality. The NEP Initiative’s suggestions were strong on market mechanisms and light on regulation. They rested on such common-sense principles as letting all technologies to produce or save energy compete fairly, regardless of their nature, size, or ownership; rewarding what we want, not the opposite; and preferring options that solve or avoid many problems at once without making new ones. The editorial calls for bipartisanship such as that shown by the NEP Initiative around energy policy in order to create lasting energy solutions.

Energy Resource Investment Strategy for the City of San Francisco

This report contains RMI's work with the City of San Francisco. RMI assisted in the development of data, analysis and program design in support of a comprehensive energy resource investment strategy (ERIS). The ERIS prioritizes San Francisco's electric resource options based on cost, performance and environmental impact. The options include energy efficiency, co-generation, solar and wind power, as well as conventional gas-fired generation and new transmission lines. The report also describes RMI's work helping the city design policies and programs to improve energy efficiency and harness distributed and renewable energy resources, while insuring an adequate and reliable supply of electricity for its residents. This report contains a scenario analysis for inclusion in the preliminary San Francisco Electricity Resource Plan.

Accelerating Renewables: Expanding the Policy and Marketing Toolkit

This keynote presentation, given to a meeting of the American Renewable Energy Council, suggests a dozen ways beyond traditional price and regulatory instruments for speeding the adoption of renewable energy. The presentation also provides strategies for transitioning to hydrogen energy.

Mobilizing Energy Solutions

In this article in The American Prospect, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins argue that the "energy problem" is not that we are running out of it. By defining the problem as one of lack of supply and the answer as forcing more traditional supply, policy has undercut the real solution that the market has struggled to implement after each energy shock: impartially choosing the cheapest mix of ways to reduce demand or increase supply. Rather than answering the energy problem by looking for more supply, the authors argue for using efficiency measures to save energy. This is the first article in a two-part series published in The American Prospect. The second article is "Energy Forever" (RMI ID E02-01a).

Small is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Distributed Generation (and Other Distributed Resources)

This presentation is a preview of Amory Lovins' 2002 book, Small is Profitable. The book offers 207 ways in which the size of electrical resources—devices that make, save, or store electricity—impacts their economic value. It finds that properly considering the economic benefits of distributed electrical resources typically raises their value by a large factor, often approximately tenfold, by improving system planning, utility construction and operation (especially of the grid), and service quality, and by avoiding societal costs. The presentation offers a preview of these ideas.

Fool's Gold in Alaska (Annotated Version)

In this annotated version of the article from Foreign Affairs, the authors argue against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for economic, security, and environmental reasons. They show that the refuge does not contain sufficient supplies of oil and natural gas for drilling to make economic sense. Furthermore, they argue that the reserves contained in the refuge are so inaccessible as to make them more expensive and less secure than international supplies of oil. Available and proven technological alternatives that use energy more productively can meet the economic, security, and environmental goals of energy policy with far greater effectiveness, speed, profit, and security than can drilling in the refuge. Even if drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge posed no environmental or human rights concerns, it still could not be justified on economic or security grounds. For the complete article, see "Fool's Gold in Alaska," (RMI document ID E01-03).