Amory's Angle: Three Major Energy Trends to Watch

[kristopher]

Amory's Angle: Three Major Energy Trends to Watch
By Amory B. Lovins


Popular media and political chatter are abuzz with a cacophony of energy news and opinion. Amid the chaos, some orderly strands can be discerned. Here are three themes that merit attention:

EFFICIENCY IS ACCELERATING
Government forecasts predict U.S. energy intensity (primary energy used per dollar of real GDP) will continue to decline roughly two percent annually through 2040, but that the drop will be steepest in automobiles.

Motivated in part by more stringent fuel economy standards coming down the pipeline, lightweighting—the core of the new “platform fitness” approach, which focuses on optimizing a vehicle’s structure first before addressing propulsion technology and fuel source—has been the industry’s hottest strategic trend for several years (see “Battling America’s Automotive Obesity Epidemic,” page 28). In short, the auto industry is finally beginning the fundamental change we’ve been advocating since 1991. And as automakers and government adopt RMI’s fitness-first, ultralighting-focused strategy, they’re finding that making costly batteries or fuel cells fewer rather than cheaper can make electric cars more affordable with less time, cost, and risk. This can save severalfold more oil than the government forecasts, use 80 percent less autobody manufacturing capital, de-risk automaking, and save (in the U.S. alone) half an OPEC’s worth of oil.

Meanwhile, U.S. autos’ four percent average asset utilization—that is, they sit idle 96 percent of the time—is driving remarkable new carsharing and ridesharing programs, smartphone apps, and emergent automaker business models based on leasing mobility services rather than selling autos. These developments, adopting Natural Capitalism’s powerful “solutions economy” business model, could profoundly reduce the need for autos to yield the same or better mobility and access at lower cost....

http://www.rmi.org/summer_2013_esj_amorys_angle_three_major_energy_trends_main

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Fascinating. Thx for posting. n/t

[pscot]

2. K&R

[NNadir]

3. Amory's Angle is to get the oil sands people at "Suncor" to pay him "consulting fees"...

...while people who don't know shit about the world, who don't care about the world, who live in a bourgeois world devoid of compassion for, say, the 3 billion people on this planet who lack sanitation, praise the consumerist fool for being something he's not, an environmentalist.

Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

Suncor: http://www.suncor.com/en/about/242.aspx

I wish I could say that this paid off apologist for right wing companies was simply a snake oil salesmen, but he never met any kind of oil he couldn't greenwash and sell.

Lovins is a pure representative of the anti-nuke class, a piece of shit who spends his time greenwashing dangerous fossil fuels while soaking up huge amounts of money for the lipstick-on-a-pig failed renewable energy industry.

Humanity will suffer enormously because of the poor thinking this Snowmass moron popularized among anti-intellectual classes.

It would be amusing to remark on the types who hype this hypester, but somehow, with the atmosphere collapsing at the fastest rate ever observed, I, for one, am not amused.

[kristopher]

4. Nnadir and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are in sync

ALEC's Agenda (from their website) -

Recognizing the Large and Growing Need for Commercial Nuclear Energy

Resolution Recognizing the Large and Growing Need for Commercial Nuclear Energy and Urging the President and Congress to Make Steady Progress toward a Permanent Geologic Repository for Used Commercial Nuclear Fuel and Such Nearer-Term Priorities as Interim Fuel Storage and Research into Fuel Reprocessing and Closing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

Model Resolution

WHEREAS, America’s 103 commercial nuclear plants generate 20 percent of the Nation’s electricity with remarkably high levels of efficiency and reliability while producing zero emissions of pollutants or greenhouse gases; and

WHEREAS, projected U.S. electricity demand will increase by 40 percent by the 2030, requiring the nuclear industry to bring online 50 gigawatts of additional generation just to maintain nuclear energy’s present 20 percent share of the electricity generation fuel mix, and

WHEREAS, more than a dozen nuclear utilities and consortia are actively exploring plans to pursue construction and operating licenses for more than 30 new commercial nuclear reactors in the next several years; and

<snip>


NOW THEREFORE LET IT BE RESOLVED, that the American Legislative Exchange Council hereby urges the President and Congress to work together with the commercial nuclear industry, State and Local governments and other interested parties to encourage development of safe new nuclear plants as a key component of American fuel portfolio diversity and energy security; and

<snip>

Approved by ALEC Board of Directors in 2007.


http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-recognizing-the-large-and-growing-need-for-commercial-nuclear-energy-and-urging-the-president-and-congress-to-make-steady-progress-toward-a-permanent-geologic-repository-for-used-commercial/

And lest people are fooled by ALEC's expressions of concern for GHG emissions while they justify their support for nuclear (sound like anyone we know here?) this is what you'll find elsewhere on their website.

