Reinventing Fire Quotes

“This mismatch between home and export markets’ preferences is a competitive weakness in a global industry.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“Feebates make efficient autos cheaper to buy and inefficient autos costlier.79 Buy a fuel hog and you’d pay an up-front fee, right on the price sticker, that climbs as its fuel economy declines. But choose a fuel sipper instead and you’d get a rebate funded by others’ fees: the more efficient the auto, the bigger the rebate.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“Contrary to some recent reports, electrification won’t be constrained by critical materials (see The Rare-Earth Conundrum sidebar); rather, they’re vibrant business opportunities to displace scarce elements and to use them more productively, durably, and recoverably.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“Those biofuels would be better used by aviation and heavy trucking, for which electric power is not a viable option.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“Aluminum absorbs about twice as much crash energy per pound as steel, while carbon-fiber composites are up to six times better than aluminum.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“about the safety of composites-based vehicles? Until recently, the prevailing view in the U.S. auto industry was that efficient autos are small, unsafe, sluggish, costly, or otherwise so undesirable that customers would buy them only if the government required or subsidized them. However, the physics of autos shows that light weight and efficiency can actually mean spacious, safer (see Crash Safety with Composites sidebar), peppier, and cost-competitive. People will buy such autos because they’re better, not just because they’re more efficient,”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“About half today’s production cost is for precursor material—96% of which is polyacrylonitrile made from oil (propylene) or natural gas (propane), both of which have volatile prices. Carbon-fiber manufacturers are starting to make their own precursors and expect to cut their costs by about 20%. But much cheaper precursors are emerging. Their strands of carbon atoms are commonplace; the trick is removing the other elements and forming the remaining carbon skeleton into long, pure strands. Solve those problems, and carbon fiber could be made from biomaterials like plant fibers, or even from recycled plastic trash. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) believes these alternatives could potentially cut carbon-fiber costs by up to 90%,”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“With composites, it may be possible to use “paint-in-mold” techniques to prime or color a part while forming it, greatly simplifying the paint shop or eliminating it altogether.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“Some automakers already sell autos with carbon-fiber composite parts or powered by electric motors. As we’ll see next, these innovations are about to converge, not just to make a better, more efficient auto but to support the companies’ long-term survival and success. So how can we make this revolutionary leap?”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“Rolling resistance. Another way to boost efficiency is by adding modern low-rolling-resistance tires. Again, highly efficient tires don’t generally cost more. Shifting from the least to the most efficient in a common size boosts fuel economy by 8–12% but needn’t cost more nor sacrifice performance, durability, or safety.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“The 2008–2009 Great Recession also sent U.S. auto sales plunging from nearly 17 million in 2005 to 10.4 million in 2009, helping push the U.S. industry to the brink of collapse.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

“By 2008, new U.S. autos averaged a miserable 23 mpg on the road. No wonder America’s best-selling vehicle in 2008, the Ford F150 pickup truck, got fewer miles per gallon than the groundbreaking Model T had a century earlier.”
― Amory Lovins, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era