The Returns to Applying Efficiency Gains on an Industrial Scale

Mark Nelson joins me to discuss Amory Lovins, the man behind the “soft energy path” and the intellectual godfather of Germany’s Energiewende. Amory Lovins shot to relevance in the 1970s for advising against the prevailing model for electric utilities, which was to build as much generation capacity as possible. Lovins charted an alternate path, which focused on efficiency and distributed energy sources. Mark offers his critique of Lovins, based on what he identifies as the two main faults that have persisted in Lovins’ argument for decades: 1) the idea that the “soft” and “hard” energy paths are mutually exclusive, and 2) the supremacy of nuclear “problem.” Mark Nelson is the managing director of Radiant Energy Group. He holds degrees in mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering, as well as Russian language and literature.