CATCHING sight of Amory Lovinsās pet iguanas can be a time-consuming job. His home is divided in two by a large, open greenhouse complete with a small stream, rock-shrewn earth and lots of tropical flora, all of which provide great cover for a lizard seeking solitude.
But this building is not just a home, it is also the head-quarters of a 40-strong think-tank. Rocky Mountain Institute near Aspen, Colorado, is a research charity set up by Lovins and his wife Hunter. Its aim is to promote the efficient and sustainable use of resources, and the building is proof that the two practise what they preach. Solar-heated and superin-sulated, it uses about a tenth of the electricity consumed by an average house of the same size, and even exports power to the grid (see āShine to efficiencyā).
Lovins has been a catalyst in shaping American energy policy, and has campaigned since the 1970s for unorthodox ways to save electricity. His ideas are still seen as controversial by many in the energy industry, but some have started to make their mark. In 1989, the Wall Street Journal named Lovins as one of the 28 people in the world most likely to change the face of business in the 1990s. The company he founded to champion energy efficiency, E SOURCE, now advises more than 300 organisations in dozes of countries, including power companies, major industries and governments.
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Lovins was born in 1947 in Washington DC, and first became interested in energy and the environment in the late 1960s while studying physics at the University of Oxford. After being awarded a junior research fellowship there, he decided to specialise in energy ā but he was told that energy was not an academic subject and to think again. As a result, in 1971 he resigned to work for Friends of the Earth. āThe academic problems I was working on were very interesting but not important by comparison,ā says Lovins.
Two years after he joined FoE, OPEC imposed its oil embargo, and the price of oil doubled to $9.6 a barrel within 12 months. Politicians raced for ways to insulate their countries from the actions of OPEC. In the US, presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford approved plans to increase the number of coal-fired and nuclear power plants, and to expand oil exploration. By the year 2000, estimates suggested that Fordās plan would have created between 450 and 800 new nuclear reactors and 500 to 800 coal-fired plants.
Lovinās criticism of this strategy ā which he called the āhard pathā ā catapulted him for the first time into the public eye. In 1976, he published an article called āEnergy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?ā which portrayed the US at a fork in the road. One option was the hard path, while the alternative āsoft pathā was to increase the efficiency with which energy is used and expand the use of renewable sources such as wind and solar power. The article appeared in an influential journal called Foreign Affairs, which is widely read by members of Congress and the American civil service. Lovins also criticised the use of coal and oil on environmental grounds; burning them would increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and make global warming worse, he said, while drilling for oil would increase the threat of local disasters caused by spills. For the oil, nuclear and coal industries his views amounted to heresy, and the clamour they raised led eventually to Congressional hearings.
āAmory Lovins is a dangerous individual because he is selling dreams without presenting the bill,ā a representative of Atomic Energy of Canada told the hearings. āIn spite of the hypnotic impression of fiery, elegant plumage and excellent workmanship, the truth is that Mr Lovins is the purveyor of named nonsense,ā said Peter Brennan, a former US Secretary of Labor.
Despite such fierce opposition, Lovinsās article and his performance at the hearings changed the focus of the debate. The question āwhat is the best way to produce more energy?ā shifted towards ādo we need so much energy?ā recalls Walt Patterson, who worked with Lovins at FoE and is now senior research fellow at the International Institute of International Affairs in London. āHe met the force of tradition head on,ā he says, āIt would never have happened so fast if he hadnāt been there.ā
Powerful profits
Lovins maintained that even in economic terms, the hard path did not make sense. According to Peter Bradford, chairman of the New York Public Service Commission, which regulates the stateās power companies. Lovins was āone of the first to advocate and really to demonstrate that it was a lot cheaper to conserve energy than to keep building nuclear power plants to provide moreā. But at the time, power companies were not interested in energy efficiency ā more power sold spelled greater profits. Lovins argued that a market which failed to give customers the cheapest alternative was the wrong market and needed to be changed.
