RMI Outlet
Plug Into New Ideas
Negawatts: Twelve Transitions, Eight Improvements, and One Distraction
This article from 1996 describes the transitions required for the more efficient use of electricity. In the article, Amory Lovins argues that twelve fundamental transitions…
Ultralight Hybrid Vehicles: Principles and Design
The technical feasibility of superefficient family cars has been demonstrated. Yet it has typically compromised vehicle performance, safety, cost, manufacturability, or marketability. Industry experimentation has…
Hypercars: The Next Industrial Revolution
Strong synergies between ultralight mass, ultralow drag, and hybrid-electric drive can produce attractive designs for superefficient cars (and many other vehicles). A realistic near-term 4–5-passenger…
How Not to Parachute More Cats
This classic publication describes one of RMI’s founding parables. The story of parachuting cats into Borneo illustrates the RMI principle of whole-system design. The authors…
Sustainable Design Guide of the Japanese Institute of Architects (Foreword)
In this chapter, Amory Lovins lays out some of RMI’s core principles such as biomimicry and whole-systems design and applies them to Eastern and Western…
