Amory Lovins and Natural Capitalism

A comment on Amory Lovins.

I have friends who very much advocate the approach of Amory Lovins, emphasising that such an approach has the beauty of promising climate solutions we can all support, whether or not we agree politically on the problems. Put that way, such an approach contains the promise of breaking the political impasse on climate action.

Amory Lovins advocates "soft energy paths" involving efficient energy use, diverse and renewable energy sources, and special reliance on "soft energy technologies". Soft energy technologies are those based on solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, etc. which are matched in scale and quality to their task. Residential solar energy technologies are prime examples of soft energy technologies and rapid deployment of simple, energy conserving, residential solar energy technologies is fundamental to a soft energy strategy.

Lovins has described the "hard energy path" as involving inefficient energy use and centralized, non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels. One of Lovins' main concerns was the danger of committing to nuclear energy to meet a society's energy needs, due chiefly to what he considered its poor economics and high risk of fostering nuclear weapons proliferation.

Lovins argued that besides environmental benefits, global political stresses might be reduced by Western nations committing to the soft energy path. He believes soft path impacts are more "gentle, pleasant and manageable" than hard path impacts. These impacts range from the individual and household level to those affecting the very fabric of society at the national and international level.

http://www.energytribune.com/974/green-energy-advocate-amory-lovins-guru-or-fakir#sthash.cwiggdxU.dpbs

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/reinventing-fire-and-the-dream-of-efficiency

http://atomicinsights.com/amory-lovins-continues-sowing-confusion-renewable-nuclear-energy/

I can certainly support Lovins’ problem solving approach, the view that efficient technologies would pay for themselves sooner or later in lower fuel bills. And I like the view that the stabilization of global warming can be achieved without authoritarian government or drastic reduction in the standard of living. Yes, the cheapest, quickest, and cleanest weapon against global warming is energy efficiency. It’s an approach that gives us the standard of living we have become accustomed to. But if it perpetuates a way of life and economic system that is destructive of the environment, then it reveals “natural capitalism” to be an oxymoron. A "natural capitalism", in which economic activity is adapted to ecological laws and principles, would seem to imply something very different from the growth paradigm being criticised in this article. But, yes, I’ll support the idea of energy efficiency, as an instance of learning from nature. I support appropriate technology. I think the issue raised by this article comes down to this: pursuing energy paths and designing energy infrastructures in abstraction from prevailing social relations – and here we have to identify the accumulative dynamic that powers exponential growth – risks being utopian.

But if I understand the "green capitalism" of Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken, I think it is quite different from the approach criticised in this article, in that the view holds that production can be transformed enough to disconnect monetary from material accumulation. That is, we can employ markets and the profit motive not only to encourage resource-efficiency but also to shrink the physical economy whilst at the same time increasing the quality of life.

I do like this quote along those lines: 'Today, the central issues for thoughtful and successful industries - the two being increasingly identical - relate not to how best to produce the goods and services needed for a satisfying life - that's now pretty well worked out - but rather to what is worth producing, what will make us better human beings, how we can stop trying to meet non-material needs by material means, and how much is enough.' (Paul Hawken, Amory B Lovins, L Hunter Lovins).

I’m not sure that Amory Lovins’ position is that far at all from the view I would support. I’ve just checked my own research notes and found this list of principles which he advocates, and which I support.

1. A flexible diverse mix of energy supply. In this mix specific to local conditions, solar, wind, biomass, hydro.

2. Primacy of renewable energy sources. The green economy runs primarily on "current solar income" from various sources, not by using up stored "natural capital" embodied by fossil fuels.

3. Focus on end-use, on conservation, and on efficiency of use. The renewable mix can work only if we use much less energy and use it much more efficiently. It makes no sense to pour water into a leaky sieve.

4. Energy matched to the task at hand in both quality and scale.

5. Participation-oriented structure in both production and consumption. A flexible, diverse mix involves decentralized production and people's active involvement in conserving and flowing with natural processes.

6. People-intensive development and job-creation. While the energy sector is industrial society's most capital-intensive sector, a soft-energy infrastructure of renewables and conservation is labor-intensive.

The role of energy thus illustrates the kind of qualitative changes required by the transition to a genuinely postindustrial society. The evolution of forms of energy in this manner indicate substantial and growing potentials for participatory approaches in all aspects of life, as part of the transition from quantity to quality. In other words, we get the system change after all, which seems highly political to me.

But, certainly, Lovins’ work details plenty of examples of how resource efficiency could almost halt the degradation of the biosphere and, agreed, ecodesign is good economics and ecology. Lovins' emphasis on the central importance of end-use is radical stuff, because it involves overturning industrialism's fundamental relationship of means and ends.

All good. I can support all of this. It just begs the question …

I’m just suspicious of any eco-modernisation or green engineering approach that is more industrial modernisation than ecology, more about technologies than politics, more engineering than ethics. We need an integral approach.

I wonder if Lovins, an advocate of natural capitalism, quite appreciates the subversive implications for capitalism of the comprehensive end-use economics he advocates. His green capitalist position affirms the possibility of disaccumulation and dematerialization and the transformation of production. But the point is that these are not just technical issues to be resolved by green engineering and energy efficiency – these things, all very worthy, have to be connected with social relations, patterns of environmental and social domination, and, the point at issue, the qualitative changes that need to take place to alter the driving forces of the economy. I think we can accept a reshaped profit motive and markets in the transition from quantity to quality – here I am with Lovins – the problem is that unless the primacy of monetary accumulation is removed, the economy based on end-use, real need, and quality which Lovins argues for, and which I support, will be frustrated.