Amory Lovins

Oil suppliers have more unsellable than unburnable oil; they are more at risk from competition than from climate regulation. Electricity suppliers too face a swarm of disruptors that will transform their business beyond recognition. As these two vast industries merge and as insurgents in both challenge incumbents, almost everything we thought we knew about energy is ripe for rapid and profound change.

Physicist Amory Lovins is cofounder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute; energy advisor to major firms and governments in 65+ countries for 40+ years; author of 31 books and 600 papers; and an integrative designer of superefficient buildings, factories, and vehicles. He has received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, the MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Happold, Benjamin Franklin, and Spencer Hutchens Medals, 12 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood (“alternative Nobel”), National Design, and World Technology Awards. His recent efforts include supporting RMI’s collaborative synthesis, for China’s National Development and Reform Commission, of an ambitious efficiency and renewables trajectory to inform the 13th Five Year Plan, and exploring how to make integrative design the new normal, so investments to energy efficiency can yield expanding rather than diminishing returns.