Physicist Amory Lovins (1947), FRSA, is Cofounder and Chairman Emeritus of Rocky Mountain Institute; energy advisor to major firms and governments in 65+ countries for 40+ years; author of 31 books and more than 600 papers; and an integrative designer of superefficient buildings, factories, and vehicles.
Background
He has received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, the MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Happold, Benjamin Franklin, and Spencer Hutchens Medals, 12 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood (“alternative Nobel”), National Design, and World Technology Awards. In 2016, the President of Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse).
A Harvard and Oxford dropout, former Oxford don, honorary US architect, and Swedish engineering academician, he has taught at ten universities, most recently Stanford’s Engineering School and the Naval Postgraduate School (but only on topics he’s never studied, so as to retain beginner’s mind). He served in 2011–18 on the National Petroleum Council. Time has named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers. His latest books include Natural Capitalism (1999, www.natcap.org), Small Is Profitable (2002, www.smallisprofitable.org), Winning the Oil Endgame (2004, www.oilendgame.com), The Essential Amory Lovins (2011), and Reinventing Fire (2011, www.reinventingfire.com).
His main recent efforts include supporting RMI’s collaborative synthesis, for China’s National Development and Reform Commission, of an ambitious efficiency-and-renewables trajectory that informed the 13th Five Year Plan; helping the Government of India design transformational mobility; and exploring how to make integrative design the new normal, so investments to energy efficiency can yield expanding rather than diminishing returns.
Location
Basalt, CO
Twitter
@AmoryLovins
Downloadable Bios
General Audience
Energy/Security Audience
Automotive/Transportation Audience
Architecture Audience
Chinese Language
Authored Works
Outlet Blog Post
On April 14, Energy Secretary Rick Perry sent a memo ordering a 60-day departmental study of whether federal policies favoring an unnamed competitor—evidently renewable electricity like solar and windpower—are constraining supposedly vital “baseload” plants (impliedly coal and nuclear), to the assumed detriment of grid reliability and resilience. Existing studies by grid …
Outlet Blog Post
For more detail on the topics covered in this article, readers should see Amory Lovins’ FERC comments, a recent article on Forbes, and a forthcoming article in The Electricity Journal. In April, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced a 60-day study on electricity market design…
Outlet Blog Post
Mr. Stephens misrepresents the German energy situation in three ways. First, he compares 2016’s record renewable electricity production with the whole economy’s carbon dioxide emissions. In 2015–16, those rose 0.9 percent—one-third due to leap day and a cold winter—as transport fuels and the gas that heats half the buildings got efficient…
Outlet Blog Post
On Wednesday [March 15, 2017] in Detroit, beneath a vast American flag, President Trump answered 17 automakers’ call to reopen the Mid-Term Review of the 2022–25 “CAFE” automotive efficiency standards. On his fourth day in office, he’d expedited approvals for two oil…
insight
Built on 30 years of research and work in the field, Reinventing Fire maps pathways for running a 158%-bigger U.S. economy in 2050 needing no oil, no coal, and no nuclear energy.
Outlet Blog Post
A widespread claim—that dozens of nuclear plants, too costly to run profitably, now merit new subsidies to protect the earth’s climate—just collided with market reality. The CEO of one of America’s most prominent and technically capable utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric Company—previously chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute and the…
insight
China’s prestigious Energy Review asked Amory Lovins to introduce its first issue after the Chinese calendar began the Year of the Monkey. China’s latest efficiency and renewable opportunities, as assessed by Reinventing Fire: China, blended with a call to face our energy challenges with monkeys’ cleverness, agility, and confidence. This…
insight
China’s prestigious Energy Review asked Amory Lovins to introduce its first issue after the Chinese calendar began the Year of the Monkey. China’s latest efficiency and renewable opportunities, as assessed byReinventing Fire: China, blended with a call to face our energy challenges with monkeys’ cleverness, agility, and confidence. This is…
Outlet Blog Post
Why should equity markets tank when oil prices do? Beats me. Among many sources of jitters, this shouldn’t be a big one (though The Economist demurs). When oil prices fall 70+ percent, oil companies and their lenders and investors suffer, so do oil-dependent communities, but oil users (far more…
Outlet Blog Post
Earlier this year, MIT researchers were the latest in a series of analysts to raise alarm about the perceived limitations of solar PV’s continued growth. In short, these analysts propose that variable renewables will depress wholesale prices when they run, thereby limiting their own economic success. These concerns…
