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Economically Efficient Energy Futures

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Book cover Interactions of Energy and Climate

Abstract

The integrated burn of fossil fuel, and the associated risk of global climatic change, can be minimized by economically efficient energy policies based on very efficient energy use and rapid deployment of appropriate renewable energy sources. Such policies can stabilize the rate of burning fossil fuel and gradually, over a half-century or so, reduce it to approximately zero. Economically and technically sophisticated recent studies in many industrialized countries have shown that it is cheaper, faster, and easier to increase national energy productivity by severalfold than to increase energy supply. If such studies are taken as an existence proof, a worldwide Western European material standard of living for 8 × 109 people could be maintained with today’s rate of world energy use (~8 TW) or less, even with unchanged lifestyles in the developed countries and complete industrialization of the developing countries. At these cost-effective levels of energy productivity, virtually all long-term energy needs can be met by appropriate renewable sources that are already available and that are significantly cheaper, faster, and otherwise more attractive than competing power stations and synthetic-fuel plants. Only major efficiency improvements and, secondarily, appropriate renewable sources can substantially change the timing of, or reduce the risk of, CO2 problems.

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Notes

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Consultant physicist and British Representative, Friends of the Earth, Inc., 124 Spear St., San Francisco, CA, 94105, USA

    Amory B. Lovins

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  1. Amory B. Lovins
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Applied Climatology and Environmental Studies, The University of Münster, Germany

    W. Bach

  2. Umweltbundesamt, Berlin (West), Germany

    J. Pankrath

  3. Climatological Consultant, Karlsruhe, Germany

    J. Williams

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© 1980 D. Reidel Publishing Company

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Lovins, A.B. (1980). Economically Efficient Energy Futures. In: Bach, W., Pankrath, J., Williams, J. (eds) Interactions of Energy and Climate. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9111-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9111-8_1

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