Could the United States of America realistically stop using
oil and coal by 2050? And could such a vast transition toward efficient use and
renewable energy be led by business for durable advantage?
(1) It is these two questions that the “Reinventing Fire initiative”, launched by
the
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and spear headed by
Amory B. Lovins, set out
to answer.
 |
Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the
New Energy Era (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2011) |
The research was published in 2011 in the book
Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, however this is simply a distillation of a much
larger body of research, disseminated through a variety of other channels
including digital media, presentations, conferences, and other research papers.
The majority of information is accessible through a comprehensive website and
online presence, including a number of open-source tools that can be downloaded
and a raft of methodological reports and technical summaries. This paper is
primarily concerned with the research as it is presented in the book. Necessary
additional insights have been gathered from these other sources.
Reinventing Fire
The book, like the research project, is concentrated around four
themes, broken into three sectors—transportation,
buildings and industry—that have the potential to “make possible shifts in how electricity is made." (2) An entire chapter is devoted to each of these four themes, with demonstrations
of how oil and coal, as well as natural gas in the long run, can be saved. Despite the dynamic interconnectivity of each theme, each chapter can be read as a standalone
piece, complete with its own introduction, case studies and conclusions.
Opening with an ‘origin story’ in the Preface, the metaphor
of fire is immediately evoked by Lovins. The primeval memory of groups gathered
around a fire is a powerful one. Fire not only nurtured our ancestors but also enabled
the development of western civilization, however “nearly half of our fellow
human beings still live in that medieval world." (3) Of what energy we do currently use globally, 80% is the result of burning the
rotten remains of “primeval swamp goo”, or to put it less colloquially, fossil
fuels. (4) Furthermore, quoting the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, in
Joint Force Quarterly, Lovins explains that whilst “Energy is the lifeblood of modern
societies and a pillar of America’s prowess and prosperity … [but it] is also a
major source of global instability, conflict, pollution, and risk." (5) For the RMI team none of the current problems associated with fossil fuels are
necessary, either technologically or economically. They go so far as to say
that “We can avoid them in ways that tend to
reduce energy costs—because technological progress has quietly been
making fossil fuels obsolete." (6) The solution posed is that “we just need a new fire", (7) one that allows us to be safe, secure and durable in the future. Here once
again the metaphor of
fire is used in
a powerful and positive manner; just as a forest fire can be seen as productive
reallocation of resources, instead of a destructive force, so shall this
new fire.
This new fire comprises two intrinsically linked approaches:
using energy very efficiently; and getting that energy from diverse and mainly
dispersed renewable sources. A “twin transition” is described, one that isn’t
restricted to “the old
what—technology—and
the old
how—public policy”, but is
instead increasingly about “the new
what—integrative
design that combines technologies in unexpected ways—and the new
how—novel business models and
competitive advantages." (8) The two pairings are seen as enhancing one and other, allowing for greater efficiency
and diversity in energy solutions. The book’s aim is to show that in each of
these four areas “important innovations are converging to create perhaps the
biggest flood of
disruptive opportunities
ever seen, with effects as pervasive as those of the
Information Age but even
more fundamental." (9)
Before proceeding any further the book is interrupted by two
Forewords, the first by
Marvin Odum, President of
Shell Oil Company, and the
second by
John W. Rowe, Chairman and CEO of
Exelon Corporation. The inclusion
of these short pieces are no doubt crucial to achieving the buy-in of any major
business heavily indebted to the current energy network, although they extent
to which Odum and Rowe ‘buy-in’ to Lovins argument isn’t exclusively clear. (10)
Returning to the central argument
of the book Chapter One, Defossilizing
Fossil Fuels, sets out the ‘bigger picture’ of a U.S. economy built on
cheap oil and coal. (11) Today U.S. gasoline prices are about half to one-third the “normal” price in
other industrial countries and this in turn “has helped to create a pervasive
pattern of inefficient vehicles and settlement patterns that maximize driving,
causing a massive treasure transfer from America to oil exporting nations." (12) In 2008 America’s Oil bill came to $0.9 trillion but $388 billion went abroad
(approximately 43%). (13) The total cost of oil dependence, including U.S. military expenditures for
Persian Gulf forces, and minus the cost of the oil itself, equates to
approximately $1.5 trillion a year, or 12% of GDP. (14) Early on Lovins relies on twin tactics, the use of empirical data and ‘shock
and awe’ statements. For example, “A Pentagon study found that a handful of
people in one evening could cut off three-fourths of the oil and gas supplies
to the eastern U.S. without even leaving Louisiana." (15)
The energy economy of the U.S. is
complex, with a myriad of uses for the energy generated, however Lovins
believes that the application of three basic principles—do more with less, modulate
demand, and optimize supply—can,
if applied holistically, rid the U.S. of its fossil fuel dependency. (16) However, this weaning is limited to coal and oil, natural gas is still seen as
part of the energy mix in 2050. Nuclear Fission is also removed, on the basis
of its hazardous waste and a link between nuclear power generation and the
proliferation of nuclear weapons. (17)
Lovins goes on to outline how the
proposals presented in Reinventing Fire
show efficiency savings—doing more with less—can be used to achieve a larger
economy, by 2050, with half the delivered energy, with less risk, and for $5
trillion less (in net present value). (18) Evidence for these efficiency savings trends is found in current data, not
projections, wherein “By 2009, America was making a dollar of real GDP using
60% less oil, 50% less energy, 63% less directly used natural gas, and 20% less
electricity than in 1975." (19) RMI’s proposals are aimed at accelerating these trends.