State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Initiatives

WHEREAS, there has been no credible economic analysis of the costs associated with carbon reduction mandates and the consequential effect of the increasing costs of doing business in the State of ______;

WHEREAS, forcing business, industry, and food producers to reduce carbon emissions through government mandates and cap-and-trade policies under consideration for the regional climate initiative will increase the cost of doing business, push companies to do business with other states or nations, and increase consumer costs for electricity, fuel, and food;

WHEREAS, the Congressional Budget Office warns that the cost of cap-and-trade policies will be borne by consumers and will place a disproportionately high burden on poorer families;

WHEREAS, simply reducing carbon emissions in the State of ______ will not have a significant impact on international carbon reduction, especially while countries like China, Russia, Mexico, and India emit an ever-increasing amount of carbon into the atmosphere;

WHEREAS, a tremendous amount of economic growth would be sacrificed for a reduction in carbon emissions that would have no appreciable impact on global concentrations of CO2;...

http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/state-withdrawal-from-regional-climate-initiatives/

Resolution Opposing EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck
WHEREAS: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed or is proposing numerous new regulations, particularly in the area of air quality and regulation of greenhouse gases, that are likely to have major effects on the economy, jobs and U.S. competitiveness in worldwide markets;

WHEREAS: EPA’s regulatory activity as to air quality and greenhouse gases has become known as the “train wreck,” because of the numerous and overlapping requirements and because of the potentially devastating consequences this regulatory activity may have on the economy;

WHEREAS: Concern is growing that, with cap-and-trade legislation having failed in Congress, EPA is attempting to obtain the same results through the adoption of regulations;

WHEREAS: EPA over-regulation is driving jobs and industry out of America;

WHEREAS: Neither EPA nor the Administration has undertaken any comprehensive study of what the cumulative effect of all of this new regulatory activity will have on the economy, jobs and competitiveness;

WHEREAS: EPA has not performed any comprehensive study of what the environmental benefits of its greenhouse regulation will be in terms of impacts on global climate;

WHEREAS: State agencies are routinely required to identify the costs of their regulations and to justify those costs in light of the benefits;

WHEREAS: Since EPA has identified “taking action on climate change and improving air quality” as its first strategic goal for the 2011-15 time period, EPA should be required to identify the specific actions it intends to take to achieve these goals and to assess the total cost of all these actions together;

WHEREAS: The Legislature supports continuing improvements in the quality of the nation’s air and believes that that such improvements can be made in a sensible fashion without damaging the economy so long as there is a full understanding of the cost of the regulations at issue;

WHEREAS: The primary goal of government at the present time must be to promote economic recovery and to foster a stable and predictable business environment that will lead to the creation of jobs;

WHEREAS: Public health and welfare will suffer without significant new job creation and economic improvement, because people with good jobs are better able to take care of themselves and their families than the unemployed and because environmental improvement is only possible in a society that generates wealth.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the legislature of {insert state} calls on Congress:

1. To adopt legislation prohibiting EPA by any means necessary from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, including if necessary defunding EPA greenhouse gas regulatory activities.

2. Imposing a moratorium on promulgation of any new air quality regulation by EPA by any means necessary, except to directly address an imminent health or environmental emergency, for a period of at least two years, including defunding EPA air quality regulatory activities.

