Amory Lovins - Reinventing Fire, Berkeley Lab Distinguished Lecture Series. May 5th, 2011

A prosperous, secure, and climate-stable world must shift from fossil fuels to efficient use and benign supply. The pieces of this puzzle are now falling into place in a detailed transdisciplinary synthesis underway at Rocky Mountain Institute for publication in September 2011. Existing and emerging technology, integrative design (often with expanding returns to investments in energy productivity), and aggressive but strategically advantageous market deployment can displace all U.S. oil and coal by 2050. Rather than requiring mandates and carbon pricing, this transition can be driven by new competitive strategies and business models supported by innovative public policies. Rapidly emerging shifts to platform-fit, electrified autos and to an efficient, diverse, distributed, renewable electricity system also offer important risk-management, security, and resilience benefits. In short, defossilizing fuels can be led by business for profit, with net-present-valued private internal benefits in the trillions of dollars.

Amory Lovins
Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute
Chairman Emeritus of Fiberforge Corporation

Physicist Amory Lovins is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute and Chairman Emeritus of Fiberforge Corporation. His wide-ranging innovations in energy, security, environment, and development have been recognized by the Blue Planet, Volvo, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, 11 honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood, National Design, and World Technology Awards. He advises governments and major firms worldwide on advanced energy and resource efficiency, has briefed 20 heads of state, and has led the technical redesign of more than $30 billion worth of industrial facilities in 29 sectors to achieve very large energy savings at typically lower capital cost. A Harvard and Oxford dropout, he has published 29 books and hundreds of papers and has taught at eight universities, most recently as a 2007 visiting professor in Stanford University's School of Engineering. In 2009, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.

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Science & Technology

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