Chapter 2, Transportation: Fitter Vehicles, Smarter Use, tackles the first key
theme, setting out to show how we by 2050 we can “drive superefficient vehicles
fuelled by a flexible mix of electricity, hydrogen, and sustainable biofuels
(and, if desired, some natural gas for trucks), and we’d use those vehicles far
more productively." (20) Just as the wider economy will derive its energy from a mix of sources, so will
vehicles. In the case of biofuels this equates to an equivalent of 3.1 billion
barrels of oil today, less than five times of volume of today’s U.S. biofuels
industry, which provided 3% of 2010 mobility fuel. Lovins acknowledges that
there are substantial challenges to overcome, most notably the inertial drag of
current transportation industries and will require the buy-in of all
stakeholders. (21) Three
critical ways for business to lead this transformation are proposed: drive the
transition to superefficient vehicles; invest across technologies and fuel
types; and support policies to speed the transition to radical vehicle
efficiency and productivity. (22)
Buildings are the focus of
Chapter 3, Buildings: Designing for
Better Living. Here the challenge is scaled up because “Building a few
million ultralight electric cars seems almost trivial compared to retrofitting
or replacing everything from double-wides in a trailer park to high-rises in
San Jose.” (23) Furthermore, building-based solutions “require every single American to make
different choices." (24) If enough societal change can take place “efficient buildings can become the
foundation, and efficient vehicles and factories the pillars, of the vastly
different U.S. energy system we’re already starting to build—less risky,
probably less costly, and far more robust and resilient." (25) The end result is that by 2050, despite a 70% increase in floor space,
buildings will use 13-55% less electricity and 24-68% less natural gas than
compared to 2010 levels. Remarkably this could be achieved without using any
onsite renewables, simply relying on efficiency savings. (26) “Transforming America’s building sector will demand national attention and
action, an intensive ramp-up of investment and innovation, and broadly targeted
policy enhancements and changes.” (27)
While Lovins argues that the experienced
practitioners already do know what to do, there are six main imperatives that
should be driving this sectors transformation. (28) First, there is a need to attack buildings’ inefficiencies with trans-disciplinary
insight and entrepreneurship. Second, energy use must be made more transparent. (29) Third, provide easy-to-access financing, priced commensurate with energy
efficiency’s exceptionally low risk. Fourth, train and educate a high-quality
workforce. Fifth, upgrade to next-generation building efficiency policies and
align utility incentives. And finally, begin overhauling how building design is
done, taught and built.
The final sector analysed, Industry: Remaking How We Make Things,
is the focus of Chapter 4, and by now a common theme has emerged wherein Lovins
surveys the existing situation, proposes changes, presents some concluding
remarks, and ends with a table of recommendations for the key actors in that
sector to pursue. Lovins focuses on the idea of creating resilience in industry, “the ability to survive in hard years and flourish
in good ones, learning from stress to become ever more adaptive." (30) He draws parallels between rainforest and industrial ecosystems, stating that a
different, longer-term view is required by business, one more akin to “a
rainforest than of a chainsaw operator." (31) The key concepts to achieve “startling efficiency” in industry are summarised
as: invest in factories and in the people on the factory floor; innovate to
guarantee long-term competitiveness; and incentivise the right behaviour. (32) The environmental references continue with talk of “Obvious evolutionary
pressures to make industry more robust and resilient, to work like an ecosystem”
perhaps most importantly “properly pricing the commons into which things get
thrown “away”, whether gunk in our water, junk in our landfills, soot in our
lungs, or carbon in our air." (33)
It is argued that the lack of respect for the commons (34) has created “deliberately false price signals, subsidies, and other lopsided
policies that handicap the whole economy." (35) This in turn has put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage compared to Germany
and Japan, where the “more truthful prices” are driving bigger efficiency
gains.
