Energy-efficiency visionary
By Roger Fillion, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published February 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Photo by Special to the Rocky / 1986
1986: Amory Lovins works at a computer. He was fascinated with technology at a young age.
Photo by Daniel Bayer / Special to the Rocky
2008: Wal-Mart, the Pentagon and the White House have sought Lovins' advice on energy.
Photo by The Rocky / 1986
A sign above a kitchen shelf in Amory Lovins' Snowmass home spells out one of his many philosophies. After decades of being considered one of the "quack boosters of renewable energy," he finds that leaders are following his advice. "I'm getting painfully respectable," said the co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank.
Photo by Daniel Bayer / Special to the Rocky
A greenhouse at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Photo by Rocky Mountain News / 2005
Wal-Mart's green store in Aurora, its first in Colorado and its second in the nation, has a windmill and a solar panel at the main entrance to help supply energy to the retailer.
Amory Lovins climbs the stairs to his home office, holding a plate piled with kale, mushrooms, quinoa, onions and a "recycled" lamb chop.
The clock reads 1:20 p.m., a Friday afternoon.
"It's breakfast," the environmental guru and energy consultant tells a visitor. "I was working late."
The 60-year-old Lovins was up until 3 a.m. the night before. He hasn't shaved for a scheduled interview, although the appointment is on his computer calendar.
"I didn't know that you were coming or that there was a photographer," he says.
While Lovins' eating and work habits appear a bit out of the ordinary, there's an explanation.
Blame it on global warming and $100 oil. Lovins' views on weaning the nation of fossil fuels have come more into vogue, especially in corporate America. So he's been burning the midnight oil in his solar- powered home and office.
Companies such as Wal-Mart, Ford and Pacific Gas and Electric - plus the Pentagon and the White House - have sought advice from Lovins and the environmental think tank he co-founded here, the Rocky Mountain Institute.
"I'm getting painfully respectable," Lovins jokes.
His mantra: By going green, companies can cut their energy use, turn a profit and help solve global warming by emitting fewer greenhouse gases.
In other words, the basic tenets of Adam Smith's capitalism will fix the problem, without Uncle Sam's meddling.
"The profit motive is probably going to be the most important mechanism in making sure things do work out all right," Lovins says.
Why? "It's cheaper to save fuel than to buy fuel."
Companies look to Lovins
In the past, Lovins has been called one of the "quack boosters of renewable energy," one of the "alternative-energy eccentrics" and just plain "wrong."
Many in corporate America beg to differ, though Lovins still has detractors who say markets alone can't fix matters without federal money and intervention.
"Amory is about 60 percent pure genius and about 40 percent snake-oil salesman," says Marty Hoffert, an emeritus physics professor at New York University who studies energy issues and global warming.
Paul Westbrook, however, is a Lovins fan.
"He's never negative about anything. It's always a solution, not a problem. And that's infectious," says Westbrook, sustainable development manager at Texas Instruments.
The Dallas maker of semiconductors consulted with Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute team on designing a new production plant in Richardson, Texas.
The $300 million plant, completed in 2006, is built to use 35 percent less water and 20 percent less energy than a traditional semiconductor plant.
TI spent a little less than $2 million on "green" features, such as waterless urinals and a solar water heater for administrative areas. The company is waiting for conditions in the semiconductor market to improve before it revs up production.
Once it does, TI expects to reap $1 million in "efficiency gains" in the first year and more than $4 million a year once the plant is fully operational. The upshot: The nearly $2 million in "green" investments would be recouped in less than two years.
TI is using similar design features at two new facilities in the Philippines.
Lovins' philosophy is spelled out in a 2004 book, Winning the Oil Endgame, bankrolled in part by the Pentagon. The goal is to get the United States off imported oil by 2040 and end the nation's use of oil by 2050.
Ultra-light, superefficient cars, SUVs, trucks and planes would play a key role as would energy-efficient buildings, factories and renewable fuels.
"Because saving and substitution for oil costs less than buying it, our study finds a net savings of $70 billion a year," Lovins said when the book was issued. "That acts like a giant tax cut for the nation."
Fascinated with gadgets
Born in 1947 in Washington, D.C., Lovins grew up along the East Coast, in Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. He was one of two children.
Lovins was sickly during his first 10 years. His blood lacked gamma globulin, key to fighting disease. The problem was diagnosed thanks to a procedure his father helped commercialize.
He's been healthy since. Lovins cites that early period as one of the most difficult in his life.
He developed a fascination with gadgets and technology as a youngster. His father, who had been the head of research at a scientific instrument company, ran his own business in the family's basement "designing and building unique scientific instruments," Lovins says.
