Article | 2014
Response to J.P.’s column “New numbers, same conclusion”
Dr. Charles R. Frank, Jr.’s May 2014 Brookings Institution Working Paper claimed that new nuclear and gas-fired power plants can displace coal plants’ carbon emissions far more cost-effectively than solar and windpower can. This claim was featured and endorsed in late July by a full-page Free exchange” article in The Economist. Amory Lovins promptly rebutted Dr. Frank’s paper in detail (www.rmi.org/frank_rebuttal). Three weeks later, an anonymous Economist writer posted a new essay called “New numbers, same conclusion” claiming that unpublished recalculations by Dr. Frank confirmed his original conclusions even if a few of the original errors asserted by Lovins were corrected to some unstated degree. This response by Lovins refutes that claim, describes 17 errors or misrepresentations in the new Economist essay, and encourages Dr. Frank to reply transparently and specifically to the original critique.”