rocky mountain institute/volume xxii #3/fall 2005n 1 august, rocky mountain institute and ensar...

O n 1 August, Rocky MountainInstitute and ENSAR Group ofBoulder, Colo. joined forces in

RMI’s newly named RMI/ENSAR BuiltEnvironment team.

“The work that RMI does and thework that ENSAR Group does have beencomplementary for more than twentyyears,” said RMI Executive DirectorMarty Pickett. “Indeed, RMI and ENSARGroup have worked on many greenbuilding projects together. Hiring ENSARGroup to become part of our green devel-opment team was a logical step in theevolution of the Institute.”

ENSAR Group, led by Greg E. Franta,FAIA, has for 27 years been a leadingconsultancy in high-performance build-ings, and is one of only five U.S. firmscertifying LEED™ buildings (Leadershipin Energy and Environmental Design)under the auspices of the U.S. GreenBuilding Council. Its name is short for“Environmentally SustainableArchitecture.” RMI/ENSAR BuiltEnvironment will create, develop, andimplement integrated solutions for the

building industry that will restore andregenerate natural systems while enhanc-ing life-sustaining built environments. Theteam will offer businesses, public agen-cies, communities, and individuals strate-gies and methods for creating more

wealth and employment, protecting andenhancing natural and human capital,and increasing profit and competitiveadvantage.

According to Greg, the purpose of join-ing forces is to provide a more compre-

RMISolutions

Wh at’s Inside...

Green Design Practice Joins RMIRR MM II// EE NN SS AA RR BB uu iilltt EE nnvviirroonn mmeenntt TT eeaamm BBoollsstteerrss IImmpplleemmeennttaattiioonn

T he Institut e’s new RMI/E N S A R B uilt Environment t e am includes:

A lexis K arolides, A I A , Victor O lgyay, A I A , C ara Taverna C armicha e l,

A shley Muse, and G reg Frant a, F A I A .

Get ting S traight: Institute supporters often ask us why we work with bigcompanies, wealthy yacht owners, and, regularly, the military. Good end-useenergy efficiency is indiscriminate. Here, RMI CEO Amory Lovins explains ourwork with the military. See p. 4.Ethanol S chmethanol?: There’s been a whole lot of talk about ethanollately, and much of it is misleading, inconclusive, or simply wrong. Here RMIenergy researchers Nate Glasgow and Lena Hansen explain the value of “cellu-losic” ethanol. Hint: It’s not made from corn. See p. 6.A P art y with a P urpose: During 15–18 July, the Institute hosted its firstNational Solutions Council Weekend in Old Snowmass, Colo. Here’s a briefdescription of the grand time that was had by all. See p. 8.

N ukes R edux: RMI CEO Amory Lovins expands the economic and policyarguments against nuclear energy he made in our summer issue. See p. 10.N ew N ew Orleans?: HurricaneKatrina was a devastating tragedy, nomatter how you look at it. In a specialsection (starting on p. 18, Institutefriend Jonathan Rose and SeniorFellow Bill Browning offer theirthoughts on reconstruction, and RMISolutions editor Cam Burns shares thestory of Soldiers Grove, Wisc.

RMISolutionsRocky Mountain Institute/volume xxii #3/Fall 2005

RMISolutionsF a l l 2 0 0 5

2

hensive approach to green development,from notions developed at the “think-and-do-tank” level through on-the-ground implementation, resulting in alarger impact on the building industrythan either RMI or ENSAR couldachieve on its own. The current servicesof both organizations will remain intactwith a new market development oppor-tunity for more comprehensive servicesand a broader range of clients, henoted. RMI/ENSAR BuiltEnvironment will be based inSnowmass and Boulder, Colo.,under Greg’s leadership.

“I am truly looking forward tobeing more effective in creating sus-tainable developments around theworld,” Greg said. “Our joint effortwill allow us to provide more com-prehensive services in environmen-tal quality and energy efficiency, notonly for the building industry, but forcommunities, businesses, NGOs, and governments.”

As ENSAR Group’s principal archi-tect, Greg has tremendous experiencein the green building sector and has pio-neered environmentally sustainablearchitecture around the world since theearly 1970s. As an international consult-ant to other design professionals anddevelopers, Greg has led ENSAR Groupin providing services on more than 800energy-efficient and environmentallysound projects, including offices, labora-tories, educational buildings, healthfacilities, libraries, homes, and otherbuildings—many, including RMI’s 1984headquarters, considered among themost energy-efficient in the country. Hehas also assisted in the creation of sus-tainable communities, from EcoVillagein Virginia to Gaia Village in Brazil.

Additionally, Greg has shown exten-sive leadership in the green buildingcommunity. He has served on theNational Board of Directors for theAmerican Institute of Architects and

cofounded the AIA’s Committee on theEnvironment (he also founded theCommittee’s predecessor, the Energy &Environmental Quality Committee). Heis the chairman of the SustainableBuilding Industries Council and veryactive in the U.S. Green BuildingCouncil. He helped to develop theLEED Green Building Rating System, ispart of the LEED certification team, and

is a national LEED faculty member.From 1977 to 1982, Greg led theCommercial Buildings Group at theSolar Energy Research Institute (nowthe National Renewable EnergyLaboratory), where he developed newdesign resources and tools for energy-conscious architects.

ENSAR Group was founded byRobert Clarke in 1977 under the nameSolar Pathways. Greg joined Mr. Clarkein 1982 and they changed the name toENSAR Group. At the time, part ofENSAR Group was focused on theresearch, development, andcommercialization of building productsfor energy efficiency. Alpen, Inc., a high-performance glass company in Boulder,was created under the auspices ofENSAR Group and Mr. Clarke branchedout with Alpen. Today he remainsAlpen’s president and an ENSAR Groupboard member. Other key ENSARGroup staff members who are joiningRMI/ENSAR Built Environment includeVictor Olgyay, AIA, Cara TavernaCarmichael, and Ashley Muse.

Victor also has a long history in envi-ronmental architecture, and is renownedfor his skills in climate-responsive design,daylighting, and energy efficiency. He isthe coauthor of Architectural Lighting,has done extensive research on relatedtopics, and teaches climate-responsivearchitectural design. Victor is also veryactive in the U.S. Green Building Counciland is a member of the national LEED

faculty. Cara has considerable experience

with sustainable design, energyanalysis, charrette development,computer modeling, and naturaldaylighting techniques. She has con-sulted on a range of projects includ-ing daylighting and energy studiesfor schools, retail and national parkfacilities, and has developed sustain-able design guidelines international-ly. Cara has also managed project

data for an in-depth laboratory case studyevaluated by the Green Building Tool, aninternational green building rating sys-tem, and she is a LEED 2.0–accreditedprofessional.

Ashley is an environmental designerand consultant with experience in LEEDstandards, sustainable design, daylight-ing, and materials selection. Before join-ing ENSAR Group, Ashley worked atseveral Colorado architectural firms par-ticipating in design, master planning,and historic preservation. She has alsoworked as an assistant teacher for greenbuilding classes at the University ofColorado at Denver’s Graduate School ofArchitecture and Planning, where shehelped to develop the school’s greenmaterials resource guide. Ashley is aLEED 2.0–accredited professional, and isfounder and co-chair of the USGBCColorado Chapter’s Emerging GreenBuilders’ Committee. She is also part ofthe LEED project certification reviewteam for the USGBC.

Greg, Victor, Cara, and Ashley joinRMI Principal Alexis Karolides, AIA, in

E N S A R

E N S A R Group wasfounded by

R obert C larke in 1977 under the na me

S olar P athways.


3

RMI in the news

the new consultancy. Alexis, an archi-tect and LEED 2.0–accredited profes-sional, has been a senior consultant andresearcher with RMI for seven years,leading the Institute’s former GreenDevelopment Services team’s healthcare and university proj-ects, working with cor-porate clients, and pro-viding educational semi-nars and presentationsnationally and interna-tionally. Alexis will alsolead the new group’sresearch in biomimicry—innovation inspired bynature (a field synthe-sized by RMI TrusteeJanine Benyus) and inbiophilia—the hypothe-sis, now drawing strongexperimental support,that people are healthi-er, happier, and moreproductive when in buildings thatembrace nature and remind us of thenatural habitats in which our speciesevolved.

Bill Browning, Hon. AIA, who found-

ed RMI’s Green Development Servicesin 1991, will remain a Senior Fellowactive in RMI projects while developinghis new firm, Browning + Bannon,LLC, with former RMI researcher JeffBannon, in Washington DC.

Combining RMI’s green developmentconsultancy with ENSAR Group isexpected to strengthen the integrationamong RMI’s three practice areas. All ofRMI’s thought leadership depends on a

continuous flow of innovation andvision across boundaries.

“Having worked closely with Gregand ENSAR Group for three decades,we think they’re the best in the worldat helping design professionals create

high-performance build-ings with superior eco-nomics and aesthetics,”said RMI CEO AmoryLovins. “Their practice iscomplementary to RMI’s,emphasizing detailed end-to-end design support thatturns early-stage concep-tual designs (the tradition-al focus of RMI’s buildingswork) into finished proj-ects with measuredresults. Combining forcesis a longstanding dreamcome true for all of us. Itwill greatly strengthen theInstitute and help us

advance the state of the art more rap-idly.”

To contact RMI/ENSAR BuiltEnvironment, call 970-927-3851 or e-mail [email protected].

E N S A R

“ H aving worked closely withGreg and E N S A R Group for threedecades, we think they ’re thebest in the world at helpingdesign professionals createhigh-performance buildings withsuperior economics and aesthetics...”

A mory B. Lovins, R M I C E O

In July, RMI C E O A mory Lovins, a U.K . resident1967–81, won the B enjamin Franklin Meda l of Brit a in’s251-ye ar-old Roya l S ociety for the encouragementof A rts, Manuf actures & C ommerce. “ T heMeda l is conf erred on individua ls, groups,and organizations who have made pro-found efforts to forward A nglo- A mericanunderst anding in are as close ly linked tothe R S A ’s agenda,” expla inswww.rsa.org.uk. “It can a lso be awarded torecognize those that have made a signif icantcontribution to globa l aff a irs through cooperationand collaboration betwe en the U nit ed St at es and the

U nit ed K ingdom.” T he Meda l is awarded annua lly, a lt er-nat e ly to cit izens of the U nit ed St at es and the U nit ed

K ingdom. In a lett er a lerting RMI to the award,R S A C ha irman S ir Paul Judge not ed that the

Institut e’s efforts toward one of the R S A ’sManif esto C ha llenges (“moving toward azero wast e society”) was a ma jor re asonA mory was se lect ed. Past recipients of

the Meda l include D ames Judi D ench andMargot Font eyn, H on. P hilip Lader,

S enators G eorge Mitche ll and J. W illiamF ulbright, Rt. H on. H arold Macmillan, S ir D avid

A tt enborough, and A list a ir C ooke.

A mory Wins 2005 B enjamin Franklin Medal

B y A mory B. Lovins, C E O

F rom the day I cofounded RockyMountain Institute in 1982,security has been the first pur-

pose in its mission: fostering the effi-cient and restorative use of resources tomake the world secure, just, profitable,and life-sustaining. As Hal Harvey andMike Shuman explained in their1988–1993 RMI book Security WithoutWar (see www.rmi.org/images/other/Security/S93-23_SecurityWoutWar.pdf),and I summarized in 2002 (seewww.rmi.org/images/other/Security/S02-13_HowRealSecurity.pdf), “security”means freedom from fear of privation orattack, and freedom from fear of attackis best achieved at least cost by combin-ing conflict prevention, conflict resolu-tion, and nonprovocative defense(which reliably defeats aggressors with-out threatening others).

