Energy Efficiency

In a time when our current energy policies are becoming more inefficient and expensive, it's beneficial to have people such as Amory Lovins active in promoting the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. Lovins has been working with trying to spread the importance of renewable energy for years and has written many books about it as well as actively participated in trying to contribute to the movement. 

One of his books, "Winning the oil endgame", he talks of substituting liquids made from biomass or wastes for petroleum fuels. He also talks of substituting natural gas for oil in uses where they are interchangeable, for example, furnaces or boilers. Lovins believes that the generation of energy should be done always at or near the site where the energy is actually used. 

Soft energy paths are the route we should be taking when trying to use renewable energies. Soft energy paths are energy conserving and involve efficient energy use as well as diverse and renewable energy sources. These soft energy paths are based on solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, etc. One of Lovins biggest concerns is the danger of committing to nuclear energy to meet societies energy needs. Amory Lovins also started the "Negawatt Revolution". Negawatt is a unit in watts in which watts of energy are saved, the opposite of a watt. He believes that people don't want kilowatt hours of electricity, they want to keep things cold or have hot showers, therefore saving energy becomes more efficient. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he uses this similar idea. He talks of digging for "negabarrels" of oil. These negabarrels are the opposite of digging for oil and can be done in major cities. He points out that by using "negabarrels of oil" (saving oil), you can save more oil than Saudi Arabia can produce.