Conversations with History - Amory Lovins

"Natural Capitalism"
Amory Lovins
Cofounder, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Amory Lovins for a discussion of Natural Capitalism ( http://www.natcap.org/ ). Lovins explains the origins and mission of Rocky Mountain Institute ( http://www.rmi.org/ ) and analyzes the opportunities and benefits of using the profit motive to redesign the relationship between the environment and capitalism. Drawing on his thirty year career as an innovator/consultant/scientist,he analyzes the mechanisms by which ideas can impact business practice and government policy with the goal of sustaining the environment.

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/iis/Kreisler.html
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/

Recorded 28 October 2008

Category:

Education

Tags:

• UC
• Berkeley
• ucberkeley
• environment
• science
• political
• activism
• Amory
• Lovins
• yt:quality=high

[daxtonbrown]

Amory Lovins is a pompous ass who produces diddly squat. I always wonder how he scams everyone so easily.

[pujoe]

LOVINS: "If you don't understand how things are connected, quite often the cause of problems is solutions." : )

[lucasfencl]

@juscurious: Amory cites that de-centralized power systems passed nuclear power in electrical output per year in ~2002 in his 2008 writing "Forget Nuclear" available in the energy and resource library section of the rocky mountain institute website. He states in the conclusion that official power usage databases lack de-centralized power system energy sources. Wikipedia cites nuclear share of world energy supply is 15%. Perhaps, nuclear power usage is not as dominant sometimes claimed.

[ExperienceCounts2]

@juscurious I'm sorry dear, I haven't any inclination to respond to straw man or red herring arguments. There is no requirement to store electrical energy directly, energy can be stored in other forms and converted back to electricity later. Good luck on learning how to use google to check on those.

[juscurious]

Just answer one question for me. How do you store large quantities of electrical energy? Don't tell me about pumping water to higher elevations. That's not storing electrical energy. Where are there plants in the United States or Europe that are doing this? Name one and give me some references. I like to check on this. I don't think you can because there aren't any using this technology that I'm aware of. Just how are they storing this energy? Maybe Lovins knows and will give us the answer?

[ExperienceCounts2]

@juscurious Hmm, my earlier reply seems to have disappeared. In any case, I think the label "dumb" should be reserved for people who watch "Conversations with HISTORY" and demand new ideas instead of a retrospective. There are multiple pumped storage plants in Asia currently operating. Nuclear plants have stricter geographic requirements than hydro does. You can keep the ad hominems, good luck with the attitude. рока.

[juscurious]

You seem to be getting dumber with each post. I suggest upping the medication. Pumped Storage? Just how? Yes there are places that pump water to higher evalations during non-peak load hours only to release them during the peak hours. This has been known about for a long time. You need the right geography for this. The plants for China aren't in operation yet. No one has yet developed a practical method of storing large amounts of electrical energy. Give me an example of where this exists?

[ExperienceCounts2]

Reading comprehension running a little low today? Missed the "Pumped-Storage" part? That's the answer to your "what do you do when it's dark out". You store the energy exactly the same way it's currently done. For "30 years in the energy biz" you seem to be amazingly ignorant of a storage method that is used on large and small scales all around the world. Your argument fails both as a straw man and as a standalone argument.

[juscurious]

Tianhuangping Pumped-Storage Hydro Plant? Nowhere do I say I'm against Hydro Power Plants-where you can build them. In California you cannot build any new plants & that's true also for whole West Coast. The enviro nuts have stopped them. China doesn't have this problem. Plus not every area is suited for Hydro Power. In the Midwest you don't have the geography for Hydro Power. The same is true for almost the entire South. Still waiting for ideas from Lovins. Been on hold for a while.

[juscurious]

You say the rest of the world is going forward? Yes they are. The ones with the technology are building Nuclear Power Plants. Not economical? Rubbish. They are not only the safest but the cheapest. Expensive- only because of the lawsuits filed by Lunatics in the environmental movement. They delay the projects jacking up costs and increasing costs to the point it isn't economical. Other countries don't have this problem. France for example gets 80% of electrical power from nuclear.