Since the 1970s, I’ve spread thismessage at military staff colleges and inprivate discussions with the civilian anduniformed leadership. RMI’s integrativeapproach to building real security—tobeing safe and feeling safe—has struck achord, because it would work better

and cost less than present arrangements;can be achieved from the bottom up asmuch as from the top down; is theprovince of every citizen, not themonopoly of national governments;makes others more secure, not less; anddoesn’t rely on the use or threat of vio-lence, which most military profession-als, based on intimate knowledge, abhorand strive to avoid. As the officerswe’ve influenced get promoted, the mil-itary doctrine they’re crafting increasing-ly reflects our emphasis on conflict pre-vention or “presponse.” They also likeour solid research: though our 1977–83nonproliferation strategy was too farahead of its time and got ignored untiltoo late, our 1981 Pentagon studyBrittle Power: Energy Strategy forNational Security (www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid1011.php) strongly influ-enced thought on domestic energy vul-nerability and resilience. Modern think-ing is also starting to catch up with ourprofitable, business-led, efficiency-basedapproach to climate protection and glob-al development.

Yet it’s always seemed odd not toengage warfighters more directly in pre-venting conflict. They have the biggest

stake and often the strongest tools. Theyserve worldwide, often supplantingdiplomats as America’s main face to theworld. Conflict-preventing “nation-building” (now more fashionablythought of as “preventive humanitarianmissions”) has an honorable record ofsuccess and is starting, after a period ofdisfavor, to be rebuilt as a vital elementof waging peace. Globe-girdling logisti-cal reach makes military forces the keyto disaster response, as in the recenttsunami. The military’s technology baseis extraordinary, its effect on economiespervasive. For all its shortcomings, themilitary remains among the most func-tional, focused, and powerful institu-tions in our society. And both in serviceand later in civilian life, military peopleand the skills and discipline learned intheir cultures continue to help build abetter and safer world.

In the past decade, after carefulreflection, we’ve accepted three oppor-tunities to deepen our involvement withthe Pentagon: helping to make Navalbuilding design integrated and efficient(1995–98, see RMI Solutions, Fall 01),serving on a Defense Science Board taskforce that found enormous scope for

WW hhyy WWee WW oorrkk wwiitthh tthhee MMiilliittaarryy

Pho

to c

ourt

esy

of U

.S. A

rmy

S oldiers from the 25th Inf antrypa trol an are a ne ar Mosul, Iraq inthe ir H umvee armored vehicles.


4

Milit ary

saving fuel in land, sea, and air plat-forms (see www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/fuel.pdf), and uncovering majorenergy waste in the Navy’s crew-sup-porting “hotel loads”—lights, chillers,pumps, fans, etc. (see RMI Solutions,Fall 01). These successes have createdcredibility and respect on which wecontinue to build.

We did this military work for threemain reasons. First is sheer scale. TheDepartment of Defense (DoD) is report-edly the nation’s largest and oldest organ-ization. Its budget, $0.4 trillion a year or$14,000 a second, exceeds the GDP ofRussia. It has three million people,600,000 structures on 30 million acresin 6,000 locations in 146 countries, 550public utility systems, hundreds of thou-sands of land vehicles, hundreds of ships,and more than 20,000 aircraft. ThePentagon is the world’s largest buyer ofoil and the nation’s largest single user ofenergy—five billion gallons a year,enough to drive every civilian car coastto coast every fourth year. If DoD were acountry, it’d rank in the top third of ener-gy users worldwide. Most of that fuel iswasted and can be profitably saved.

To be sure, military use of oil is only1.6 percent of the national total, andDoD’s energy use, though 85 percent ofall government energy, is only 1.1 per-cent of the U.S. total (vs. ~40 percentin World War II). But the Pentagon’stechnology leadership and political influ-ence give it a vastly disproportionatepotential to help lead our nation to apost-oil economy, because it can greatlyspeed massive shifts in civilian technolo-gy, as it did by creating the microchipindustry, the Internet, the GlobalPositioning System, and modern jetengines. That’s our second big reasonfor military involvement. Our new studyWinning the Oil Endgame

(www.oilendgame.com; see RMISolutions, Fall 04) showed how thePentagon’s science and technologyinvestments can help create theadvanced-materials industrial clusterneeded to commercialize ultralight car-bon-fiber cars, superefficient airplanes,and the other gamechangers that can getthe U.S. completely off oil at a profit.

Hence our third and most fundamen-tal reason for military engagement: warsare increasingly fought over oil. Tacticalsuccess and conflict prevention bothdepend on the Pentagon’s ability to leadthe United States and the world beyondoil dependence. The military leaders wework with don’t enjoy fighting in theMiddle East (or anywhere else); they’dprefer negamissions in the Gulf—Mission Unnecessary. They don’t wantto be turned into an oil protection serv-ice: they signed up to protect fellow-citi-zens in America, not pipelines in

Faroffistan. Military professionals wouldlike a world where oil is no longer pre-cious, oil doesn’t drive malignantgeopolitical rivalries (especially withChina), oil money no longer destabi-lizes friends and arms enemies, coun-tries with oil can be treated the same ascountries without oil, and other coun-tries have no reason to believe every-thing the United States does is aboutoil. Those are all good reasons for thePentagon to have supported Winningthe Oil Endgame’s research, and forRMI in turn to be encouraging DoD tohelp business lead the off-oil transition.The same logic will then naturallyextend to water, or any other resourcewhere rivalry sparks conflict.

Despite these compelling benefits,some RMI staff and supporters of RMIdislike our military collaboration, forthese reasons (with my initial reactions):

IItt’’ss ffiinnee ttoo ssaa vv ee ffuueell iinn ccii vv iill--iiaann bbuuiillddiinnggss,, vv eehhiicclleess,, aannddiinndduussttrriieess,, bbuutt nnoott iinn mmiillii--ttaarryy oonneess.. What’s the difference? Amolecule of oil burned or carbon diox-ide released has the same consequencesno matter who used it. RMI doesn’tdesign weapons systems, do classifiedwork, or otherwise apply its knowledgeto making violence more effective. Butso long as military platforms drive,swim, and fly, they should be as effi-cient as their civilian counterparts, forall the same reasons. That the militarymay have extra reasons of its own does-n’t make the nonmilitary public benefitsany less valid: I care more about resultsthan motivations.

RR MMII sshhoouulldd bbee wwoorrkkiinngg ttooccrreeaattee tthhee mm oosstt sseeccuurriittyywwiitthh tthhee lleeaasstt mmiilliittaarryy

T h e a mph ib ious a s s a u l t sh ip U SSBataan (LH D 5) shown und erw ay w i t h e ight M V-22 O sprey a s s ign e d t o t h e N avy’s M ar in e T i l trot orO p er a t ion a l Te s t—a nd now a id ing in N e w O r l e a ns d is a s t er re l i ef.

U.S

. Nav

y ph

oto

by P

hoto

grap

her’s

Mat

e A

irm

an J

erem

y L.

Gri

sham

continued on p. 32


5

Milit ary


Energy

B y N athan Glasgow and Lena H ansen

B iofuels, and specifically ethanol,have been the subject of a greatdeal of criticism in recent

months by detractors claiming that moreenergy is required to produce ethanolthan is available in the final product, thatit is too expensive, and that it producesnegligible carbon reductions. These cri-tiques are simply not accurate. State-of-the-art technologies have been compe-tently forecasted—even proven in themarket—to produce ethanol that is farmore cost-effective and less energy-inten-sive than gasoline. We’ll explore why,and why the critics have gotten it wrong.

When we say biofuels, we mean liq-uid fuels made from biomass—chieflybiodiesel and ethanol, which can besubstituted for diesel fuel or for gaso-line, respectively. The technology usedto produce biodiesel is well under-stood, although its biomass feedstocksare limited and production today isfairly expensive. We will instead focuson ethanol, which we believe has sig-nificantly greater potential.

Ethanol, which can be substituted foror blended with gasoline, has traditionallybeen produced from either corn or sugar-cane feedstocks. In fact, Brazil currentlymeets more than 25 percent of its gaso-line demand with ethanol made fromsugarcane. (The sugar is so cheap that theresulting ethanol sells in New York for$1.10 a gallon—with about 81 percentthe energy content of a gallon of gaso-line—after paying a 100 percent duty,illegal under WTO rules, to protect U.S.corn farmers. Undeterred, the Braziliansare merrily expanding their ethanolexports to Asia.) Even gasoline in theUnited States contains, on average, 2 per-cent ethanol (used as a substitute for

MTBE to oxygenate fuel). Americanethanol is almost exclusively made fromthe kernels of corn, accounting for about7 percent of the corn crop. But conven-tional processes and feedstocks used tomake ethanol are not feasible in theUnited States on a large scale for threereasons: they’re not cost-competitive withlong-run gasoline prices without subsi-dies, they com-pete with foodcrops for land,and they haveonly marginallypositive energybalances.

Happily, inaddition tostarch-basedfeedstocks,ethanol can be produced from “cellu-losic” feedstocks, including biomasswastes, fast-growing hays like switch-grass, and short-rotation woody cropslike poplar. While not cost-competitivetoday, already observed advances intechnology lead us to believe that in thenext few years, ethanol made fromthese crops will become cost-competi-tive, won’t compete with food for crop-land, and will have a sizeable positiveenergy balance. Indeed, because thesecrops are expected to have big biomassyields (~10–15 dry tons/acre, up fromthe current ~5 dry tons/acre), muchless land will be required than conven-tionally thought. Further, cellulosicethanol will typically have twice theethanol yield of corn-based ethanol, atlower capital cost, with far better netenergy yield.

A common complaint about ethanolis that the quantity of feedstocks is limit-ed and land used to grow feedstocks couldbe put to better use. For cellulosic feed-stocks, the situation is quite the contrary.

Cellulosic feedstocks are plentiful: forexample, municipal and agricultural wastescan be used to create ethanol, with the pos-itive side-effect of reducing the quantity ofwaste we must dispose of. Using waste toproduce fuel has the clear benefit of a virtu-ally free feedstock, and because energy isgenerally expended to create the product,not the waste, this type of ethanol obvious-

ly has a positive ener-gy balance.

Not quite as obvi-ous is to what extentdedicated energycrops can be used toproduce ethanol. Webelieve the answer isstraightforward.Research by OakRidge National

Laboratory shows that dedicated energycrops can be grown without competingwith food crops because they can begrown in marginal areas unsuited for foodcrop production, or on about 17 millionacres of Conservation Reserve Programland that is currently being withheld fromagricultural use.

Cellulosic crops have additional envi-ronmental benefits for several reasons.First, because crops like switchgrass aredeep-rooted perennials, growing themactually prevents soil erosion and restoresdegraded land. For this same reason, cellu-losic crops also have significantly lowercarbon emissions. While corn-basedethanol reduces carbon emissions by about20 percent below gasoline, cellulosicethanol is predicted to be carbon-neutral,or possibly even net-carbon-negative.

We can’t remember how many timeswe’ve been asked the question: “Butdoesn’t ethanol require more energy toproduce than it contains?” The simpleanswer is no—most scientific studies,especially those in recent years reflect-

SS eettttiinngg tthhee RReeccoorrdd SSttrraaiigghhtt oonn EEtthhaannooll

Ethanol, which can be substituted for or blended with gasoline,has traditionally beenproduced from eithercorn or sugarcanefeedstocks.

Ethanol, which can be substituted for or blended with gasoline,has traditionally beenproduced from eithercorn or sugarcanefeedstocks.

6


7

Energy

ing modern techniques, do not supportthis concern. These studies have shownthat ethanol has a higher energy contentthan the fossil energy used in its produc-tion. Some studies that contend thatethanol is a net energy loser include(incorrectly) the energy of the sun usedto grow a feedstock in ethanol’s energybalance, which misses the fundamentalpoint that the sun’s energy is free.Furthermore, because crops like switch-grass are perennials, they are not replant-ed and cultivated every year, avoidingfarm-equipment energy. Indeed, if poly-cultured to imitate the prairies wherethey grow naturally, they should requireno fertilizer, irrigation, or pesticideseither. So, according to the U.S.Department of Energy, for every one unitof energy available at the fuel pump,1.23 units of fossil energy are used toproduce gasoline, 0.74 of fossil energyare used to produce corn-based ethanol,and only 0.2 units of fossil energy areused to produce cellulosic ethanol.