3. Requiring the Administration to undertake a study identifying all regulatory activity that EPA intends to undertake in furtherance of its goal of “taking action on climate change and improving air quality” and specifying the cumulative effect of all of these regulations on the economy, jobs, and American economic competitiveness. This study should be a multi-agency study drawing on the expertise both of EPA and of agencies and departments having expertise in and responsibility for the economy and the electric system and should provide an objective cost-benefit analysis of all of EPA’s current and planned regulation together.

http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-opposing-epas-regulatory-train-wreck/

Intrastate Coal and Use Act
http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/intrastate-coal-and-use-act/

Resolution on Best Available Control Technology FOR Coal-Based Electric Generation
http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-on-best-available-control-technology-for-coal-based-electric-generation/

And from the press:

In Chicago, ALEC Reboots Failed Strategy for Attacking Renewable Energy Policies

Jeff Deyette, asst director of research & analysis, Clean Energy
August 7, 2013


Having failed completely in its attempt to repeal state renewable electricity standards (RES) during the spring 2013 legislative season, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is shifting gears. Their new strategy is more nuanced, but the goal remains the same: support their fossil fuel cronies by rolling back renewable energy policies. Fortunately, this latest scheme is likely doomed to fail as well.

Some explaining to do
This week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will host its annual meeting in Chicago, during which the group, which provides powerful corporations with behind-closed-doors access to legislators for the purpose of drafting ‘model legislation’ that serves their interests, will discuss the next phase of its ongoing effort to dismantle state renewable energy policies across the country. But first, ALEC leaders will likely have to explain their failures to their fossil fuel industry funders, including Koch Industries, Exxon-Mobil, and Peabody Energy.

Just last year, ALEC made it very public that repealing state RES policies would be a legislative priority in 2013, doubling down on its recent efforts to roll back these standards. ALEC adopted model legislation, written by climate skeptics at the Heartland Institute and innocuously dubbed the “Electricity Freedom Act”, which had the sole purpose of repealing state RES policies. Along with the Heartland Institute and a host of fossil fuel-funded cohorts, ALEC launched a disinformation campaign targeting several state RES policies, including high-profile attacks in Kansas and North Carolina.

The good news is that ALEC’s efforts completely failed: not a single state RES was repealed. Instead, 14 new pro-renewable energy bills became law nationwide, including stronger RES targets in Colorado, Minnesota, and Nevada.

Don’t mess with success
How did ALEC misfire so badly? ...

More at: http://blog.ucsusa.org/in-chicago-alec-reboots-failed-strategy-for-attacking-renewable-energy-policies-197

ALEC to States: Repeal Renewable Energy Mandates (‘Electricity Freedom Act’ model bill adopted)
by Todd Wynn
November 1, 2012

“Households in 29 states are and will continue to see higher electricity rates, lower economic growth and, subsequently, lower standard of livings without outright repeal of these crony capitalist policies.”

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation’s largest non-partisan association of state legislators boasting more than 2,000 members from all 50 states, recently adopted a firm stance opposing misguided government intervention into the electricity market which works against affordable, reliable electricity.

ALEC’s model bill for state legislators, entitled the Electricity Freedom Act, repeals a state’s renewable energy mandate stating:

“…a renewable energy mandate is essentially a tax on consumers of electricity that forces the use of renewable energy sources beyond what would be called for by real market forces and under conditions of real competition in generation resources…”

- See more at: http://www.masterresource.org/2012/11/alec-repeal-state-energy-mandates/#sthash.4Bsxs4aN.dpuf


You go Nnads, you and ALEC.

[NNadir]

5. I see you want to change the subject to something you know nothing about.

I merely pointed out, that Amory Lovins, the "Natural Capitalist" is paid by oil and tar sands companies.

That's a matter of fact, and can be found, as shown in the link above. I note that Amory Lovins is proud of being a "consultant" for Suncor (and a shit load of other dubious companies) which is why he puts it on his website.

We may contrast this fact, that Amory Lovins makes his money from companies that are notable for destroying the planetary atmosphere, that you know nothing at all about me, other than the fact that I am proud to support the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy, a mature 60 year old industry that has killed and injured fewer people than any other form of energy with as large (or larger) output. As the world's largest source of climate change gas free energy, it is easily and obviously clear that nuclear energy saves lives, as has been noted by one of the world's premier climate scientists in one of the most widely read papers in Environmental Science and Technology, which is a journal for, um, environmental scientists who are interested in, um, the environment:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197

Most read papers: http://pubs.acs.org/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=esthag

And here's Hansen smacking down those idiots Sovacool and Mark Z. Jacobson:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es402211m

You seem to be under the impression that I read the same horseshit you do. Wrong. I read scientific journals and I have no time for babbling semi-coherent policy crap handed out and bandied around by people who not only know no science, but in fact, hate science.