"So things like the world's largest optical microscope were down in the basement. I would go play with stuff," Lovins adds. "I would take watches apart and put them together. About half of them still worked."
Lovins' fascination with gadgets hasn't faded. Former Rocky Mountain Institute staffer Auden Schendler recalled sharing a bedroom with Lovins at the home of Yvon Chouinard, founder of outdoor gear retailer Patagonia. After Lovins chose the bottom bunk, he pulled out earplugs and handed them to Schendler. The plugs didn't do the trick, however.
"I was up all night," said Schendler, now Aspen Ski Co.'s head of community and environmental responsibility. "Amory is a gadget guy."
After graduating from high school in 1964, Lovins attended Harvard for two years and then left. He refused to be cornered into studying a major.
"I'm a generalist and want to stay that way," Lovins says. His money for college also was running out.
But exchange rates were favorable. So he trekked to Britain, transferring to Oxford University in 1967. There, he got interested in energy issues and climate change. He asked Oxford officials if he could get a doctorate in energy.
A 'think-and-do tank'
"Energy? What's that?" was the response, according to Lovins. "It's not an academic subject. Pick another."
It was two years before the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which sent oil prices skyrocketing.
He left Oxford with a degree - but not a doctorate.
Lovins garnered international attention in 1976 at age 28. He wrote an article in Foreign Affairs arguing that the United States gradually could end its use of fossil fuels. The move not only could be done at no cost, Lovins penned, but it could be done at a profit.
He moved back to the U.S. in 1981, after having lived in Britain for 14 years and worked with Friends of the Earth founder David Brower.
Lovins also met a woman who would become his wife, Hunter Sheldon, a lawyer and rodeo rider recognizable by her black cowboy hat.
In 1982, as they drove across the country in a pickup, she pitched the idea of starting a "think-and-do tank" where people could develop solutions to world problems.
The nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute was born that year. Amory and Hunter Lovins divorced in 1999.
The 4,000-square-foot, south-facing building where Lovins works serves as his home, too. It previously was RMI's headquarters. The well-insulated facility has no furnace. It relies on solar heating. An indoor jungle with banana trees greets visitors.
Wal-Mart, White House
Since its founding, RMI has grown to a staff of about 80. It has offices in Snowmass and Boulder. The nonprofit has spun off three for-profit businesses.
Lovins says the growth in the past 25 years far exceeded his expectations.
"We thought we'd just grow from a handful of people to at most a dozen," he says.
According to Lovins, RMI staffers in recent years have helped clients redesign more than $30 billion worth of projects to be more energy-efficient. The nonprofit also advised Lovins' old friend Bill Clinton on how to make the White House green and energy-efficient.
Wal-Mart has been a key client. RMI staffers have worked with the giant retailer to ensure the company's truck fleet and stores burn less energy.
With RMI's help, Wal-Mart opened two experimental "green" stores, one in Texas and one in Aurora.
The company's plan is to cut the use of energy and natural resources used in running its stores, reduce the amount of raw materials used in building the stores and boost the use of renewable materials.
The Aurora store is fitted with wind turbines and solar panels, as well as skylights and 15-foot-tall windows along the top of the walls that let in enough natural light to eliminate the need for artificial lights during the day.
To create heat, a boiler in the Tire & Lube Express burns used motor oil and oil from the deli fryers.
With the help of Lovins and RMI, the retail giant also has been redesigning its fleet of 7,000 trucks so they're lighter, more aerodynamic and guzzle less fuel. Wal-Mart wants to double the fuel efficiency over 10 years.
Lovins says Wal-Mart saves more than $50 million a year with every extra mile a gallon on its truck fleet.
"Now they're arguing about will they end up at 13, 16, 18 or 20 miles a gallon. They were at six," he says. Lovins expects others will follow suit.
Texas Instruments' Westbrook says Lovins is adept at speaking with all types of people in the company, including engineers and executives. During meetings at TI headquarters, Lovins could turn to an engineer and talk "kilowatts" and "BTUs" and then turn to a vice president to talk "return on investment."
"He does a good job of knowing who it is he's talking to and what they care about," Westbrook says.
But others dispute Lovins' belief the market can solve the nation's energy dilemma and global warming, saying Lovins is not realistic.
"I'm fearful of his present position - that we don't need the government to do anything and it's all going to happen through the marketplace," says Hoffert, the NYU emeritus physics professor.
"I'm afraid that people will be lulled into passivity by Amory's claims that we can have it all without any investments," adds Hoffert, who says he likes Lovins. "But we do have to make investments as a society."