Having established the possibilities
of these three key sectors, Chapter 5, Electricity:
Repowering Prosperity, proposes a “hybrid of centralized and distributed
renewables, integrated by advanced communications and controls that securely choreograph
supply- and demand-side resources nearly in real time". (36) Central to this argument is the convergence of 21st century
technologies and business models with 20th and 19th century
cultures and institutions. As in the previous chapters, several lessons and
core actions emerge: one, it is about choosing a system that can best exploit the full range of supply- and demand-side
options in an integrated, least-cost fashion; two, the economic and technical
challenges are much smaller than the needed institutional shifts; and finally,
energy consumers will choose whether and when to adopt new technologies, inform
their choices, change their behaviours.
The final chapter,
Many Choices, On Future, brings the
discussion to a close with a fictional account of what the U.S. might be like
if the
Reinventing Fire strategies are
implemented. The future is not too outwardly dissimilar to the U.S. of today: “The
coffee smells the same and the view out the window of the house onto a quiet
neighbourhood looks fairly similar." (37) The tone is positive, however whilst the ‘interface’ may be the same, the
underlying systems look remarkably different; this attitude recalls the
“
hedonistic sustainability” championed by some architectural practices, such as
BIG (38) Lovins though puts it along these lines: “Energy can do our work without working
our undoing." (39)
Difficulties, Risks and Barriers to Change
In Chapter 6 Lovins touches upon
the political ‘hot potato’ of
fracking and shale gas, he admits that “It will
probably take a decade to resolve fracking controversies, reform bad operators,
and build a stable regulatory engine that earns public confidence." (40) Nevertheless, natural gas is seen as a key transition fuel to assist with the
process of removing coal, oil and nuclear but is still part of the energy
consumption mix in 2050. It would seem then that the U.S. cannot fully shake
its fossil fuel dependency by 2050. (41)
Despite this difficulty, Lovins
suggests that the risks to the Reinventing Fire vision are limited, and
although it “includes some technological advances based on aggressive learning
curves, especially for carbon fibres, batteries, and renewable technologies,
the accelerating advances in material and biological sciences suggests that
[their] assumptions might be conservative." (42) There are of course “problems” (read risks), however these lie outside of the
technological and economic arguments; these are referenced throughout the book
and have resulted in efficiency and renewable technologies not being adopted as
quickly as the Reinventing Fire path would need them to be." (43)
The range of barriers includes:
active or passive resistance by incumbents; knowledge and culture; financing;
value-chain complexity; unclear value proposition; lack of long-term leadership;
policy and regulatory structures; and entanglement with partisan politics. (44) However, the main barrier is “slow adoption rates, not inadequate
technologies." (45) Each sector also faces individual challenges, for example, the slow-turnover in
buildings, industry and electricity. “If these sectors don’t reach roughly 40%
adoption rates by 2030, later years’ adoption is unlikely to make up for those
early delays." (46)
Business solutions
for the United States of America
Whilst Lovins and his contributors may suggest an expanded
world view throughout the book, this is first and foremost a book about the U.S.
and the new energy era—a more accurate title would be Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the United States of
America in the New Energy Era—and as such a nationalistic rhetoric runs
throughout. These statements often rely on fall-back position that glorifies
America’s past achievements and that “The real underlying fuel of America and
of modern civilization is innovation and ingenuity." (47) The question is posed that “As the greatest transition in industrial history
unfolds, will America lead this transformation or trail behind others,
condemned by old thinking and bad politics to lose the opportunity?” (48) There is an implication here that America has lost its way in the world and
that it needs to carve out a new space by striving “to be the sort of society
others admire, emulate, and want to do business with." (49)
When other countries are
introduced into the discussion it is often to highlight the lack of action
being taken in the U.S. For example, “China invested $54 billion in clean
energy in 2010—60% more than the U.S. (and 139% more in relation to GDP)”. (50) Other examples have already been highlighted, including the “oddly persistent”
myth “that a country can best compete in the global economy by keeping energy
prices low.” If this myth were true “America, the current world capital of
cheap-energy policy, would have no trouble beating countries like Germany and
Japan". (51)
The what and not the why
I would argue that the single
greatest achievement of Lovins and the RMI team is not the way in which they
are able to re-frame the boundaries of the energy question facing the U.S.,
rather it is their ability to shift the focus from the why to the what, whilst
still demonstrating the how. “Amid
the energy cacophony, the swirl of conflicting opinions and agendas, this
simple approach bears emphasis: if together we focus on outcomes, not motives,
that’s good enough, because the actual things to be done are the same no matter
whether we each care most about national security, profits and jobs, climate
and environment, or something else." (52) The approach of proposing “bold business solutions” in the title of the book
underlines this; surely business leaders will be more receptive to the what than the why.