Critics further discount cellulosicethanol by ignoring the recent advance-ments of next-generation ethanol conver-sion technologies. A recent example thathas received significant attention is DavidPimentel’s March 2005 paper in NaturalResources Research, which argues thatethanol production from cellulosic feed-

stocks requires more fossil energy to pro-duce than the energy contained in thefinal product. However, Pimentel baseshis analysis on only one technology usedto produce ethanol, ignoring two otherdeveloping technologies. His chosen con-version technology, acid hydrolosis, is theleast efficient of the three.

A superior option, thermal gasifica-tion, converts biomass into a synthesisgas composed of carbon oxides andhydrogen. The gas is then convertedinto ethanol via either a biologicalprocess using microorganisms or a cat-alytic reactor. Both of these processesshow good potential for increased ener-gy yields and reduced costs by using cel-lulosic feedstocks. This conversion tech-nology is currently being tested in pilotplants in Arkansas and Colorado.

Still better, enzymatic reductionhydrolosis already shows promise in themarketplace. Such firms as Iogen andNovozymes have been developingenzymes, and “smart bugs,” that can turnbiomass such as corn residues (leaves,stalks, and cobs) into sugars that can thenbe converted into ethanol. Historically, thebiggest cost component of this technologywas the creation of enzymes. Earlier thisyear, though, in combination with theNational Renewable Energy Laboratory,Novozymes announced a 30-fold reduc-tion in the cost of enzyme production inlaboratory trials. Expected benefits fromthis process include low energy require-ments, high efficiency, and mild processconditions. A pilot plant exists in Ontarioand another is planned in Hawai‘i. Thefirst commercial-scale enzymatic reductionhydrolosis plant is scheduled to be builtand operational by Iogen within two years,producing ethanol at a targeted cost of$1.30 per gallon.

No matter which of these conversiontechnologies ultimately wins, it is clearthat cost-effective and efficient ethanolproduction from cellulose is on the hori-zon—which is good news for the United

States, where mobility consumes seven ofevery ten barrels of oil we use. Our vora-cious appetite for that oil comes at acost—we have to buy it, we have todeal with the pollution that comes fromusing it, and, because 12 percent of ouroil comes from the Middle East, wehave to defend it. Because mobility con-sumes 70 percent of the oil we use,mostly by burning gasoline, it’s the firstplace to look for a solution.

Our recent publication Winning theOil Endgame shows that the criticalfirst step to reducing our oil consump-tion is tripled automobile efficiency—which can improve safety, maintain orimprove performance and comfort, andrepay its extra cost (if any) within twoyears at today’s U.S. gasoline prices.But there’s no reason to stop there.Using biofuels instead of gasoline topower our cars has the potential to dis-place 3.7 million barrels per day ofcrude oil—that’s a fifth of our forecast-ed consumption in 2025, after moreefficient use. In fact, an 85/15 percentblend of ethanol/gasoline in the tankof RMI’s designed 66-mpg SUV wouldresult in the vehicle getting ~320 mpgper gallon of fossil fuel burned(because the majority of fuel burned isethanol).

Clearly, focusing on the nexus of theagriculture and energy value chainswill create huge opportunities for busi-ness and huge wins for our country.The critics simply have it wrong.

Nathan Glasgow and Lena Hansen areresearchers/consultants at RMI.

Pho

to b

y B

rett

Ham

pton

More to explore:!Winning the Oil Endgame

(www.oilendgame.com) and the asso-ciated Chapter 18 Biofuels TechnicalAnnex (id.).

! U.S. Department of Energy,Ethanol: The Complete EnergyLifecycle Picture at: www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/program/2005_ethanol_brochure.pdf.

! P.C. Badger, Ethanol fromCellulose: A General Review at:www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-017.html.

S wit chgrass


8

R MI S upporters

N ational Solutions Council Launches Exciting Progra mPA R T ICI PA N T S S T IMUL AT E D B Y S H A RIN G ID E A S, MU S IC, A N D N AT UR A L B E AU T Y

DURING 15–18 JULY, THE INSTITUTE HOST-ed its first National Solutions CouncilWeekend at our Old Snowmass head-quarters, and everyone enjoyed it somuch that we are now planning a secondweekend. Stay tuned for details.

The weekend provided a whole-systemintegration of members’ minds, bodies,and spirits. From a Friday evening concertwith violinist Joshua Bell and the AspenConcert Orchestra, to a hands-on bio-mimicry workshop with RMI ResearchPrincipal Alexis Karolides, AIA, to conver-sation with RMI staff during intermis-sions of a dance performance, to aSunday morning hike with Amory alongthe Windstar Land Conservancy’srestored alpine wetland—the opportuni-ties to engage Amory and RMI staffmembers in informal discussion weredeep and diverse.

One of the highlights of the week-end was a hands-on biomimicry1 work-shop with Alexis. Participants had anopportunity to try out the prototypebiomimicry database (now in alpha test-ing) recently completed by RMI and theBiomimicry Guild. Weekend attendeesthen used their biomimetic insights toexplore the Windstar property andidentify items of nature that could helpwith the design of household items,building materials, even toys.

“As you might guess, some support-

ers of RMI, including me, who knowwhat Amory’s strengths are were eagerto see the interests and accomplish-ments of some other RMI staffers,” saidattendee Bob Schloss. “I was veryimpressed with Alexis’s ability to take

technical ideas and present them sim-ply to lay audiences. It was equallyimpressive to see that Alexis was awareof, tracking, and building on cutting-edge work in the broader sustainabilityand design communities.”

A bove: N S C membersexp lore t he W indst arL a nd C ons erva ncy w it hRMI C E O A mory L ov insa nd ot her RMI st af fmembers.

L ef t: RMI's A l exisK arol id e s, A I A , exp l a inst he benef it s of gre e n inghe a lt h c are f a c i l it i e s t oN S C members.

1 Biomimicry is innovation inspired by thedesign of natural systems. They achieve opti-mum material efficiency fine-tuned to a spe-cific need; they operate with closed loops andrun off current solar income; they neither pol-lute nor require extreme heat or toxic chemi-cal inputs. Mimicking this natural wisdom inbuilding design is a core element of RMI’swork (see www.biomimicry.net).


9

R MI S upporters

The weekend culminated onMonday with a wonderful evening get-together at the Aspen home of NSCmembers Rita and Irwin Blitt. Alexisand Amory discussed two of RMI’s cur-rent projects: greening health care facil-ities, which can reduce the need formedication, speed healing, and cut hos-

pital bills, and profitable ways to curethe United States’ addiction to oil.

About 100 old and new friends joinedus at the Blitts’ lovely residence for anevening of scintillating discussion andpiano music by Amory—all surroundedby the beauty of Rita’s sculptures andpaintings and the Colorado Rockies.

“The sources and efficient use ofenergy over the next several decadesare the fulcrums for the world economyand environment,” said attendee MikeJohnston. “Mary and I couldn’t find abetter venue or better people to discussthose issues with than the NSCWeekend at RMI.”

N S C We ekend att ende es enjoyed a wonderful salon host ed by N S C member Irwin B litt (f ar right) and his wif e Rit a (not pictured).

D oug We is er, a S nowma ss C re e k Va l l ey re s id e nt a ndlongt ime fr i e nd of t he Inst it ut e, ha s be e n name d C o-cha ir, w it h E l a in e L e B uhn, of RMI’s N a t iona lS olut ions C ounc i l ( N S C )—on e of t he f a st e st-grow-ing org a niz a t ions t ha t support s a nd promot e s RMI’swork. K a t hy Farver w i l l move from C o- C ha ir t oH onor ary C ha ir.

“ T here are so ma ny wor-t hy c a us e s t ha t n e e d a ndd e s erve our support t oday,but I c a n t hink of non e moreimport a nt t ha n R ockyM ount a in Inst it ut e, whos ework is prov ing t o be instru-me nt a l in t he very surv iva lof our p l ane t,” he s a id. “If e e l very fort una t e t o havet his wor ld-re nown e d org a ni-z a t ion a s my n e ighbor a ndI’m t hr i l l e d t o be eve n a sma l l p art of t he RMI t e am.”

D oug is marr i e d w it h t wo chi ldre n a nd l ive s in O ldS nowma ss. For n e ar ly a d e c ad e h e w a s S e n ior V ic eP re s id e nt of d eve lopme nt for C ont in e nt a lH osp it a l ity H oldings, L L C ( C H H ), a Mi ami-ba s e dhot e l ma n a g eme nt a nd deve lopment comp a ny. A tC H H , D oug coordina t e d a nd dire ct e d t he d eve lop-

me nt a nd marke t ing of t he G r a nd B ay R e sort &R e s id e nc e s pro j e ct a nd t he R it z- C ar lt on H ot e l onK ey B is c ayn e. P r ior t o his work in t he re a l e st a t e a ndhosp it a l ity industr i e s, he pursu e d a c are er in N e wYork a nd H ol lywood a s a wr it er, produc er, a nd a ct or(he ha s app e ared in episodes of M iami Vice and A ll

M y C hildren, and in the f ilmM idnight C rossing, st arringFaye D unaway, which D ougco-wrot e and produced.) H ehas re cent ly writ t en twoscre enplays tha t he plans toproduce in 2006.

D oug is a ct ive ly involvedin s evera l nonprof it organi-z a t ions and s its on theboards of S ummerbridgeMiami, Tomorrow’s Voices,A spen C ountry D ay S chool,

T he a t er A spen, and the U nivers ity of Miami’sP res ident’s C ouncil. Like a long string of RMI st affmembers over two de cades, he is a lso a volunt e erf iref ight er with the B as a lt and Rura l Fire D istrict.

For more informa t ion about t he C ounc i l, p l e a s econt a ct G inni G a l ic ina o in RMI’s D eve lopme ntD e p artme nt a t (970) 927-3851 or d eve lop @ rmi.org.

D oug Weiser N amed N ational S olutions C ouncil C o-chair

Left to right: K athy Farver, D oug We iser, Elaine Le B uhn


10

B y A mory B. Lovins, C E O

Ingenious advocates conjure up avision of a vibrant nuclear industrypoised for rapid growth, with no seri-

ous rivals in sight. A credulous pressaccepts this supposed new reality.Politicians endorse it. Yet industry data(RMI Solutions, Summer 05) reveal justthe opposite—a dying industry alreadyfading from the marketplace (Fig. 1). In2004 alone, Spain and Germany eachadded as much wind capacity—two bil-lion watts—as nuclear power is addingworldwide in each year of this decade.This year, nuclear construction starts willprobably add less capacity than solar cells.And in the year 2010, nuclear power isprojected by the International AtomicEnergy Agency to add only 1/177th asmuch net capacity as the decentralizedelectricity industries project their tech-nologies will add.

That astonishing ratio isn’t just becausemicropower is growing so fast from abase that already exceeds nuclear power;it’s also because the aging of nuclearplants is about to send global installednuclear capacity into a long decline. Ananalysis by Mycle Schneider and AntonyFroggatt, summarized in the June 2005Nuclear Engineering International,shows that the world’s average reactor is21 years old. (Coincidentally, so is theaverage of the 107 units already perma-nently retired.) If the reactors now operat-ing run for 40 years (32 under Germanlaw), then during the next decade, 80more will retire than are planned to startup; in the following decade, 197; in thefollowing, 106; and so on until they’re allgone around 2050. Even if China built30 billion watts of nukes by 2020, it’dreplace only a tenth of the overall shut-downs. No other nation contemplatessuch an ambitious effort, and Chinaseems unlikely to complete it either as its

power market becomes more competitiveand its polity more transparent.

