Learn how we are working to transform how we use and produce energy.
Iran’s Invisible Opportunity for Energy and Security: Modern energy investments could sideline nuclear ambiguity
Why we share this work for free
RMI is an independent nonprofit working to accelerate the clean energy transition. We publish research like this to inform decision-makers and drive real-world impact.
Our work is supported by philanthropy as well as partnerships, including fee-for-service engagements. This support makes it possible for us to share our independent insights for free.
If you find this work valuable, you can support it anytime.
Get more insights like this
Stay up to date with the latest research, analysis, and tools from RMI by opting in to receive occasional emails below. You’ll get new reports, event invitations, and practical insights to help us all accelerate the clean energy transition.
Loading form...
Your download should start automatically. If it doesn’t, click the download button below.
This work is made possible by philanthropy
RMI is a nonprofit supported by donors and partners. Philanthropy enables us to produce independent research and make resources like this freely available.
If you find this report valuable, please consider supporting our work. You can also explore how we partner with organizations to drive impact.
Jump to Section
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 Iran’s nuclear activities to expand modern energy technologies could further displace and discredit its failed nuclear power program,. That in turn could help disambiguate its nuclear activities and head off an incipient regional nuclear arms race, much as Argentina and Brazil did in the past three decades. It could also modernize the historically all-nuclear interpretation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Article IV (promising countries forgoing nuclear bombs access to exclusively peaceful nuclear energy) in light of its original purpose—secure and affordable energy for development—then aggressively meeting that legitimate need.This article expands a condensed version in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
About the Authors
Amory Lovins
Cofounder and Chairman EmeritusRelated Insights
Help build the clean energy future. Donate today.
Independent research. Real-world solutions. Supported by donors.
RMI can pursue the highest-impact climate and energy solutions because we’re supported by people who believe change is possible. Every gift helps advance the work needed to make clean energy the default choice worldwide.
For other ways to give to RMI, including checks or gifts of stock, please visit Other Ways to Give.
