Amory Lovins Misleads with Numbers

[4dsc]

The September 2005 Scientific American, a very good issue generally on "Crossroads for planet Earth" and the major near-term issues we're facing, includes an article by Amory Lovins that misleads far more than it informs. In the article's five sections Lovins pushes his two major themes of energy efficiency and hydrogen, with a nod to renewables, asserting that all we need do is take advantage of existing technologies to both save money and greatly reduce our use of oil and emissions of carbon dioxide. But the arguments and numbers he uses to make his case don't add up.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/8995

A good read about this guy. Nothing like giving people false hope with pipedreams.

[DCKit]

1. Nnewquelur is our only option, obviously.

Just because we COULD offset all future energy growth with solar, wind, water, biomass (all forms) and conservation doesn't mean we SHOULD do so. And who deserves incentives, grants and tax breaks more than our filthy, existing, multi-trillion dollar energy companies?

The poor MSM would collapse upon themselves without a regular spate of "Trapped Miner", "Oil Spill" and "Environmental Catastrophe" stories, and there aren't enough missing blond girls to feed the news cycle and fill the gaps their absence would leave behind.

:sarcasm: in case I really need it.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. And all we gotta do is multiply nothing by ten thousand

and come up with a result considerably larger than zero!

NOT :sarcasm:

[Confusious]

3. Kick!

[kristopher]

4. Any time you see anything critical of Lovins, you KNOW it originated with someone who loves nuclear

The author wants to call attention to errors in the numbers Lovins' uses but typical of this type screed, somehow never gets around to the details...

Beginning in para 3:

...Let's start with Lovins' clearest abuse of numbers in this article, two instances where reasonable explanation is provided, as it calls into serious question the care with which the less well explained numbers have been used...

para 4 no numbers refuted

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The author never once lays out specific numbers Lovins' uses and then shows the error that is embodied in them.

Not once.

There is no one the nuclear industry hates more than Amory Lovins. And for good reason. He is deadly at deconstructing their propaganda and his articulation of the social impact of centralized thermal generation clarified for the public one of the larger, previously undefined cost of that type of technology.
That paper here: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

Any time you see anything critical of Lovins, you KNOW it originated with someone who loves nuclear power.

More contemporary writings by Lovins:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Amory B. Lovins
Cofounder and CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute

Lovins Amory Lovins, a MacArthur and Ashoka Fellow and consultant physicist, is among the world's leading innovators in energy and its links with resources, security, development, and environment. He has advised the energy and other industries for more than three decades as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. His work in 50+ countries has been recognized by the "Alternative Nobel," Blue Planet, Volvo, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, Goff Smith, and Mitchell Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, 11 honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, honorary Senior Fellowship of the Design Futures Council, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, Time International Hero of the Environment, Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership, National Design (Design Mind), and World Technology Awards. A Harvard and Oxford dropout and former Oxford don, he has briefed 20 heads of state and advises major firms and governments worldwide, recently including the leadership of Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Ford, Holcim, Interface, and Wal-Mart. In 2009, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.

Mr. Lovins cofounded and is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org), an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan think-and-do tank that creates abundance by design. Much of its pathfinding work on advanced resource productivity (typically with expanding returns to investment) and innovative business strategies is synthesized in Natural Capitalism (1999, with Paul Hawken and L.H. Lovins, www.natcap.org). This intellectual capital provides most of RMI's revenue through private-sector consultancy that has served or been invited by more than 80 Fortune 500 firms, lately redesigning more than $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors. In 1992, RMI spun off E SOURCE (www.esource.com), and in 1999, Fiberforge Corporation (www.fiberforge.com), a composites technology firm that Mr. Lovins chaired until 2007; its technology, when matured and scaled, will permit cost- effective manufacturing of the ultralight-hybrid Hypercar® vehicles he invented in 1991.

The latest of his 29 books are Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size (2002, www.smallisprofitable.org), an Economist book of the year blending financial economics with electrical engineering, and the Pentagon-cosponsored Winning the Oil Endgame (2004, www.oilendgame.com), a roadmap for eliminating U.S. oil use by the 2040s, led by business for profit. His most recent visiting academic chair was in spring 2007 as MAP/Ming Professor in Stanford's School of Engineering, offering the University's first course on advanced energy efficiency (www.rmi.org/stanford).

http://www.oilendgame.com/TheAuthors.html

[madokie]

6. yup he scares the hell out of a few here

No doubt about that.

[Confusious]

8. Subjective blindness.

Why give numbers when the numbers are meaningless.

I have 10,000,000! I'm what? Rich? Sick? buried in diapers?

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[XemaSab]

10. If you find out, let me know

so I can get a piece of that.

[joshcryer]

11. Actually, it would be best to alert a mod of this if you believe it is happening.

Otherwise your public statement is verging on accusing others of being psyops and against the rules.

[kristopher]

5. Kick

[kestrel91316]

7. Thank you for pointing that out, NNadir!