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CREDENTIALS_LOVINS_VS_THE_FOUR

                                             November 6, 2015



Amory Lovins vs the Four: Brand, Schwartz, Lovelock and More

Amory Lovins had an interview on Democracy Now,        http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/16/amory_lovins_expanding_nuclear_power_makes
back in 2008, where he said:


  AMY GOODMAN: Environmentalists like Stewart Brand and
  James Lovelock are pushing nuclear power.

  AMORY LOVINS: There are actually four individuals involved
  in the world who are prominent environmentalists who had
  that view, and you’ve named two of them.

  AMY GOODMAN: Who are the other two?

  AMORY LOVINS: Patrick Moore was active in founding
  Greenpeace back in the ’70s, now works for industry; and
  Peter Schwartz, who used to be on my board, who used to
  run group planning for Royal Dutch/Shell, is of the same
  view. But I can’t think of any others. There are no
  actual environmental groups who favor nuclear power.

  AMY GOODMAN: What is your answer to them, and why have
  they arrived — these are your old colleagues?


  AMORY LOVINS: Well, yeah, a couple of them are old
  friends. Well, I think they haven’t done their homework.
  And I keep asking for their analysis and not getting it,
  because I don’t think they have one. But they somehow
  form the view that because nuclear doesn’t emit carbon,
  it must be a good thing. Well, that’s not good enough.


  You need a source that doesn’t emit carbon —
  nuclear emits a little bit in the fuel cycle and in
  building plants, and so on. But you need one that doesn’t
  emit carbon and is faster and cheaper than other ways to do
  the same thing. You see, renewables don’t emit carbon.
  Efficiency doesn’t emit carbon. Cogeneration based on
  recovered waste heat you were throwing away anyhow
  doesn’t emit carbon, because you already paid for the
  carbon in making the useful part of the heat in industry.
  And these sources are a great deal cheaper and faster than
  nuclear. So if climate’s a problem, we need to invest
  judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most solution
  per dollar, the most solution per year. Otherwise,
  we're making things worse.


There are a few things of interest here, I think.

The posturing about how people like Brand and Schwartz don't have
any "analysis" is outrageously obnoxious... The general argument
is that, yes, nuclear power is a good thing because it doesn't
emit carbon, but also because it doesn't require any
breakthroughs in energy storage to get it to scale. Pretending
that the intermittent nature of wind and solar isn't a problem
does not count as being judicious. Myself, what I would call
judicious is a "do everything" strategy that relies on a diverse
range of low-carbon energy sources, and doesn't involve betting
the planet on something new and untried...

On the subject of credentials, the position I take with a case
like Amory Lovins is that his somewhat unconventional background
might raise a flag of suspicion, but it does not automatically
discredit everything he says. Similarly, the idea that Lovins
has been well-paid for his activism might raise a flag, but that
doesn't automatically discredit him either. In other words--
just looking at his background-- I would cut Lovins a little more
slack than someone like Rod Adams does.

But here, in this Democracy Now interview, we see Lovins playing
a game where he tries to discredit his opponents, implying
that they've all been corrupted by their business connections.

So it could be there's some poetic justice in Rod Adams attacks
on Lovins.

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