The nuclear enterprise has beensoundly beaten by its decentralized com-

petitors, even though the competitorsreceived 24 times smaller U.S. federalsubsidies per kWh in FY1984 (RMIPublications #CS85-7 and -22) and were

Nuclear Follies Meet M arket RealitiesEnergy

Fig. 1. Low- and no-carbon decentra lized sources of e lectricity worldwide surpassednucle ar power in capacity in 2002 and in output in 2005, and in 2004, added 5.9× as muchcapacity and 2.9× as much annua l output. (RMI ana lysis document ed atwww.rmi.org/sit epages/pid171.php # E04-05. A det a iled compilation by D r. Eric Martinotof T singhua U niversity, to be published in S ept ember by Worldwatch Institut e, independ-ently re aches similar conclusions.)


11

Energy

often blocked from fairly connecting tothe grid. Electric efficiency may well havesaved even more electricity, but isn’ttracked, so it can’t be rigorously plottedon the same graph. As a rough indica-tion, though, the 2003 drop in U.S. elec-tric intensity saved (at constant load fac-tor) ~14 GW and the 2004 drop savedover 16 GW, plus 1 GW/y of utility loadmanagement. Since the U.S. uses only afourth of the world’s electricity, it’s hardto imagine that global annual savings

from all causes don’t rival or exceeddecentralized capacity additions (23 GWin 2003, 28 GW in 2004), so their totalwould exceed nuclear additions by anorder of magnitude.

This is no freak result. It reflectsnuclear power’s gross and fundamentaluncompetitiveness. But compared withwhat?

Standard studies compare a newnuclear plant only with another central-ized plant burning coal or natural gas.

They conclude that nuclear’s marked costdisadvantage might be overcome if itbecame far cheaper to build or were evenmore heavily subsidized, and if carbonwere heavily taxed. But these centralthermal power stations are all the wrongcompetitors. None of them can competeeven with windpower (and some otherrenewables), let alone with two far cheap-er resources: cogeneration of heat andpower, and efficient use of electricity (Fig.2). The results are incontrovertible. As

Fig. 2. T he c a nonic a l 2003 MI T st udy, whos e re sult s nowlook incre a s ing ly cons erva t ive, s ays a n e w nuc l e ar p l a ntrunning 40 ye ars a t 85% c ap a c ity f a ct or, would produc ee l e ctr ic ity for about 7.0¢/k W h (2004 $). A dding d e l ivery costt o cust omers (a t l e a st 2.75¢/k W h) yi e lds 9.8¢ p er d e l ivere dk W h. T he comp e t it ors ’ d e l ivere d cost s shown are t hos etyp ic a l ly obs erve d in t he U. S . marke t p l a c e, a nd exc lud et he ir mod e st subs idi e s, whi l e nuc l e ar’s l arg er subs idi e s areinc lud e d. T he cost of “f irm ing” w indpow er t o ma ke it dis-pa t chab l e even when be c a lmed is inc lud ed, but re s ervemarg ins for nuc l e ar, coa l, a nd c e ntr a l g a s p l a nt s are not.

A pp l e s-t o-app l e s comp ar isons would t hus ma ke nuc l e arlook eve n wors e. A nd t he comp e t it ors ’ of t e n t e nfold e co-nomic adva nt a g e from t he 207 “distr ibut e d be n ef it s” docu-me nt e d in RMI’s 2002 Ec ono mist book of t he ye ar Small isProf itable (www.sma l l isprof it abl e.org) are n ’t count e d a t a l l.Industr i a l cog e n er a t ion us ing w a st e he a t ha s a n eg a t ivecost be c a us e it s f u e l is fre e. T he cost of s av ing e l e ctr ic ityt e nds t o be much sma l l er (of t e n <1¢/k W h) in bus in e ss e st han in home s, and is of t e n neg a t ive in ne w bui ld ings orf a ct or i e s us ing int egr a t ive d e s ign, which very f e w ut i l ityprogr ams ye t app ly.

Energy


12

the Italian proverb says, L’aritmetica nonè opinione (arithmetic is not an opinion).

Nothing can save nuclear power fromits dismal economics. Not regulatorychange: the U.S. industry has enjoyed aregulatory system of its own design for aquarter-century with zero orders. Notnew kinds of reactors: if they were free,the rest of the plant would still cost toomuch. Not carbon taxes: they’d help effi-ciency and renewables equally and cogen-eration partially. Not hydrogen: nuclearenergy is a hopelessly costly way to splitwater. And not the roughly $13 billion ofextra subsidies just approved byCongress—markets ultimately prevail. Infact, Standard & Poor’s just concluded(Nucl. Eng. Intl. News, 18 August 2005)that nuclear developers’ credit ratingswon’t gain much, because the most basicrisks remain unresolved—and S&P wasn’teven talking about this sort of marketcompetition.

Cost trends make nuclear’s prospectseven bleaker. Windpower is expected toget at least one-third cheaper by 2020,then cheaper still. Cogen continues tomature and gain economies of mass-pro-duction. Efficiency gets ever bigger andcheaper as new and improved technolo-gies, offshore and high-volume produc-tion, competition, streamlined delivery,and (above all) integrative design outpacethe using up of potential savings. (Cali-fornia and the Pacific Northwest confirmthese trends with falling utility programcosts.) And all these technologies areempirically manyfold quicker to buildthan similar capacity in nuclear plants.

How about the ultimate potential sizeof the competing resources? At less thanthe delivered cost of just running anuclear plant, even if building it costnothing, potential U.S. electricity savingsrange from about twice to four times the20 percent U.S. market share of nuclearpower, according to the utilities’ ElectricPower Research Institute and to RMI,respectively, in their joint September

1990 Scientific American article. (Thedifference is largely methodological, notsubstantive.) Lawrence LivermoreNational Laboratory found a negative-costwaste-heat cogeneration potential aboutas big as nuclear power today, not count-ing other big opportunities in industryand buildings. Windpower’s U.S. potentialon readily available rural land—equiva-lent to a few Dakota counties—exceedstwice national electrical usage. Europeanexperience confirms that windpower’sintermittence is entirely manageable ifrenewables are properly dispersed, diver-sified, forecast, and integrated with theexisting grid.

For all these reasons, a portfolio ofleast-cost investments in efficient use andin decentralized generation will beatnuclear power in cost, speed, and size bya large and rising margin. This isn’t hypo-thetical; it’s what today’s market is prov-ing. To be sure, all technologies have acertain dry-hole or non-completion risk,and all have implementation hassles. Butobserved market behavior proves that thisrisk has been far smaller for the competi-tive portfolio than for nuclear power.

This widening gap between marketreality and nuclear theology raises somepointed policy questions. Why divertadditional public resources from marketwinners to the market loser? Why pay apremium to incur nuclear power’suniquely disagreeable problems? (Noother energy technology spreads do-it-yourself kits and innocent disguises formaking weapons of mass destruction, norcreates terrorist targets or potential formishaps that can devastate a region, norcreates wastes so hazardous, nor isunable to restart for days after an unex-pected shutdown.) Why incur the oppor-tunity cost of buying a costlier option thatboth saves less carbon per dollar and isslower per megawatt to deploy? And if,unsupported by analysis, you think weneed everything, then how will you avoidthe problem of the Chinese-restaurant

diner who orders one of each expensiveentree from the menu, spends the otherhalf of his money on a small bowl ofshark-fin soup, can’t afford rice, and goesaway hungry?

A popular euphemism holds that weneed to “keep nuclear energy on thetable.” What exactly does this mean?Continued massive R&D investments fora “mature” technology that has taken thelion’s share of energy R&D for decades(39 percent in OECD during 1991–2001,and 59 percent in the United States dur-ing 1948–98)? Ever bigger taxpayer sub-sidies to divert investment away from thesuccessful competitors? Heroic life-sup-port measures? We’ve been trying tomake nuclear power cost-effective for ahalf-century. Are we there yet? When willwe be? How will we know? And wouldnuclear advocates agree to de-subsidizethe entire energy sector, so all options cancompete on a level playing-field?

Lord Keynes said, “If a thing is notworth doing, it is not worth doing well.”Nuclear power has already died of anincurable attack of market forces, with nocredible prospect of revival. Currentefforts to deny this reality will only wastemoney, distort markets, and reduce andretard carbon dioxide displacement. Thecheaper, faster, abundant alternatives arenow empirically bigger. Since nuclearpower is therefore unnecessary anduneconomic, we needn’t debate whetherit’s safe. And if you’re worried about cli-mate change, then it’s vital to invest judi-ciously, not indiscriminately—best buysfirst, not the more the merrier (Fig.3).

The 2005 Energy Policy Act is fes-tooned with lavish subsidies and regulato-ry shortcuts for favored technologies thatcan’t compete unaided. Nuclear expan-sion, for example, gets about $13 billionin new gifts from the taxpayer: 80 per-cent loan guarantees (if appropriated),about $3 billion in “R&D” boondoggles,50 percent licensing-cost subsidies, $2 bil-lion of public insurance against legal or

Energy


13

regulatory delays, a 1.8¢/kWh increasein operating subsidies (equivalent toabout $6 billion or $840/kW—abouttwo-fifths of likely capital cost), liabilityfor mishaps capped (and largely evadablethrough shell companies), payments forlate acceptance of nuclear waste (whichthere’s no place to put and little prospectof any place to put), free offsite security,and a new $1.3-billion tax break fordecommissioning funds. The total newsubsidies approximate the total capitalcost of six big new plants. Taxpayersassume nearly all the costs and risks theydon’t already have; the promoters, whoaren’t willing to risk their own capital(despite $447 billion of 2003 revenues),pocket any upside. Yes, this boost mayyield slight twitches from the moribundnuclear industry, but no authentic revival.And nuclear isn’t the only beneficiary.Coal gasification, for example, is also rich-ly aided even though the proposed pro-gram will yield 8–10 times less gas thanefficient use could save, and will cost 4–5times as much per unit.

Such foolishness masks a deeper dan-ger to our economy. U.S. energy policy in2005 is eerily similar to that of the early1980s. President Reagan then sought,with modest success, to push centralizedsupply expansions with subsidies and fed-eral overruling of local siting objections.But he didn’t notice that the market—thanks to Ford/Carter efficiency policies

reinforced by the second oil price shockin 1979—was quietly producing a gusherof efficiency. For a time, these two trains,one saving energy and the other produc-ing more, ran down the same track inopposite directions. They met in1984–85. That almighty trainwreck glut-ted supplies, crashed prices, and bank-rupted suppliers. Efficiency was amongthe victims too: attention wandered, andAmericans, having spent twenty yearslearning how to save energy, spent thenext twenty years forgetting.

We may see this very bad movie allover again. Persistently high and jittery oilprices are eliciting major vehicle and bio-fuel innovations. Micropower is booming.Energy and electric intensity have respec-tively been falling 2.3 and 1.5 percent ayear for a decade, providing 78 percent ofthe increase in delivered energy services.Yet energy statistics focus only on theincreases in physical supply that fuel theother 22 percent of the growth in servic-es. Thus 78 percent of the action is invisi-ble to policymakers and investors. Thishas already had grave consequences.Merchant firms lately built about $100billion worth of combined-cycle capacity,now standing three-fourths idle—becausethey swallowed the lie (created by theWestern Fuels Association in a successfuleffort to head off climate protection) thatthe Internet was a huge and soaring gob-bler of electricity. Chasing that imaginary

demand made most of the builders insol-vent. It served them right.

The basic lessons of the mid-1980scrash remain seemingly unlearned.Markets do work, invisibly but inexorably.Demand does respond to price. Supplyand demand do equilibrate. Small, fasttechnologies—those with short leadtimes, deployable by diverse market actorswithout specialized institutions—reachcustomers before big, slow ones can, andhence can grab the revenue streams andbankrupt the suppliers. In the early 1980s,efficiency won the race for revenue; today,bet on the twin-threat team of efficiencyplus micropower. In the early 1980s, fed-eral policy drove efficiency gains; today,the drivers are smart corporate decisionsand state policies. The details differ. Theresult will be nearly identical.

