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
Today’s joint announcement by President Obama and President Xi represents the second time in two years the leaders have met to make significant climate commitments. Last year’s meeting focused on setting aggressive goals that reflect each country’s unique situation. This year’s meeting moved decisively to implementation commitments intended to deliver…
Outlet Blog Post
This week is the seventh Climate Week NYC. The annual event brings together influential global figures—and new voices—from the worlds of business, government, and society who are leading the low-carbon transition. We live in an exciting time, when more companies and investors are committed to bold climate leadership than…
insight
2015 Edition: The purpose of the micropower database is to present a clear, rigorous, and independent assessment of the global capacity and electrical output of micropower (all renewables, except large hydro, and cogeneration), showing its development over time and documenting all data and assumptions. With minor exceptions, this information is…
insight
Iran’s Invisible Opportunity for Energy and Security: Modern energy investments could sideline nuclear ambiguity. Amory Lovins’s novel essay explains how helping and encouraging Iran to do what its key officials already want—harness its world-class resources of energy efficiency and renewables—could strengthen Iran’s economy, security, global integration, political evolution, and international…
insight
Amory Lovins’s novel essay explains how helping and encouraging Iran to do what its key officials already want—harness its world-class resources of energy efficiency and renewables—could strengthen Iran’s economy, security, global integration, political evolution, and international standing without compromising others’ similar goals. Using the next 10–15+ years’ severe restrictions on…
Outlet Blog Post
The energy gods relish ironic humor. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is an economic and national-security loser, craved by Alaskan politicians but by no major oil company. Higher oil prices and better technologies only made it relatively less attractive. Yet whenever Congress nonetheless gets close to approving this…
Outlet Blog Post
Guest author Sir Richard Branson is cofounder of Carbon War Room. The world’s three biggest carbon emitters—the United States, China, and the European Union—have all announced emissions goals or limits in the past few months. That’s great news, but global fossil fuel demand continues to rise, and with it, so…
Outlet Blog Post
In a cover story and article 14 years ago about the emergent disruption of utilities, The Economist’s Vijay Vaitheeswaran coined the umbrella term “micropower” to mean sources of electricity that are relatively small, modular, mass-producible, quick-to-deploy, and hence rapidly scalable—the opposite of cathedral-like power plants that cost billions…
Outlet Blog Post
This decade China is set to regain the status it has held for 18 of the past 20 centuries: the world’s largest economy. A major engine of historic success was China’s inexorable drive to develop and deploy new technologies, far outpacing other civilizations. As Joseph Needham documented, and his student…
Outlet Blog Post
Readers of The Economist may have been surprised to read in its 26 July 2014 “Free exchange” section on page 63, or in its online version, the “clear” conclusion that solar and wind power are “the most expensive way of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,” while “nuclear plants…are cheaper,” so governments…