Hoffert argues that global warming will require Uncle Sam to bankroll the type of effort that spawned the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II.
"It's a very hard problem."
John Katzenberger, director of the Aspen Global Change Institute, a nonprofit that studies global warming, calls Lovins "brilliant" and lauds his "relentless attention to what can be achieved through efficiency."
But Katzenberger, too, says Uncle Sam must step in.
"There hasn't been a focus from the federal government on tackling the problem of global warming," he says. "There's a role for the government."
While Aspen Ski Co.'s Schendler is a Lovins fan, he admits it won't be easy for companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions. All Aspen and Snowmass snowcats run on clean, renewable biodiesel. Aspen and Snowmass also have the only green-building policy in the snow-sports industry.
"Even an extremely motivated company like Aspen Skiing Co. - or Wal-Mart - has trouble reducing emissions," Schendler says. "So what's it like in 'business-as-usual' America? It's damn hard."
"In the end, Amory is providing the crucial vision. And I think it's up to people like me to implement it."
fillionr@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2467
Amory Lovins
* Age: 60
* Education: Two years Harvard; master of arts, Oxford University
* Job: Chairman and chief scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute
* Among his duties: Has briefed 19 heads of state
* Publishing: Written or co-written 29 books
* Honors: MacArthur Foundation "genius grant"
* Interests: Hiking, landscape photography, piano, poetry
* Personal note: Married Aspen photographer Judy Hill in April
* Notable quote: "My parents instilled a motivation for public service and being an active citizen of the world."
Rocky Mountain Institute
* Locations: Headquarters in Old Snowmass, up the road from Lovins' residence and home office; separate offices in Boulder
* Description: Nonprofit think tank focusing on energy and environmental issues
* Founded: 1982
* Employees: 80
* Annual budget: $12 million
* Clients have included: Anheuser-Busch; Bank of America; Hewlett-Packard; Wal-Mart; General Motors; 100-plus utilities; Pentagon; 13 states; Australian, Canadian, Dutch, Italian and German governments
For-profit ventures
RMI has spun off three for-profit ventures:
* E Source, Boulder: Provides information and know-how on energy efficiency to utilities and big utility customers. Spun off in 1992.
* Fiberforge, Glenwood Springs: Developing low-cost method to produce lightweight carbon-fiber structures such as car parts. First spun off in 1999 as Hypercar
* To be announced: New venture developing and commercializing an "advanced" vehicle. Spun off in January
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February 9, 2008
10:05 a.m.
Suggest removal
RainbowWarrior writes:
Bigfoot and his big mouth must be paid to post this crap by the fossil fuel industries. No one with a regular job has this much time to be such a proffessional obstructionist and narrow minded ass! Anyone who can believe that the human activity of 6 billion individuals has no impact on the planet must keep them selves very well medicated and numb to be so oblivious. Just like Rush windbag, he must be in a drug induced stupor, and feels no pain, ever.
February 9, 2008
10:13 p.m.
Suggest removal
justright writes:
There goes Rainbow again. Can't argue the facts so slay the messenger. Sasquatch just did a little bit of recent reading, like Friday, and posted part of IBD article pointing out other scientist who are using facts and studies to come with other wild ass reasons the plant warms and cools, like the sun. If you do a little bit more research you would discover the big wig from Aspen has put Aspens money where their mouth is. He has spent millions and millions of dollars helping Aspen Co. go green. He has had all sorts of great sources of energy installed, hydro, solar, wind, etc. One problem, Aspen uses more fossil fuel today then it 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago. See Renewable energy doesn't lead to less fossil use it leads to more delevopement. See if you use less energy on X then you can now have Y.
Those of us not medicated and in a stuper aren't against solar or wind or french fry running cars, we are for them but we are also for coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy because we like are life style and we can't stand goverment telling us what to drive and what kind of light bulb to install.
The ironically thing about Lovins is after 20 plus years of pushing-preaching renewables it is oil that is coming to his rescue. As the price of oil has risen, expensive solar and wind start to get compentive. It is nice to see Big Oil helping out the climate and renewables.
February 14, 2008
2:38 p.m.
Suggest removal
musher writes:
As a 5 year old, I remember thinking that the exhaust coming out of the tail pipes in front of me had to be a bad thing. If you run a combustion engine in a closed garage, it will kill you.
Amory Lovins is on the right side of history and should be appreciated for his hard work. Big oil should also be appreciated for thier investment in clean energy alternatives.
Stop arguing and use that energy to change the status quo.
Optimist