This then is not a book about
Climate Change, the
why that is
typically at the core of any discussion today on issues surrounding energy. As
Lovins describes: “For you to welcome this book’s thesis and embrace its recommendations,
you needn’t accept the global scientific consensus on the reality and severity
of the risks of climate change." (53) The Copenhagen climate conference (2009) is highlighted as an example of how “pricing
carbon and winning international collaboration are hard if policymakers,
pundits, and most citizens
assume
climate protection will be costly.” To go further, ever since the
Kyoto Conference (1997) “most efforts to hedge climate risks have made four main
errors: assuming solutions will be costly rather than profitable; insisting
they be motivated by concerns about climate rather than about security, profit,
or economic development; assuming they require a global treaty; and assuming
U.S. business can do little or nothing before carbon is priced." (54) Chapters 2 through 5 aim to demonstrate that these assumptions are wrong;
instead the conversation should turn to issues surrounding “wealth creation,
jobs, and competitive advantage”, ensuring maximum buy-in from a maximum number
of stakeholders”. (55) To borrow Markusen’s (2003) analysis of the term ‘sustainability’ I would posit
it that Lovins relies on “
fuzzy concepts” throughout the book. (56) Whilst he seeks to avoid the “linguistic slippage" (57) afforded by terminology such as sustainability, arguably because it has
“emerged as a catchall term for many of humanity’s diverse environmental
concerns and responses, so that it now acts as a point of identification and
belief for many”, terms like ‘wealth creation’ or ‘competitive advantage’ are
equally ‘slippery’. (58)
It is of course hard to escape
from so-called ‘green wash’ today, wherein ‘green issues’, are used to smuggle
in other outcomes.
Penelope Dean demonstrates the potential for ‘green’ ideas
to be “used as a Trojan horse to both recuperate a sociocultural design project
for architecture and urbanism and to smuggle back into the disciplines those
things that have ultimately been left behind”. (59) Lovins argument highlights that ‘green’
may not always be the most appropriate cover under which to smuggle our agendas,
and as such the power of the dollar should not be undervalued in this respect
as a tool to leverage a more socially durable position. This is not to say that
the dollar is any more of a false idol
than
green is and we should always be
aware of such blunt ideological instruments.
The limitations of
the printed word
It is virtually impossible to separate the book from the
entire Reinventing Fire project, whilst it is undoubtedly an integral part to
RMI’s strategy for disseminating their findings; it is only one element from a
project with a much broader scope because the issues it tackles cannot be
solved by one book alone. Immediate comparisons can be drawn between the
Reinventing Fire project and the
EU Roadmap 2050 proposals that emerged
in 2010. Road Map 2050 is an initiative of the
European Climate Foundation
(ECF) and was developed by a consortium of experts to “provide a practical,
independent and objective analysis of pathways to achieve a low-carbon economy
in Europe, in line with the energy security, environmental and economic goals
of the European Union." (60) The research was never presented in one definitive book, rather the ECF chose
to publish it in three separate volumes: Technical and Economic Analysis;
Policy Report; and, Graphic Narrative. (61) The benefit of this is that the different data streams can be parsed for their respective
audiences, whilst sharing a framework in the methodology and technical studies.
As with
Reinventing Fire a raft other
digital media is also available through a website. Whilst the two messages
share some commonalities they are different in their approach, in
Reinventing Fire the emphasis is on
business-led change, in
Roadmap 2050
individual governments of the nation-states take a more prominent role in the
transition to a carbon free economy.
 |
An interactive iPad App was launched to help promote The Metropolitan
Revolution project. It is updated with new case studies on a regular basis. |
Lovins and RMI may have invested their time more
productively by establishing a series of separate volumes, aimed at different
audiences, rather than attempting to design a catch-all book that arguably ends
up leaving the reader over whelmed by its breadth of scope. The columns, the
long chapters, and the use of sidebars leave it slightly confused, at times it
reads like a text book, at others like a set of financial accounts. Producing a
narrative volume, similar to Volume III of Roadmap
2050, may have better disseminated what is a highly important message to a
larger population. The use of the word ‘narrative’ does not necessarily mean a
fully representative account of what this future might look like, but rather a
more concise, better illustrated analysis of the present and the paths to that
future. For example, the renderings presented in Roadmap 2050 are not highly
polished but they still succeed in conveying a message that different audiences
can understand. Lovins may not have wanted to depict exactly what this future
would look like, despite his description of it in the final chapter, and yet an
important opportunity is missed by not doing so.
Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley’s work on
The Metropolitan Revolution, whilst not
necessarily a research initiative in the same vein as either
Reinventing Fire or
Roadmap 2050, documents the growing trend wherein “Across the
nation, cities and metropolitan areas, and the networks of pragmatic leaders
who govern them, are taking on the big issues that Washington won’t, or can’t,
solve." (62) This ‘projects’ primary means for disseminating its message is through a book (with
the customary lecture circuit to accompany it), however unlike
Reinventing Fire and
Roadmap 2050 the
Brookings Institute
have chosen to release a free iPad App that “brings examples of the revolution
to life, with video interviews, infographics and data visualizations." (63) This allows them to develop their case over time, adding new cities to the app
as more research is gathered, and extends the message beyond the lifetime of
the book, which is after all produced at a frozen point in time. It seems
highly unusual that RMI have not gone to similar measures with
Reinventing Fire and the website is too
reliant on words. That RMI are capable of better distilling their ideas is not
in doubt, as demonstrated in their short YouTube videos, but it does seem
strange, given the importance placed on the Information Age and social media in
the book that these have not been exploited to their full potential.
Sustained
transformation in the built environment industry
Throughout the book Lovins
repeatedly returns to the economic argument that “Some $5 trillion in savings
over 40 years may seem small in a $15-trillion-per-year economy. But it’s the
opposite of the economic collapse that some pundits predict." (64) However, it can been demonstrated that sustained effort pays off: California
shrank greenhouse-gas emissions per dollar of GDP by 30% between 1990-2006,
whilst Denmark shrank its energy intensity 39% and its carbon intensity 50%,
made its electricity 28% more renewable and three-fourths micropower, and
created a world-class renewables industry between 1980-2006 (65)
In describing the world post Reinventing Fire clear references to
issues affecting all disciplines in the built environment industry are made. A
future where “we organize our communities around people, not autos, we drive
much less because the places where we live, work, play and shop are nearly all in
easy walking distance” has obvious implications for the way our architects and
urban planners of the future must operate." (66) Furthermore “The old zoning rules that ended up segregating housing by income
level, causing isolation and dispersion, and requiring that you have a costly
private car to get anywhere, are long repealed." (67)
Today cities are no longer
considered as two-variable (density and open space) problems but instead as
complex entities more comparable to the emergent behaviours witnessed in ecology.
The world post
Reinventing Fire is
the same, with urban and industrial ecosystems where what waste is generated
becomes food for another part of the system. (68) The
Kalundbord Eco-industrial Park, Denmark, is a prime example of this
happening today. A process of “industrial symbiosis” allows a network of regional
companies to collaborate, use each other’s by-products and share resources. (69)
If there is one
‘hero’ in the world of Reinventing Fire
it is not one person but an idea—integrated design—that will enable this
post-fossil fuel U.S. to come to fruition. It is curious that at the same time
that the ‘old fire’ began to proliferate, during the Industrial Revolution,
that the proliferation of specialists took place and everything became
de-integrated. Not only does two hundred years of energy structure need to be
transformed but a milieu two hundred years in the making must also be reshaped.
“To turn dis-integrated design into highly integrative design, architectural
and engineering pedagogy needs reform, in-practice design professionals need
mental retreads, clients need to value and require integrative design by
experiencing its benefits, and incentive-aligning approaches like
performance-based design fees and integrated project delivery need to become
the norm." (70)
I would like to leave the final word not with Lovins but
instead with Belgian architect
Julien De Smedt. I believe they are describing
very similar futures when, in 2010, De Smedt, wrote: “As young architects, our
generation must enthusiastically embrace new ideas about sustainability,
questioning inherited doctrine and forging new trajectories. We are the first
generation of architects for whom sustainability was embedded in our
education—what could in the near future come to be known as the
post-sustainability generation. We
believe architecture must shift its focus from
sustain to
ability,
abandoning the ambiguity , guilt and compromise characteristic of too much
sustainable design today, and demanding
instead precise, beautiful, and systematic instigations for change." (71)
Notes
1. Lovins, A., Reinventing
Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era (2011), White River
Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, p. IX.
2. Ibid., p. IX.
