Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era
Oil and coal have built our civilization, created our wealth, and enriched the lives of billions. Yet, their rising costs to our security, economy, health, and environment now outweigh their benefits. Moreover, that long-awaited energy tipping point—where alternatives work better than oil and coal and compete purely on cost—is no longer decades in the future. It is here and now. And it is the fulcrum of economic transformation.

A global clean-energy race has emerged with astounding speed. The ability to operate without fossil fuels will define winners and losers in business—and among nations.

In Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute offer a new vision to revitalize business models, end-run Washington gridlock, and win the clean-energy race—not forced by public policy but led by business for enduring profit. This groundbreaking roadmap reveals market-based solutions across the transportation, building, industry, and electricity sectors. It highlights pathways and competitive strategies for a 158%-bigger 2050 U.S. economy that needs no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and no new inventions.
This transition would cost $5 trillion less than business-as-usual—without counting fossil fuels’ huge hidden costs. It requires no new federal taxes, subsidies, mandates, or laws. The policy innovations needed to unlock and speed it need no Act of Congress.

Whether you care most about profits and jobs, national security, health, or environmental stewardship, Reinventing Fire charts a pragmatic course that makes sense and makes money. With clarity and mastery, Lovins and RMI point out the astounding opportunities for enterprises to create the new energy era.

Drawing praise from President Bill Clinton, former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, and a host of others, Reinventing Fire has piqued the interest of world leaders, business leaders, and political strategists.

The paperback has a new preface detailing the response from China and beyond.
1100821351
Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era
Oil and coal have built our civilization, created our wealth, and enriched the lives of billions. Yet, their rising costs to our security, economy, health, and environment now outweigh their benefits. Moreover, that long-awaited energy tipping point—where alternatives work better than oil and coal and compete purely on cost—is no longer decades in the future. It is here and now. And it is the fulcrum of economic transformation.

A global clean-energy race has emerged with astounding speed. The ability to operate without fossil fuels will define winners and losers in business—and among nations.

In Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute offer a new vision to revitalize business models, end-run Washington gridlock, and win the clean-energy race—not forced by public policy but led by business for enduring profit. This groundbreaking roadmap reveals market-based solutions across the transportation, building, industry, and electricity sectors. It highlights pathways and competitive strategies for a 158%-bigger 2050 U.S. economy that needs no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and no new inventions.
This transition would cost $5 trillion less than business-as-usual—without counting fossil fuels’ huge hidden costs. It requires no new federal taxes, subsidies, mandates, or laws. The policy innovations needed to unlock and speed it need no Act of Congress.

Whether you care most about profits and jobs, national security, health, or environmental stewardship, Reinventing Fire charts a pragmatic course that makes sense and makes money. With clarity and mastery, Lovins and RMI point out the astounding opportunities for enterprises to create the new energy era.

Drawing praise from President Bill Clinton, former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, and a host of others, Reinventing Fire has piqued the interest of world leaders, business leaders, and political strategists.

The paperback has a new preface detailing the response from China and beyond.
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Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era

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Overview

Oil and coal have built our civilization, created our wealth, and enriched the lives of billions. Yet, their rising costs to our security, economy, health, and environment now outweigh their benefits. Moreover, that long-awaited energy tipping point—where alternatives work better than oil and coal and compete purely on cost—is no longer decades in the future. It is here and now. And it is the fulcrum of economic transformation.

A global clean-energy race has emerged with astounding speed. The ability to operate without fossil fuels will define winners and losers in business—and among nations.

In Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute offer a new vision to revitalize business models, end-run Washington gridlock, and win the clean-energy race—not forced by public policy but led by business for enduring profit. This groundbreaking roadmap reveals market-based solutions across the transportation, building, industry, and electricity sectors. It highlights pathways and competitive strategies for a 158%-bigger 2050 U.S. economy that needs no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and no new inventions.
This transition would cost $5 trillion less than business-as-usual—without counting fossil fuels’ huge hidden costs. It requires no new federal taxes, subsidies, mandates, or laws. The policy innovations needed to unlock and speed it need no Act of Congress.

Whether you care most about profits and jobs, national security, health, or environmental stewardship, Reinventing Fire charts a pragmatic course that makes sense and makes money. With clarity and mastery, Lovins and RMI point out the astounding opportunities for enterprises to create the new energy era.

Drawing praise from President Bill Clinton, former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, and a host of others, Reinventing Fire has piqued the interest of world leaders, business leaders, and political strategists.

The paperback has a new preface detailing the response from China and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781603585385
Publisher: Rizzoli
Publication date: 09/11/2013
Pages: 334
Product dimensions: 7.40(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Amory Lovins, a consultant physicist, is among the world's leading experts in energy and its links with resources, security, development, and environment. He has advised the energy and other industries for four decades as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. His work in 50+ countries has been recognized by the "Alternative Nobel," Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed Future Energy (Runner-Up), Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, Goff Smith, and Mitchell Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 11 honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, honorary Senior Fellowship of the Design Futures Council, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, Time International Hero of the Environment, Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership, National Design, and World Technology Awards.
A Harvard and Oxford dropout and former Oxford don, he has briefed 20 heads of state and advises major firms and governments worldwide, recently including the leadership of Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Ford, Holcim, Interface, and Wal-Mart. He cofounded in 1982 and serves as Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan think-and-do tank that creates abundance by design. His most recent visiting academic chair was in spring 2007 as MAP/Ming Professor in Stanford's School of Engineering, offering the University's first course on advanced energy efficiency. The latest of his 30 books is Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era. An anthology from his 1968-2010 work, The Essential Amory Lovins, was released in 2011. He is also the co-author of the sustainable business classic, Natural Capitalism. In 2009, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.

Table of Contents

1. Defossilizing fuels

The true cost of oil addiction

Oil and insecurity

Coal's hidden costs

Turning the supertanker

Lighting the new fire

No miracles required

2. Transportation : fitter vehicles, smarter use

Designing and building autos differently

Using autos more productively

The rest of the story : beyond automobiles

Powering vehicles with cleaner energy

Conclusion : better mobility at lower cost without oil

3. Buildings : designs for better living

Understanding today's building quagmire

The efficiency revolution : what's profitable and what's possible

The conundrum and the challenge

Solving the efficiency puzzle

Conclusion : more comfort, more productivity, less energy, stronger economics

4. Industry : remaking how we make things

How the industrial jungle drives U.S. energy demand

Viewing industry through the efficiency lens

How much more productive can industry become?

Transforming the industrial jungle

Conclusion : competitiveness through radical energy productivity

5. Electricity : repowering prosperity

Imagining the next electricity system

Maintain : the elusiveness of "business-as-usual"

Migrate : the conventional approach to "carbon-free" electricity

Renew : tapping nature's inexhaustible energy sources

Transform : a seismic shift in scale

Four cases, one broad direction

How do we get there from here?

Conclusion : the path forward

6. Many choices, one future

Looking back from 2050

How can reinventing fire evolve smoothly?

How do we seize the 2050 prize?

Kindling the new fire

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