These powerful forces continue tooperate whether we perceive them ornot. In this decade, as in the 1980s, thosewho believe they are helping the nuclear,coal, and hydrocarbon industries willprove to be their worst enemies, whilethose whom those industries might con-sider their foes will turn out to have donethe most to try to save them from federal-ly-created disaster.

Amory Lovins is CEO of RMI.

Fig. 3. T he re c iproc a l of t he cost s in Fig. 2 shows howmuch coa l-f ire d e l e ctr ic ity c a n be disp l a c e d by buyingon e dime ’s ($0.10) wort h of e a ch opt ion. E n ergy input s

t o bui ld a nd d e commiss ion equipme nt, e nr ich nuc l e arf u e l, a nd st ore nuc l e ar w a st e s are n ’t count e d; c arbonemit t e d by g a s-f ire d cog e n er a t ion is (cons erva t ive ly).

N ew electrical resource purchased k W h o f coal-f iredelectricit y displaceable per dime ($0.10)

N uc l e ar pow er (2004 subs idi e s a nd cost s) 1.0G a s-f ire d industr i a l cog e n er a t ion ($5–8/M C F ) ~0.9–1.7+W indpower (no or 2004 subsidies, 2005–12 costs) 1.2–1.7+G a s-f ire d bui lding-s c a l e cog e n er a t ion ~2.2–6.5+R e covere d he a t industr i a l cog e n er a t ion ∞E nd-us e ef f ic i e ncy s ever a l t o ∞

For det ails and document ation se ewww.rmi.org/sit epages/pid171.php # E05-08.

Li fe at R MI

Buildin g O ur C a p a cityMart y P icket t,E xecutiveD irector

OVER THE PAST YEAR,we have been focus-ing on increasing our

capacity to deliver more and better researchand consulting services. As a result of ouradvisory meeting in September 2004, andbusiness planning for our Research &Consulting division (R&C) recently complet-ed by our staff and Board, we have a three-year plan to build capacity in R&C, and tointegrate our most recent work, Winning theOil Endgame, into our mission execution.

As part of this plan, we have made somechanges in positions within R&C, welcomednew staff members, and are searching to fillseveral positions. We are delighted that as of

1 July, Dr. Joel Swisher, PE has been promot-ed to the position of managing director. KyleDatta has become a senior director andAlexis Karolides, AIA, has been named aresearch principal. On 1 August we also wel-comed Greg Franta, FAIA, as the leader ofour newly named team, RMI/ENSAR BuiltEnvironment. This team replaces RMI’sGreen Development Services and is namedto better describe the broad and integratedwork it will bring to environmental design.

Although Greg is a new employee atRMI, he is a long-time, trusted and respect-ed friend and colleague. RMI has collaborat-ed with ENSAR Group, a company Gregled for more than 25 years, on many differ-ent projects since the Institute’s early days.Joining RMI with Greg are Victor Olgyay,AIA, Cara Carmichael, and Ashley Muse(see article on p. 1 for more details about

them and the expertise they bring to RMI). In mid September, John V. Anderson, PE

will join RMI as our Energy & Resources serv-ices team leader, a position that was vacatedwhen Joel became Managing Director. Johnbrings expertise and leadership from his dis-tinguished 20-year career with the NationalRenewable Energy Laboratory and the pastsix years’ involvement with several start-ups,including a fuel-cell company and an invest-ment fund for clean energy technologies.

We’re excited about the growth andincreasing depth within our Research &Consulting team. Our work continues tohave excellent traction in the marketand we’re continually getting attentionand respect for our research and consult-ing services, for which we see a growingdemand, both in the United States andabroad.

R esidential Energy S avings for the R est o f Us

R MI’s he adquart ers building is a f amiliar image formany gre en des ign prof ess iona ls and energy eff i-ciency enthus iasts. S ince its complet ion in 1984, it

has we lcomed more than 70,000 vis itors who want to experi-ence whole-syst em des ign and gre en building principlesfirsthand. By designing in the right order—optimal siting andorient ation, superefficient building enve lope, and calculat edthermal mass—the structure’s builders were able to e liminat ethe ne ed for a central he ating syst em while reducing con-struction cost. T hroughout the ye ars, RMI has applied thisdesign philosophy to hundreds of new and renovat ed build-ings, yet we’re a lways int erest ed in exploring what the aver-age homeowner can do—aft er a ll, there are more than 76 mil-lion residential structures in the U.S. a lone.

S upport ed by a grant from A spen’s C ommunity O ff ice forResource Eff iciency ( C O RE, www.aspencore.org), RMI’sf acilit ies t e am recent ly performed an energy eff iciencyretrof it on the “ D uplex.”

A st on e ’s t hrow from RMI’s he adquart ers, t he D up l ex—which hous e s f ive emp loye e s a nd our ma int e na nc eof f ic e—w a s hardly a mod e l of e n ergy ef f ic i e ncy. T he v ict imof typ ic a l 1970s-er a construct ion pr a ct ic e s, t he bui ldinghad e l e ctr ic re s ist a nc e he a t, minima l na t ur a l l ight ing, a ndin ef f ic i e nt app l i a nc e s. In a n ef fort t o g e t it t o p erform l ikeit s young er n e ighbor, t his spr ing t he D up l ex und erw e nt alow-cost e n ergy re trof it.

In typica l RMI f ashion, the crew’s f irst priority was todecre as e the energy lost as a result of he a t ed a ir le aking outdecrepit ext erior doors. T hey were replaced with insula t eddoors boast ing double-paned windows tha t let in na tura llight; a lso added were storm doors with scre ens.

M ore impre s s ive is t h etre m e ndous a mount of l ightbrought int o t h e bu i ld ing v i aS o l a t ub e s—cy l ind ers w i t hFre s n e l l e ns e s on t h e ir t ope nds a nd extre m e ly ref l e c-t ive ins id e s t h a t p e n e tr a t et h e roof a nd bounc e d ay l ightd e e p ins id e a s truct ure (w h i l e, of cours e, us ing no e l e c tr ic i t y).

Prior to the remode l, the D uplex was f a irly dark anddingy—not a st imula t ing place to live or work. H owever, therecent renova t ions now provide warm na tura l light to muchof the int erior space.

T he ant iqua t ed e lectric res ist ance he a t ing syst em wasreplaced with a higher-eff iciency propane boiler, hydronicbas eboard radia tors, and programmable thermost a ts.

Finally, the D uplex’s inefficient washer, dryer, and two dish-washers were a ll replaced with wat er- and energy-efficientEnergy St ar A ppliances that were, on average, twice as effi-cient. Toilets were a lso retrofitt ed to 1.6-gallons-per-f lushmode ls and showerhe ads to Energy Technology Laboratoryhigh-performance mode ls.

W hile we don’t expect the D uplex to a ttract the s ame fol-lowing as our he adquart ers building, the recent upgrades area good example of wha t can be done in a lmost any home.O ur int ent was to decre as e the ut ility bills (fre e ing moneyfor programs) and reduce carbon dioxide emiss ions; in theprocess, we a lso cre a t ed a space tha t is he a lthier and comf i-er to live and work in.

—Tomakin Archambault


14

Transport ation


15

A major policy recommendationof RMI’s Winning the OilEndgame (pp. 58, 136,

206–208) has been tentatively adoptedby the National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration for light trucks—SUVs,vans, minivans, and pickup trucks. On23 August 2005, in the first basic struc-tural change in three decades, NHTSAproposed that its Corporate Average FuelEconomy (CAFE) regulations switch froma flat-rate fleet-average miles-per-gallon(mpg) requirement to a sliding scalebased on vehicles’ size, with different tar-gets for each of six size classes—notbased on their weight as the original pro-posal had emphasized. This new systemwill be optional from Model Year (MY)2008 and mandatory from MY2011.The proposed rule is open for publiccomment until 23 November 2005, andis to be finalized by 1 April 2006. Itapplies only to light trucks, sinceNHTSA says it’s not sure it has authorityto do the same for cars, but it meritsextension to cars. Meanwhile, lighttrucks are a great place to start, becausethey’re not only 56 percent of U.S.light-vehicle sales but also the cause of55 percent of the total projectedincrease in U.S. oil use to 2025.

NHTSA’s proposal was predictablygreeted by automakers as challenging(but broadly acceptable—they’re glad itwasn’t tougher) and by environmentalistsas timid. It would boost the light-truckstandard from 20.7 mpg in MY2004 and22.2 in MY2007 to a new range of21.3–28.4 in MY2011, depending onvehicle size, while the 27.5-mpg car stan-dard would stay unchanged. NHTSA hasa statutory duty to require “maximumfeasible fuel economy” as cost-effectivetechnology improves, but Congress has

long blocked action, even prohibitingstudy of tightened CAFE standards dur-ing 1995–2000. Powertrains got one-third more efficient during 1981–2003while the standards held steady and 99percent of the potential fuel saving van-ished into ever faster acceleration and ashift from cars to light trucks. The EnergyInformation Administration, whose fore-casts must reflect existing rules, projectsthat this perverse trend will continue, solight vehicles will spend the next twentyyears becoming only 0.5 mpg more effi-cient than they were in 1987.

Critics also note that the biggestvehicles, like Hummer H2, Excursion,GMC’s Yukon XL, and F-250/2500 orlarger pickups, remain exempt frommpg regulation (or even disclosure)under the proposed NHTSA rulebecause they weigh more than 8,500pounds. (Light trucks already have laxersafety and emissions regulations and areexempt from the gas-guzzler tax thatapplies to the least efficient cars. Thestatute authorizes CAFE coverage up to10,000 pounds.) The plan projects thelifetime savings in light trucks sold dur-ing 2008–2011, compared to theMY2007 standard of22.2 mpg, as ten bil-lion gallons. But thatsavings spread overnearly two decades(light vehicles lastabout 14 years) isonly what today’slight-truck fleet usesevery two months, ora quarter of what thelargely CAFE-drivenimprovements alreadyachieved in cars andlight trucks now save

each year (about $75 billion a year attoday’s gasoline prices, or about $400per household per year). In contrast,Winning the Oil Endgame showed avery profitable potential for uncompro-mised cars and light trucks to save 70billion gallons in the year 2025 alone,at an average cost of 57¢ per saved gal-lon. Whatever exists is possible: dou-bled-efficiency hybrids like Toyota’s 55-mpg midsize Prius, which continues toblow the doors off non-hybrids’ sales,are clearly both feasible and cost-effec-tive as judged by the marketplace.

Yet lost in all the sniping about thenumbers is the critical point thatNHTSA’s new plan also creates a vitalincentive to use lighter materials and bet-ter designs, decoupling vehicles’ sizefrom their weight to create greater cus-tomer utility and protection withoutincurring other penalties. Modern light-but-strong materials permit vehicles thatare big—hence comfortable and protec-tive; but not heavy—hence hostile andinefficient. Rewarding lightweight materi-als will advance public health, nationalsecurity, climate protection, and the com-petitiveness of U.S. automakers: our

AA SS mmaallll bbuutt EEnnccoouurraaggiinngg SS tteepp TT oowwaarrdd MMaa kkiinngg LLiigghhtt TT rruucc kkss BB yy AA mm oorryy BB .. LLoo vv iinnss


16

analysis found that carbon-fiber thermo-plastic composites could halve theweight and fuel use of today’s cars andlight trucks, with better safety but nogreater cost. (Ultralight steels could alsoprovide impressive gains with similareconomics; the market will sort out thewinning materials.) NHTSA’s proposalalso ensures inter-manufacturer equityand expands customer choice.