From what I know of you from your writings - and believe me I want nothing to do with you at all personally and couldn't care less who you are - it is consistent that you make personal representations about me, thus talking about a subject about which you know nothing, in the sense that you often speak on subjects about which you apparently know nothing, energy for instance.

Now, for someone who does know something about energy, there's Vaclav Smil, who reviewed the garbage Lovins was handing out 13 years ago: http://www.vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/smil-article-2000-pdr2000.pdf

Smil has something most anti-nukes lack, wit, intelligence and knowledge. Maybe you'd like to share with us one, just one, prediction made by Amory Lovins in the last 40 years that came to pass. The hydrogen HYPErcar in showrooms by 2005?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1016_TVhypercar.html

In the 13 years after the horseshit, "make money the Amory Lovins way" boring tome "Natural Capitalism" came out, we have observed 4 of the 5 worst years for climate change gas increases over the previous year, not counting 2013, which is on track to be the worst ever. Since 2000 we've seen an increase of 24.3 ppm in dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere.

ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt

At a rate of 3.3 million people per year, according to WHO, in the last 30 years about 40 million people have died from air pollution.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/index.html


Where's Lovins in the face of these dead and this degradation of the atmosphere? Does he give a shit about this outcome? Does he see the need to maybe revise his ideas in the face of this obvious failure, or will he, like a dullard, simply chant the same horseshit year after year after year, decade after decade. Does he record the values for carbon dioxide in his Snowmass aerie? Undoubtedly not, since lacking a scientific education he is probably incapable of operating a scientific instrument.

Maybe you'd like to report how many people died from nuclear energy since Amory Lovins reported it was dead in 1980. By looking at the data from the EIA, you may discern how much energy nuclear produced in 1980, and how much it has produced in each of the last 5 years.

Nuclear energy saves lives. Hansen pointed this out and it is irrefutable at least for anyone who is not a chanting moron.

You (and Lovins) inspire the remark that Welsh famously gave to McCarthy:

You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Have a nice day. Give my regards to Mr. Amory "Tarsands" "Natural Capitalist" Lovins.

[kristopher]

6. Poor little Nnads; caught with his fingers in ALECs cookie jar.

There is a reason that ALEC and their fossil fuel founders push the same policies you embrace - they want to maintain the status quo. We KNOW the agenda that ALEC has - as expressed in the laws and policies they seek to implement - fits with the Agenda of the fossil fuel companies. They are the living embodiment of the Koch Brothers wish list for the nation and the world.

And here you are, diligently and with great zeal promoting as much of that agenda as you can plausibly get away with on a progressive website. I have no doubt that when you are among those you feel most comfortable with your zeal for coal and petroleum is just as strong as the zeal you express for nuclear here.

Your attempts to disparage Lovins are laughable. If it is a high crime to do business with petroleum companies then we are all guilty because we all drive automobiles fueled with their products.

What Lovins has done with the all of the companies and nations on that listis what he does best - consults in the field of energy efficiency. I don't doubt that he has singlehandedly done more to effect carbon emissions reductions than any other single individual in the world.

You cannot produce one policy that he has developed or supported that in any way extends the reign of fossil fuels.

None.

Not one.

You and ALEC on the other hand embrace the core policies of the fossil fueled empire. Nuclear does nothing to move us away from coal or petroleum. But there is a real reason for your rage, isn't there? Along with coal, the distributed generating system (powered by renewables) that Lovins has been promoting since 1974 is going to shut down nuclear. Both are going the way of the dinosaur.

You probably don't know what FERC is or who Wellinghoff happens to be, but you can google it. Suffice to say he is far more of an expert on our energy system than either you or our dear misguided Hansen.

FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff: Solar ‘Is Going to Overtake Everything’
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112752417

BTW: Total energy produced by the US Electric Sector in 2012 for Final Consumption was 415GWy.

Of that, nuclear provided 88GWy while renewables including hydro provided 127GWy.

Since you always seem to have trouble with actually understanding what numbers mean, let me point out that 88 is significantly less than 127.

And the price of renewables continues to decline.

[diane in sf]

8. Thank you for exposing this vile propaganda from ALEC.

[diane in sf]

7. Thank you, great article!