The tide began to turn in the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter, who entered the White House in 1977, backed research on renewables and signed legislation that made it easier for generators to sell electricity from renewable sources. In 1979, the second global oil shock, triggered by the Iranian revolution, sent the price of a barrel of oil soaring to $25. This, says Bradford, made energy efficiency look even more attractive.
In 1982, Hunter suggsted that they should find a place to settle down and āthink about things we havenāt had time to think aboutā. The result was RMI. By this time, Lovins had started to work with power companies and the state utility commissioners in an effort to convince them that power companies should be allowed to profit not just from selling megawatts, but also from ānegawattsā ā or saved energy. āNegawatts was a typo in a Colorado Public Utilities Commission document and we liked it so much we spread it around,ā Lovins says.
The idea was that if, for example, a power company needed to build a new plant to meet demand, but could eliminate the need for the extra demand more cheaply by insulating its customersā homes, it should be allowed to do the latter. Customers would have lower bills. But, although the company would avoid the costs of the new plant, its income would suffer. To overcome this, Lovins said that commissions should set power company profits not on how much electricity they sold but on how much money they saved their customers. In effect, this change would give part of the customersā savings back to the power company ā so everyone would win.
To date, Lovins has worked with utility commissions in 30 states and more than 100 power companies. Since 1989, eight states have fully adopted reforms that allow power companies to profit from efficiency programmes and dozens more have partly done so. Today, when choosing how to meet demand, federal law dictates that power companies must follow the strategy that is cheapest for customers. A measure of how far some states have moved down the soft path is that in California, the countryās biggest privately owned utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, plans to meet three-quarters of its new energy needs this decade from efficiency programmes, and the rest from renewable resources.
Trading in efficiency
RMI and others have devised various profitable energy-saving programmes. Power companines can offer low-interest or interest-free loans for efficiency, offer rebates to customers who buy energy-saving equipment such as efficient fridges, or give away goods such as low-energy lamps. Southern California Edison, for example, has given away more than two million compact fluorescent lamps. The notion of the negawatt as a commodity has also allowed power companies and their customers to start trading in saved energy. āOne utility said to its industrial customers, āwe will give modernisation grants to those of you who offer to save the most electricity per dollarā,ā says Lovins. He looks forward to spot, futures and options markets in negawatts.
Lovins is a very intense character. Discovering what motivates him is not easy. His pat answer is: āTo save the world, have fun and make money ā in that order.ā Hunter, however, provides a different perspective. āHe loves the ideas. There is an intellectual curiosity and a love of intellectual elegance,ā she says. āHe also has a love of wild places that are being ruined by peopleās stupid decision-making about energy.ā
Drop for drop
Today, RMIās influence spreads far beyond energy. Many of the ideas dreamt up for dealing with energy are being borrowed in other areas, such as agriculture and the efficient use of water ā and not just by RMI researchers. In the 1980s, the town of Morro Bay in California was short of water. The town authorities told builders that if they wanted permission to build a new house, they must first save twice as much water elsewhere in town as the new house would use. āThe builders wanting permits went door-to-door installing water-saving fixtures in a third of the housing stock in the first two years,ā Lovins says.
He has also been an active campaigner for more efficient transport. In 1990, as a result of the Gulf War, he asked: āDid we put our kids in tanks because we didnāt put them in efficient cars?ā At the time, the average petrol consumption of American āhousehold vehiclesā, including cars, vans and light trucks, was 22 miles per gallon (8 kilometres per litre). If that figure had improved by 14.5 miles per gallon, the US would have needed no oil from the Gulf at all.
Lovins jokingly describes himself as a subversive, and since 1991 has been trying to engineer a revolution in the car industry. He ha promoted a radical car design that combines an ultralight, aerodynamic body made of composite materials, such as carbon fibre and Kevlar, with a hybrid drive. This would consist of a small petrol or diesel engine that would generate electricity to power motors at the wheels. Using existing off-the-shelf technology, the resulting āhypercarsā will be between five and ten times as efficient as existing vehicles, he says. The could travel about 360 miles per gallon and perform like top-range BMWs (Technology, 26 June 1993).