In contrast, NHTSA’s original weight-based proposal would have deliberatelyrewarded making vehicles heavier(except for the very heaviest) and penal-ized making them lighter: indeed, mak-ing them lighter would have forcedautomakers to meet an even higher mpgstandard, further decreasing the cost-effectiveness of lightweight materials anddisincentivizing the most effective single

way to save oil, lives, and money simul-taneously. It would also have damagedthe Big Three’s export prospects, becausemajor markets increasingly require moreefficient and lighter vehicles. And itwould have intensified the old CAFE sys-tem’s incentives to make big vehiclesheavy and light vehicles small. Whateverone thinks of NHTSA’s numbers, thenew size-based structure of light-truck

B y A mory B. LovinsS ince I published in RMI’s S ummer 05 news lett er(p. 26) some handy hints for gett ing hybrid vehi-cles to perform a t very ne arly the ir E P A -ra t ed eff i-ciencies, the common misconcept ion tha t hybridsinherent ly f a ll short of thos e ra t ings by more thannonhybrids do was e choed by an erroneous N ewYork Times story. By now many people wronglybe lieve tha t hybrids can’t s ave much f ue l (a viewnot discouraged by U. S . automakers lackinga ttract ive hybrid mode ls). My corre ct ive lett er of19 July, which the Times didn’t publish, expla ined:

“ Your norma lly a ccura t e report er Ma tt W a ldwrit es (“ Hybrid C ars B urning G as in the D rive forPower,” 17 July) tha t a popular new hybrid-e le ctriccar, H onda’s A cc ord, gets just two more miles perga llon than its non-hybrid equiva lent—only one-fourth the diff erence in the ir E P A ra t ings.

“ T his urba n myt h is ba s e d on C onsumerReports t e st s which, l ike t he Times’s own t e st s,mist a ke nly dr ive hybr ids t he s ame w ay a s non-hybr ids. C onsumer Reports ref us e s t o dis c los e,a nd might not re a l iz e, t ha t t his uniform a nd he nc es e eming ly re a sonabl e t e st me t hod unf a ir ly dis ad-va nt a g e s hybr ids, for re a sons inhere nt in t he ird e s ign.

“ C ontrary to wha t we were t aught in pre-hybriddriver’s educa t ion class es, hybrids us e less f ue l bya tt a ining cruis ing spe ed quickly. Brisk a cce lera-t ion, gent le braking f ar in advance of a stop (tore cover maximum braking energy for reus e), and

other s imple driving t a ct ics to exploit hybrids’unique f e a tures a ll enable properly driven hybridsto get clos er to the ir E P A mpg ra t ings than non-hybrids can. I’m one of hundreds of H onda andToyot a hybrid owners who cons ist ent ly get within1–2 mpg of E P A ra t ings, despit e my are a’s cold cli-ma t e, mount a inous t erra in, and re liance on eff i-ciency-lowering snow t ires. T he s imilar powertra inin the hybrid A cc ord (too new to have a us er da t a-bas e yet) should do the s ame, but non-hybridscan ’t.

“I hope the Times will re-t est hybrids the waythey’re me ant to be driven, then report the results,thus t e aching re aders how to enable thes e inher-ent ly f ar more eff icient vehicles to do the ir best.”

N ot e a lso t ha t a hybr id-e l e ctr ic c ar w i l l a cc e l-er a t e f a st er t ha n a non-hybr id w it h id e nt ic a lw e ight a nd t ot a l hors e pow er. T ha t’s be c a us e p artof t he hybr id ’s hors e pow er come s from a n e l e c-tr ic mot or, which ha s higher low-sp e e d t orqu et ha n a g a sol in e e ng in e. In t he ory, a ut oma kerscould de s ign hybr ids a s pure mus c l e c ars, s a cr i-f ic ing most or a l l of t he hybr id pow ertr a in ’spot e nt i a l ef f ic i ency g a in for performa nc e, a s ha shapp e n e d w it h non-hybr id c ars. B ut t here ’s nore a son t o do t his, a nd l it t l e re a son t o be l i eve a nya ut oma ker ha s. R a t her, w it h a w e l l-de s igne d a ndw e l l-dr ive n hybr id, you c a n have it a l l: w it h on econc e pt c ar ( O p e l’s 2002 t wo-s e a t c arbon-f iberdi e s e l hybr id Ec o-Speedster), 155 mph, 0–60 mphin 7.4 s e conds, a nd 94 mpg.

T he S preading M yth of Ine f ficient H ybrid C ars

Transport ation


17

CAFE will avoid these serious problems.Of course, the devil’s in the details.

Any metric will be gamed, and achievingNHTSA’s safety and fuel economy goalswill require vigilance. We suggested asize-based rule based probably on interiorvolume as the most meaningful surrogatefor customer utility and preference.NHTSA proposes instead to measure sizeby footprint (wheelbase times averagetrack width), which is probably easier togame. (Critics note, for example, thatadding less than an inch to ExplorerSport Trac’s wheelbase would shift itfrom the 24.5- to the 23.3-mpg categoryamong the six size classes of MY2011light trucks. One may expect to seewheels move toward the corners of thevehicle.) The footprint metric seems tooffer no safety advantages that aren’t oth-erwise achievable.

Some abused loopholes, such as thejust-extended CAFE credits for flexible-fuel vehicles, unfortunately persist; fuelefficiency and flexibility should both beencouraged without trading one for theother. The “flat-floor” loophole based onseat design that lets minivans and thecar-like PT Cruiser be classified as truckswould be enlarged. There’d be less

incentive to exploit it, since a vehiclethat size would have to achieve only 0.8mpg less as a truck than as a car;nonetheless, that loophole, and indeedthe whole distinction between car andlight-truck standards, should be abolished.Many numerical details remain hazy, andmuch could still change as NHTSA con-siders public comments. But a major poli-cy blunder, based on a common miscon-ception equating weight with safety,seems happily to have been avoided.

RMI’s recommendations to NHTSAwere presented not only in Winning theOil Endgame, published 20 September2004, but also in the Institute’s 26 April2004 written technical comments for therulemaking (RMI Publication #E04-10,www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid171.php) andin two private senior briefs inWashington. Some other sections, such asthe aluminum industry, also recommend-ed size-based CAFE rules. The AluminumAssociation praised the NHTSA decision,noting that “vehicle size—more thanweight—is a better determinant of vehi-cle safety. As such, size-based standardsmay create incentives for automakers tomake even greater use of aluminum andother low-weight, high-strength materials

to keep or even increase vehicle size forsafety, while decreasing their weight forbetter performance and fuel economy.Under that scenario, everybody wins.”We agree.

Without commenting further ondetails, we find the new size-based policya gratifiying step in the right direction.To be sure, the low mpg standards pro-posed fall lamentably short of what’s pos-sible and cost-effective: we found(WTOE, pp. 61–72) that an ultralight-hybrid midsize SUV could get 66 mpgand repay its $2,511 extra retail price(2000 $) in two years at today’s gasolineprice. But we also found that well-designed size- and revenue-neutral “fee-bates” (pp. 186–190) can be a far morepowerful, effective, and attractive policyinstrument than CAFE-like standards orfuel taxes. Perhaps feebates will emergeas the next big innovation in state andfederal policy, accelerating such big effi-ciency gains that the whole CAFE debatebecomes moot. That too is part of RMI’simplementation strategy, now underway,for getting America off oil, led by busi-ness for profit.

Amory B. Lovins is CEO of RMI.

Transport ation

RMI C E O A moryL ovins’s t en-pa g eart ic l e “More P rof itfrom L ess C arbon”in the S ept emberspe c i a l issue ofScient if icA merican showstha t the deba t e

over whe ther thecost of c l ima t e prot e ct ion is sma l l andworthwhi l e or big and prohibit ive miss e s

a ba s ic point: the number a t issue is neg-ative. T ha t is, c l ima t e prot e ct ion is notcost ly but prof it abl e, be c aus e s aving f ue lcost s l e ss than buying f ue l. Innova t ionsin t e chnology, publ ic pol icy, communityand bui lding de s ign, eff ic i ency eng ine er-ing, and good ol’ A merican bus ine ss a cu-men are a lre ady proving the ir worth. T hearticle is post ed at www.sciam.com/media/pdf/Lovinsforweb.pdf. It is a lsoava ilable at www.rmi.org/sit epages/pid173.php # C05-05.

P ro f it able C limate P rotection E xplained in SScciiee nn tt ii ff iicc AA mm eerr iiccaa nn


B y Jonathan F. P. Rose

IN THE SHORT TERM, THE FASTEST WAY TO

house poor people is to give them Section8 certificates, which they can use to rentprivate housing. It is essential that newSection 8 certificates be issued, otherwisethey will be taken from other poorpeople throughout America.

In the long run, there needs to bea serious planning effort. We havean amazing opportunity to plan theright way to rebuild the city, draw-ing on its historic culture, butadding everything we know aboutwhat makes cities great—and thatstarts with infrastructure: education,transportation, healthcare, culture,open space, energy, security, employ-ment, communications. There also

needs to be an honest conversation aboutwhere to build and where not to build.

And then there is how to build. It isessential that planners start defining whatis “New Orleans” about New Orleans, orwe will end up with the sameness—homogenous, franchised development—

that we see in so much of the new build-ing in the South, and across the country.We need to recognize that the issuesbefore us are both local and regional—itwas not just New Orleans that was devas-tated. We need a regional plan to connectand coordinate the local and the regional

rebuilding. We need to rebuild thenatural ecological systems that couldbetter absorb intense weather. Andwe need to recognize that with cli-mate change, the sea will rise,weather patterns will be morevolatile, and we need to accommo-date them. What a great opportunityto build a new, thriving garden city.

So now for the mid-term, whichthrows up a challenge just as daunt-ing as long-term planning and ourimmediate response to built-environ-

18

R ebuilding A f ter K atrina

Rebuilding the B ig Easy, R MI S t yle

W hat S hould B e D one in N ew Orleans?

HURRICANE KATRINA WAS NOT A SURPRISE, BUT HIT US ALL HARD.Since before it hit, we’ve been striving to put to workwhat we’ve learned over the years about refugee campsand humanitarian assistance—sending not just moneyand sympathy but also practical ideas and information.RMI Senior Fellow Dr. Eric Rasmussen activated histsunami-seasoned network (see RMI Solutions, Summer05; Fall 01) before Katrina hit, and brings that communi-ty’s immense experience to his new deployment as theNavy Fleet Surgeon to the Joint Task Force relieving thestricken area. RMI/ENSAR Built Environment (p. 1) isworking with other design and construction leaders tohelp devise better ways of rebuilding. Our energy, water,and community economic renewal experience is alsocoming in handy.

That said, we are sending money and sympathy too.When Executive Director Marty Pickett handed out theyear’s bonus checks a few weeks ago, they came withencouragement to give generously (Mississippi nativeMissy Morgan has collected $1,000 in staff donations forthe Red Cross—to be tripled by matching donors).Additionally, so staff members can contribute blocks of

uninterrupted time to the relief effort, the Institute madean important exception to its community service policy(before Katrina, community service was limited to eighthours per month). Now, staffers helping with the reliefeffort may use up to 80 hours, all of which can be takenduring a two-week period. “This is because the commit-ment needed for assistance in the hurricane aftermath isfor days and weeks,” Marty noted, “not hours.”

In this special section, we offer two perspectives onrebuilding’s first steps—reflections by our friend and col-league Jonathan Rose, a leading green real-estate devel-oper, and a “first thoughts” memo drafted by RMI SeniorFellow Bill Browning. Also included is a brief descriptionof what happened to Soldiers Grove, Wisc., a communi-ty whose story offers a very applicable lesson to the situ-ation along the Gulf Coast.

After a disaster like this, there is a tendency to wantto rebuild—the same structures in the same locations—quickly. With New Orleans flooded and evacuated,there’s more time to think about what gets built, where,and how.

—Cameron M. Burns, Editor

W inrock bui lding, L it t l e R ock, A rk.

Pho

to b

y C

raig

Dug

all/

cour

tesy

of

Jona

than

Ros

e


ment issues. The first task is to buildplaces, not houses. Sprawling, disconnect-ed housing projects, without access tojobs, education, health care, etc. condemntheir residents rather then support them,even if the buildings are green. So weneed to plan real places, whole communi-ties, and we should use this process toexpand and enrich existing communities.We should thus use the building/settle-ment process to strengthen, not under-mine communities.

