A Cleaner Energy Future: Realism vs. Idealism – Blog Post 9 - September 26

            This week for Energy Politics I read two short essays, one by Richard Heinberg and another by Amory B. Lovins, on how the world should confront the energy crisis.  Both of these authors have a good vision for an ideal future, but do not recommend any steps to get there.  

Heinberg argues that people could either continue on the maximum carbon plan, burning all fossil fuels until it is not profitable to burn anymore, or the minimum carbon plan, where people use subsidies and incentives to increase the renewable energy sector, use biofuels instead of oil for transportation, and try to sequester carbon dioxide and store it out of the atmosphere.  Either way, Heinberg argues that people will need to decrease their energy consumption per capita in the future, so he recommends doing it now to make the transition easier.  Heinberg addresses most sectors, from agriculture to buildings.  He argues that with a shortage of fossil fuels, more people will have to be hired to maintain the fields in agriculture, and it will be less economical for farmers to use pesticides and herbicides.  Additionally, transportation will be more costly so communities should be reorganized so that public transportation can be utilized or so that walking or biking is more preferable.  A lot of these points are valid and are ideal in my opinion, but the question I ask is, how do we get there?  How do we get to this point and conserve more energy before we need to, as Heinberg suggests?

Amory B. Lovins has a similar piece.  He suggests that energy efficiency will lead to more profits for business and more economic growth.  Lovins makes many claims that technology is improving and that technology is here today that can help us live more efficiently.  He cites his own home as having countless improvements that make it very energy efficient.  On the other hand, many of his facts and statistics seem far too extrapolated to really make sense.  His technocratic belief that technology will save us seems far too strong to really trust a lot of what he says.  For example, Lovins argues that electric cars could have 125-250 miles per gallon by 2050.  He also talks about trucks and cars having “triple-efficiency trucks and planes” that require no oil because biofuels, hydrogen, and electricity will take over.  These kinds of assumptions on what technology will be able to do in the future are not well routed and seem too far extrapolated to really make much sense.  Increasing the miles per gallon of electric cars does not follow a linear path; additionally, efficiency generally decreases as more energy-efficient technologies are added due to the law of diminishing returns.  Furthermore, a hydrogen economy is very far away and would need a large policy, law, or subsidy to really get going and replace our current infrastructure.  Although Lovins brings up many economical ways to be more efficient, such as to integrative design in how we build and construct things, a lot of his claims seem too technocratic to believe the facts behind what he is saying.  
In conclusion, although it is great to have an ideal view of how society should function in the future, Heinberg and Lovins both do not put full plans together on how to get there.  One focuses on conservation of energy that is currently non-profitable in many ways; the other focuses on technological advancements that are unlikely to occur or function on their own.