Lovins could have developed these ideas, patented them and sold them to one company. Instead, he decided to make most of them public. āItās a much better and safer way to get good hypercars on the road quickly and in large numbers,ā he says. He is working with more than twenty companies on their individual schemes, while promoting competition at a general level. āEveryone Iām working with knows that Iām talking to their competitors,ā he says.
But if the hypercar is successful and popular, wouldnāt this make traffic congestion worse? Not if the public and private sectors work together to develop ānegamileā markets to help to keep cars off the road, says Lovins.
Companies could charge their employees to park in the company car park, for example. At the same time, employees would be paid a ācommuting allowanceā which, after tax, would offset the charge. If employees then decided to catch trains, ride bikes, or even walk to work, they could pocket the difference. The scheme could be carefully priced so the company makes a profit. Lovins says that the authorities in Southern California have designed such a scheme.
In an echo from the 1970s, Lovinās avid promotion of hypercars has upset some in the American car industry. āHeās banging the drum so hard and accusing us of dragging our feet,ā says the head of one advanced vehicle research programme. While he agrees that Lovinās ideas are fine on paper, they are too expensive for todayās market. āProbably over thirty years heās right,ā he says. āBut the change has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary.ā
Even Lovinsās supporters admit that sometimes the world is not ready for him. āHe has a good idea of where we want to go,ā says one, ābut doesnāt pay so much attention to how we get there.ā While debate over hypercars continues, however, it may be worth remembering that some of those who thought Lovins was daft in the 1970s are now paying for his advice.
Shrine to efficiency
UP CLOSE, the stone-clad, rounded walls of Rocky Mountain Institute remind you of a medieval castle. But this is not a cold, draughty building: RMIās walls are about 40 centimetres thick, filled with polyurethane foam, and built to keep heat in.
The windows are custom-made with the same aim in mind. In each, the space between two glass panes is filled with inert gases, which are poor heat convectors. A coated film of polyester reflects infrared radiation. Depending on vintage, the windows lose only one-sixth to one-twelfth as much heat as a single pane. To complete the insulation, above the wooden ceiling is more than 20 centimetres of polyurethane foam. RMI also acts like a giant storage heater; the floor alone consists of about 450 tonnes of heat-storing earth, masonry and concrete.
Even in the extreme climate of its Colorado location, the buildingās design combats the worst of the weather. At 2200 metres above sea level, the temperature in winter regularly drops below ā40 Ā°C. While there are two wood-burning stoves which are lit during very cold or cloudy spells, the Sun provides about 99 per cent of the buildingās heat, says Lovins. He reckons that even in a total solar eclipse the building would lose less than 0.5 Ā°C a day. In summer, when the temperature can hit 30 Ā°C, the temperature can be controlled by simply opening windows.
The Sun heats the instituteās water, too. Supporting the glass of the greenhouse is a massive plaster-covered arch into which are cast 100 metres of plastic pipe. Here, water is preheated to between 20 Ā°C and 40 Ā°C before receiving a boost from solar panels on the roof. The roof is also home to arrays of photovoltaic cells that generate up to 3 kilowatts of electricity. The cells supply about half of the instituteās needs and when not required, the power is sold back to the grid.
RMI boasts a variety of other efficient technologies, from compact fluorescent lamps to heat exchangers that heat up fresh incoming air with warm outgoing air. The shower heads use only a quarter of the water a normal shower head uses, and the outdoor lights are solar powered. All the energy-saving equipment added about $6000 to the cost of construction, says Lovins. But since it saves $7100 a year compared to the energy used in local buildings of similar size, āit paid back in about ten months with 1983/1984 technologyā, he says. āOne could do better today.ā