Where we build needs a great deal ofthought. It needs to be in places that canaccommodate or benefit from anonslaught of children, of the aged, etc.The bargain with local communities needsto be a commitment to infrastructure—ifa community takes on displaced residents,it should be given the resources to buildpermanent new schools, hospitals, job-training centers, and other amenities toaccommodate not only new citizens, butperhaps to help older communities getcaught-up in terms of infrastructure. Thisincludes wireless or other high-speed datasystems and facilities. (Of course, we willhave to start with temporary facilities, butif there is not a commitment to perma-nent ones, then these communities willbe degraded, not enhanced.)

There must also be a serious commit-ment to building mixed-income communi-ties, or we will create new ghettos. We

have learned much fromthe history of failed hous-ing projects, and the suc-cess of the Hope VI proj-ects1 that replaced them.We must integrate thisknowledge into the newhousing that gets built.

Speaking of jobs, weneed to make a commit-ment in the rebuilding toemploy as many of thedispossessed as possible.We need to build housesnot just for people but with people fromthe region. There must be a serious eco-nomic and employment plan. It isn’t hardto plan well and quickly if you have theright people at the table. Again, I wouldlook to the planners who have worked onHope VI projects.

Then, there are the housing types them-selves. For quick delivery of single-familyhomes, I would look to the manufacturedhousing industry. But first, we need towrite green specifications, and through thisopportunity to do mass purchasing, we canimprove the environmental quality of mate-rials used in manufactured housing.

Below is a photo of an affordable“green” manufactured home that is part ofa new street of Energy Star-rated homes inNew Haven, Ct., which my firm recentlydeveloped. A typical home in New Havenrequires $1,600 a year for utilities. Theowners of these homes will pay only$800. For higher densities, I’d focus onusing SIPs (structural insulated panels, a

great resource-efficient system for makingwell-insulated buildings out of pre-fabricat-ed panels) for four-story multifamily com-plexes, with careful thought as to whereretail and other services should be on theground floor.

Finally, we should also look at build-ing type. Above is a photo of somelive/work incubator studios that wehave built in Santa Fe, N.M.—cheap,high-ceilinged, skylit spaces built inbarn-like structures. These are placesthat can nurture the entrepreneurial tal-ent that keeps America growing. Also,on p. 18 is a photo of the Winrockbuidling, just certified LEED™ Gold,which my firm built in Little Rock; itoffers a model of what a regional greenoffice building can be.

These are just initial ideas. What actu-ally happens along the Gulf Coast mightnot look like any of the buildings you seeon this page or follow any of the ideasherein—no matter. What’s important thatthere be a vision of the possibilities forcreating a sustainable community fromthe remains of a tragedy.

Jonathan Rose is the founder and presi-dent of Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, anational network of companies thatrepairs the fabric of communities throughgreen work, including planning, projectmanagement, development, and a smart-growth real estate investment fund.

19


L ive/work incuba t or st udios in S a nt a Fe, N .M.

E nergy-ef f ic i e nt home in N e w H ave n, C t.

1 Hope VI projects are mixed-income commu-nities built, with federal money, to replace ghet-tos around the country. As Susan J. Popkin,Bruce Katz, Mary K. Cunningham, Karen D.Brown, Jeremy Gustafson, and Margery AustinTurner note in a paper about the Hope VI pro-gram: “Launched in 1992, the $5 billion HopeVI program represents a dramatic turnaroundin public housing policy and one of the mostambitious urban redevelopment efforts in thenation’s history. It replaces severely distressedpublic housing projects, occupied exclusivelyby poor families, with redesigned mixed-income housing and provides housing vouchersto enable some of the original residents to rentapartments in the private market.” For moreinformation, please visit: www.urban.org.

Pho

to c

ourt

esy

of J

onat

han

Ros

e

Pho

to c

ourt

esy

of J

onat

han

Ros

e


B y C ameron M. B urns

ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES WE KNOW OF A

sustainable rebuilding effort is the story ofthe village of Soldiers Grove, situated onthe Kickapoo River, in southwesternWisconsin. After decades of repeatedflooding, members of this community ofnearly 600 decided to relocate the towncenter—to higher ground.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hadsuggested building a $3.5-million leveearound the town, but, according to theTrust for Public Land, “maintenanceexpenses would have been double thetown’s annual property tax receipts.”Instead, residents decided to work with theriver, by, essentially, moving out of its way.The surprising thing is how they did it.

As the DOE’s Smart CommunitiesNetwork website (www.sustainable.doe.gov/freshstart/case/soldiers.htm) notes:“Soldiers Grove saw the relocation proj-ect not just as an opportunity to duplicatetheir old town, but as a chance to createsomething much better. Rather than rushto get buildings up and running as quick-ly as possible, the villagers took theirtime. Perhaps the most dramatic outcomeof that careful planning process was thedecision to make all of the new town-center buildings energy-efficient and solar-heated. Soldiers Grove became the firstbusiness district of its kind in the nation.The village passed ordinances stipulating

that new buildings be built to specific ther-mal performance standards and obtain atleast 50 percent of their heating needswith solar systems. Residents also passed asolar access ordinance to ensure thatfuture buildings don’t block the sun forexisting structures.”

Additionally, the townspeople used therelocation opportunity to address a num-ber of community challenges.

“The energy efficiency and solar ordi-nances helped to keep valuable energy dol-lars from escaping the local economy,”notes the Smart Communities Networkwebsite. “The old floodplain was developedinto a well-used municipal park. The towncenter was once again adjacent to the statehighway, which had bypassed the old townin the 1950s, hurting businesses. A secondmunicipal well and reservoir were builtoutside the floodplain, and sewer andwater services were extended into newareas, paving the way for future growth.”

The new town—completed in1983—took on the appropriate nick-name of “Solartown” and boasted a busi-ness district that was at least 70 percentpowered by solar energy, according towww.fortunecity.com. Eight years later,in 1991, a University of Wisconsin grad-uate student made a study of the solarsystems in a number of Soldiers Grove’scommercial buildings. He wanted todetermine if the systems were cost-effec-tive. He found that the majority (seven

out of ten) were, and the ones thatweren’t sized properly for the applica-tion.

Soldiers Grove has since become amodel of community redevelopment, anexample of what people can do whenthey put their hearts and minds into aworthwhile effort. One of the morenotable aspects of the relocation of thissmall Wisconsin town was that theprocess was transparent and inclusive.

“…[A]lthough today’s disaster-pronetowns have better tools at their disposal,there remains much to be learned fromSoldiers Grove in the area of organizingpeople,” notes the Smart CommunitiesNetwork website. “Even the most pro-gressive and well-thought-out sustainabledevelopment plans will fail without thefull support of the community. SoldiersGrove learned the importance of citizeninvolvement throughout the entire relo-cation process. Using both the formalchannels of citizen committees and theinformal, ‘open door’ approach of theproject coordinator, the people ofSoldiers Grove were deeply involved inthe creation of their new town center.”

Another great outcome was the sav-ings in disaster mitigation. As the Trustfor Public Land website notes, “It costthe U.S. Department of Housing andUrban Development $1 million to movethe town, saving an estimated $127,000a year in flood damage.”

20


TT hhee SS ttoorryy ooff SS oollddiieerrss GGrroo vv ee

S olar buildingsin S oldiersG rove, W isc.T he buildings a tlef t are a med-ica l clinic and as enior hous ingcomplex,respe ct ive ly.

Pho

tos

cour

tesy

of

Nor

a an

d P

ete

Kna

pik


ONE OF THE CHALLENGES WITH TEMPORARY

structures is that in many cases theybecome permanent. There are still peopleliving in the some of the temporary cot-tages that were built after the 1906 SanFrancisco earthquake. So, either we do itright the first time, or we look at a trulymobile home or tent strategy.

First, the mobile home strategy. Oneof the best approaches may be to havethe manufactured housing industrycrank out service modules (bath-rooms/kitchens) that can serve severalfamilies in the short-term, and then beused as the cores for subsequent newhouse construction. This strategy hasbeen discussed for modular construc-tion, and it results in hybridmodular/site-built structures. While wemight consider tents this fall, they don’trepresent a very-long-term solution(winter will be upon us in a few shortmonths). An alternative might be to usetrailers (similar to the ones used forschools and construction sites) as dorms,paired with manufactured service units.

There have been a number of design-ers who have been working with convert-ing shipping containers into housingunits. Shipping containers are sturdystructures, but they need insulation andan overhead structure for shading. Theycan also be used to create very large tem-porary structures, the most notable recentexample being the Nomad Museum,designed by Shigeru Ban, on a pier inManhattan. This Museum consisted ofparallel rows of stacked shipping contain-ers roofed by a structure largely made ofSonotubes (thick cardboard tubes used asconcrete forms). Ban is famous for thecardboard cabins he designed for Kobeearthquake victims, which can be seen on

Cameron Sinclair’s Architecture forHumanity website, along with a numberof designs for transitional housing.

The lesson of the San Francisco earth-quake cottages is that well-designed smalltransitional structures can be durable.Given the level of skill within the home-building industry, this may be a goodroute—cranking out 800-square-foothomes. These could be done with manu-

factured service cores and site-built addi-tions. Also, there are numerous vernacu-lar architectural styles in the Gulf areathat can guide the design of climatically-appropriate houses that require lowerenergy loads.

I think one key question is: how manyunits need to be built and how do we tapinto existing manufacturing and home-building industries? Then there’s thequestion of when people start to return,and what percentage of the displacedpopulation will choose to not return.Most of the submerged houses will bestructurally unsound and many will windup with levels of microbial growth thatwill render them uninhabitable.

Providing housing is not the only issue;basic utilities need to be rebuilt.

Rebuilding the electrical grid to allow fordistributed generation will be essential.Given the likely failure of the water andwastewater systems, it would seem pru-dent to look at distributed solutions hereas well. Small-scale applications of livingmachines coupled with algal turf scrub-bers would be a quick biological solutionfor wastewater. The algal turf scubber canalso be used to sequester toxins in water.

Similar to what RMI learned duringour 2002 Sustainable SettlementsCharrette (www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid560.php), we will need tolook at environmental restoration.Much of the canopy in the hurricane-damaged areas will be lost either as aresult of exposure to salt, or as a resultof being submerged, or both. Treecanopy loss will increase the heatisland effect, wind exposure, andstorm water runoff. So tree planting—indeed, all natural ecosystem restora-tion—is vital to rebuilding.

These are just a few preliminarythoughts. There is much to examine,much to ponder, but if we delve intothe lessons already learned about sus-tainable redevelopment, we shallundoubtedly find many interconnectedsolutions to this devastating event.

William D. Browning, Hon. AIA, is oneof the world’s leading practitionersand spokespersons for sustainablebuilding design and real estate devel-opment. Bill has held key roles in cre-ating both the U.S. Green BuildingCouncil and its LEED™ rating system,and is active on the USGBC Board andLEED committees. He is currently aSenior Fellow at Rocky MountainInstitute and a partner in a new greendevelopment consulting firm,Browning + Bannon, LLC.

21


AA TT eemmppoorraarryy // TT rraannssiittiioonnaall SS oolluuttiioonn ffoorr PP oosstt-- KK aattrriinnaa SS eettttlleemmeennttssB y B ill Browning

I think one key question ishow many units need tobe built and how do we

tap into existing manuf acturing and

homebuilding industries?T hen there’s the question

of when people start toreturn, and what

percentage of the displaced population will

choose to not return.


