World energy strategies: Facts, issues, and options

by Amory B. Lovins, Hannes Alfen (Introduction)

For those wishing to play a responsible role in shaping energy decisions now being made around the world. Amory Lovins provides a great store of vital information. World Energy Strategies avoids easy and canonically received answers, concentrating on a careful explanation of technical assessment regarding the nature and magnitutde of constraints upon our already inadequate energy resources. Within that context, lovins suggests where the merits may lie in technical disputes and shows not ony what energy options exist for the long term but also what short-term actions must be avoided if we are to preserve those options. "The main reason for Lovin's importance is that he has managed to redefine the energy problem, and thereby to change the frame of reference of a large number of technical debates. He has first-rate credentials as a nuclear physicist and, in his words, a former high technologist." He is familiarwith a staggering body of recent literature on energy. He writes clearly and often eloquently. All of these things help, but his appeal is that he has managed to define a pattern against which a jumble of technical choices can be compared and evaluated" - Fred D. Baldwin THE NATION

131 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Amory Bloch Lovins is an American writer, physicist, and former chairman/chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has written on energy policy and related areas for four decades, and served on the US National Petroleum Council, an oil industry lobbying group, from 2011 to 2018.
Lovins has promoted energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy sources, and the generation of energy at or near the site where the energy is actually used. Lovins has also advocated a "negawatt revolution" arguing that utility customers don't want kilowatt-hours of electricity; they want energy services. In the 1990s, his work with Rocky Mountain Institute included the design of an ultra-efficient automobile, the Hypercar. He has provided expert testimony and published 31 books, including Reinventing Fire, Winning the Oil Endgame, Small is Profitable, Brittle Power, and Natural Capitalism.