A 2.6X Economy with No Oil, Coal, or Nukes: Amory Lovins Explains at Xconomy Event on Feb. 16

Originally published at http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2012/02/13/a-2-6x-economy-with-no-oil-coal-or-nukes-amory-lovins-explains-on-216-a-2-6x-economy-with-no-oil-coal-or-nukes-amory-lovins-explains-on-216/

What if you could “do” fire completely differently? Well, Reinventing Fire is the provocative title of a new book co-authored by energy visionary Amory Lovins, the cofounder, chairman, and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. What it’s really about, of course, is our energy future. And Lovins is bullish—at least about what can be done if we set our minds to it—with better economics, no acts of Congress or untoward government regulation, and NO dramatic shift in our lifestyles.

The book, whose full title is Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, offers what RMI calls “an independent ‘grand synthesis’ of a U.S. energy solution.” The result of the institute’s collaboration with an array of industry partners and others, it professes to detail “how to run a 2.6x-bigger economy in 2050 with no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and a $5-trillion lower net-present-value cost than business-as-usual.”

That’s an enticing future, to say the least. And we are really pleased that Lovins will take part in an up-close-and-personal chat this Thursday evening to explain it all—and answer your questions about how this could possibly be. To help guide the discussion, Lovins will be chatting with one of New England’s foremost experts on sustainability and energy: Jim Matheson, general partner of Flagship Ventures. The chat will take place at 7-8pm on Thursday at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge. There will be an hour of networking beforehand, and more networking afterwards.

As Matheson explains, “I think that one of the key points of the book, which is critical…is that the key to success is to not expect massive individual or governmental change, but rather to use the power of modular economic steps to make the broad based set of changes, steadily but surely, to reach an intended future.” Matheson says he plans to be more of an emcee than an interviewer. The audience is there to hear Lovins talk, not him, says Matheson, and “to be inspired to continue the often frustrating effort to change the world, a step at a time.”

You can get your tickets here to this fascinating evening. We hope to see you on Thursday.

Bob is Xconomy’s founder and editor in chief. You can e-mail him at bbuderi@xconomy.com, call him at 617.500.5926, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bbuderi.