22

D onor S potlight

T here are very few instances insociety where an organizationsupports the growth of indus-

tries that appear to run counter to its ownself-interest. But the folks at the Palo Alto-based Mineral Acquisition Partners, Inc.(MAP) have somehow managed to mergetheir core, fossil-fuel-based business witha dedication to next-generation energysolutions like few others. MAP’s breadand butter comes from natural gas part-nerships in which hundreds of royaltyinterests are acquired in low-risk, long-lived gas accumulations in the onshorelower 48 states. But the organization thentakes a hefty chunk of its profits (around10 percent) and reinvests that cash onnurturing the next generation of energyleaders—and not just educating themabout natural gas and other fossil fuels.Rather, they focus on sustainable energyeducation, sending eager StanfordUniversity students interested in energyand resource issues off to places like theNatural Resources Defense Council, theUnion of Concerned Scientists,Worldwatch Institute, WinrockInternational, and, of course, RockyMountain Institute.

Each year, MAP supports about tenMAP “Fellows” who leave Palo Alto tospend three to six months at a leadingenergy NGO where they delve into everymajor energy-related issue, from efficiencyand renewables to demand-side manage-ment and biomimetic design, to cleancoal and carbon sequestration technolo-gies. Clearly, Jane Woodward, PeggyPropp, and their nearly fifty colleagues atMineral Acquisition Partners, Inc. (MAP)aren’t part of a typical energy company.

“I guess the word ‘catalytic’ describesme best,” Jane said. “I like to be involvedin solving problems. I like noticing little

market failures, then devis-ing ways to bridge thosegaps.”

MAP was founded in1989, and owes its exis-tence to an interesting his-torical event. In 1953, agroup of Stanford alum-ni/ae bequeathed a portfo-lio of mineral rights toStanford’s School of EarthSciences. As part of thearrangement, the bulk ofthe royalties earned by therights were to be reinvest-ed in additional mineralrights, thereby building something of anendowment for the school. This gift ofmineral rights had been long forgotten,but while Jane was in graduate school atStanford, they were rediscovered. Whilecompleting a master’s degree in petrole-um geology and an MBA, Jane alsohelped solve the very difficult challenge ofhow to reinvest the millions of dollars inaccumulated revenues generated fromthese mineral rights. Using the methodsdeveloped, Jane began building MAP,which focused on acquiring natural gasmineral rights and royalty interests in themost attractive natural gas accumulationsin the United States.

Yet, bootstrapping a business in anenergy-related field—and eventuallyachieving success—was not Jane’s onlyinterest. Being “part environmentalist,part educator, part businesswoman, andpart scientist,” as Jane describes herself,she wanted to play a bigger role in theway society understands and treats natu-ral resources, including energy resources:she began teaching at Stanford’s School ofEarth Sciences in 1990.

“One of the most important ways I

thought I could make a difference wasthrough teaching,” she said. “I see teach-ing as a philanthropic commitment,through which you can invigorate andinspire the next generation of leaders.”

Not surprisingly, however, Jane—whowas preaching the value of efficiency,renewables, distributed generation, anddemand-side management on campuswhile deep in the natural gas investmentworld—presented something of a para-dox to MAP’s partners. “Our investorsessentially asked if it was possible tobreak down the perceived wall betweenwhat MAP did and what I taught,” Janeexplained.

So about five years ago, Jane mergedher life passions with her business, andbegan a program of supporting sustainableenergy education and offsetting theimpacts of the oil and gas industry. Shehired an old friend, Peggy Propp—withwhom she’d run a Bay-area nonprofit thatdesigned done-in-a-day projects for peoplewith limited time to spend volunteering—and they set up what has become one ofthe most extraordinary fellowship pro-grams in academia: the MAP Sustainable

Weaving a Tapestry of P hilanthropyMineral Acquisition Partners, Inc.

T he ladies behind M A P's S ust a inable E nergy Fe llowsprogram: Peggy Propp and J ane Woodward.


23

D onor S potlight

Energy Fellowship Program, which pro-vides $11,000 (per Fellow) to fundtwelve-week Fellowships at NGO partnerorganizations selected by MAP.

“The Fellowship Program came aboutfrom what I perceived as a dual marketfailure,” Jane noted. “One of the biggestchallenges I saw at Stanford was thatProf. Gil Masters’s and my studentscould not get the kinds of summer posi-tions that were anywhere near their mar-ket compensation at places like RMI,NRDC, or other cutting-edge energyNGOs. A core problem was money.”

The second problem (which Jane callsthe “yenta” problem) was the inability ofmany NGOs to be able to hand-pick thestudents best-suited for specific intern-ships—again, a money- and resources-related issue.

“We realized that in order to maintainquality control on this, we neededPeggy’s position to nurture the [Fellow]process,” Jane explained. “We don’t justthrow money at it.”

Indeed, while the folks at MAP dooffer extraordinary financial support toFellows, they take the process much fur-ther. MAP Fellows are interviewed sever-al times about their interests before theFellowships; MAP also performs mid-Fellowship reviews of how theFellowship is progressing; and there is an

exit interview process. Interestingly,because the process is so well structured,some organizations—like RMI—end upaccepting more Fellows than the officialnumber of MAP slots, simply because theFellows’ qualifications are so high andthe selection process so exacting. RMIhas acquired quite a few researchers as aresult of the MAP fellowship programand the Institute’s relationship withStanford (including current researchersKitty Wang, Will Clift, and NateGlasgow, and many former interns).

“We’re wringing all the value we canout of the investment in the Fellow andthe NGO,” Jane said.

The merging of concern for energy,resources, the environment, and futureleaders does not end with MAP’sSustainable Energy Fellows. MAP alsoboasts a Recycling Research Fellowship,focusing on airport and airline recyclingpractices, its four-year-old MAP/MingVisiting Professorship on Energy andEnvironment at Stanford University (RMIManaging Director Dr. Joel Swisher wasthe first MAP/Ming Professor in 2003,Senior Fellow Dr. Jon G. Koomey his2004 successor), and the William W.Whitley Citizen Scholar Award, whichhonors a graduating Stanford earth sys-tems student for academic achievementand contributions to Stanford, peers, and

the greater community.Additionally, MAP (separate from the

investments made by the Partnerships itmanages) is involved in what it calls “pro-gram-related investment”—making invest-ments in companies that are working onsolutions to pressing sustainable energyissues. In 2004 and 2005, MAP investedin Fiberforge (formerly Hypercar), an RMIspinoff, and SunEdison, which is pioneer-ing the financing of photovoltaics for thecommercial sector by simplifying thefinancing process.

For many corporate organizationsinvolved in philanthropy, the act of giv-ing is simply that: a donation. For thefolks at Mineral Acquisition Partners, phi-lanthropy is a much more subtle andmeticulous process—and it’s clearlyworking. RMI’s MAP interns have goneon to prominent positions in many sus-tainability-, earth-resources-, and energy-related industries and organizationsaround the globe. And by getting philan-thropy and business to coexist seamlessly,MAP is redefining the very notion of phi-lanthropy.

As Joel Swisher has noted: “WithMAP, it isn’t about money so much as afundamental approach to filling in gapsand weaving a rich tapestry of philan-thropy.”

—Cameron M. Burns

If you’re anywhere ne ar Mont erey, C a lif. thewe ekend of 9–11 D ecember, you might consideratt ending RMI C E O A mory Lovins’s popularworkshop “Introduction to N atura l C apit a lismand the Resource Efficiency Revolution” at theEsa len retre at cent er. T he workshop will he lpinnovators from business and civil societyunderst and how natura l capit a lism plays with

a full deck—productive ly using and re investingin a ll four forms of capit a l (not just money andgoods but a lso people and nature), cre atingstriking competit ive advant age and a bett erworld. T he workshops at Esa len can include avariety of options, from food and lodging topersona l retre ats and massages. For moreinformation, ple ase visit www.esa len.org.

A mory ’s N at C ap C ourse O f fered at Esalen

S t a f f S potlight

SERENDIPITY. Notsomething youmight immediatelythink of as runningthrough the opera-tions of RockyMountain Institute,an organization that

strives for solid strategic planning, metic-ulous research, and pragmatic solutionsto energy and resource issues. Butaccording to Steve Swanson, RMI’sFinance Director, serendipitous discover-ies and convergences of people and inter-ests, time and events, are very much apart of what makes RMI successful.

Serendipity, in fact, is what broughtSteve to RMI four years ago. In 2001, hewas finance director for the AspenCommunity Foundation. Steve hadrecently begun volunteering with thenew Roaring Fork Valley chapter ofHabitat for Humanity, which is based inCarbondale. One weekend, he foundhimself up on a scaffold, wielding dry-wall tools alongside RMI DevelopmentDirector Dale Levy.

“We started talking—we had a com-mon background with community foun-

dations,” he said. “I told Dale I was look-ing to move; he suggested I talk to [RMIExecutive Director] Marty Pickett aboutan open position. That was Saturday; Icalled on Monday, interviewed onTuesday, and was hired on Wednesday.”

Before coming to RMI, Steve had adistinguished 25-year career in healthcare administration with several hospitalsand managed care organizations inChicago, Denver, and Aspen. Raised inthe east Denver area, the fifth of ninechildren, he worked his way throughhigh school and an undergraduate degreein economics at the University ofColorado. He received an MBA fromSouthern Illinois University and spentseveral years in healthcare finance andconsulting in Chicago and Clevelandbefore returning to Colorado in 1978.Though his work took him to differentcities and brought positions with signifi-cant responsibility, Steve is glad to be atRMI. “Things are getting worse (inhealthcare)—the difficulties I facedweren’t commensurate with therewards,” he said. “There isn’t a health-care financing system in the UnitedStates. Eventually it’s bound to explode.”

What makes working at RMI reward-ing? Steve cites the high caliber of thestaff and Board of Trustees, and the mis-sion-driven work with its relative “lack ofegos or heavy political complexities.”Upon joining RMI, he was charged withputting into place several financial sys-tems, including new budgeting andaccounting and cash management soft-ware. Since then he has worked with hisstaff of three to build and maintain thisfinancial infrastructure that is so integralto the smooth workings of RMI’s opera-tions—from project management todevelopment and general administration.“It can be a challenge,” he said. “RMI isunique in that you see things you’dnever see anywhere else here. We haveto build a sound business model for anorganization that is formally a nonprofitbut also takes on some of the mentalityof a for-profit. It can be complicated tomake such a hybrid thrive.”

Steve sees serendipity at work in thepeople who find their way to RMI towork or lend their support: “You have towant to be at a place like this. People—employees, donors—often self-select andfind us. But some of the most amazing

SS ttee vv ee SS wwaannssoonn,, FF iinnaannccee DD iirreeccttoorr

R e c e nt ly, RMI re c e ive d not if ic a t ion fromWorking A ss e t s—t he progre ss ive S a nFr a nc isco-ba s e d t e l e communic a t ions f irmt ha t p art ic ip a t e s in a ct iv ism a nd ma ke sdona t ions t o var ious nonprof it s—about a w ayt o incre a s e it s dona t ions t o RMI: t hroughsupport ers ’ vot e s. C urre nt Working A ss e t slong-dist a nc e, w ire l e ss, or cre dit c ard cus-t omers c a n v is it www.working a ss e t s.com/vot e a nd vot e f or t h e ir f a vor i t e N G O or ch ar-i t y. T h e groups are org a n i z e d by t h e f o l low-ing progr a mm a t ic d e s ign a t ions: “ P e a c e &

Int ern a t ion a l Fre e dom,” “ E duc a t ion &Fre e dom of Expre s s ion,” “ E nv ironm e nt,”“ E conom ic & S oc i a l J us t ic e,” a nd “ C iv i lR ight s ” (R MI is l is t e d in t h e E nv ironm e ntgroup). Vot ing c a n b e don e in s ever a l w ays,inc lud ing t h e s h ar ing of vot e s a monggroups, a nd cus t om ers w ho us e a l l t hre eWorking A s s e t s s erv i c e s w i l l h a ve t h e irvot e s w e ight e d a c cord ing ly. In 2003, R MIre c e ive d $59,592 in s uppor t f rom WorkingA s s e t s, s o p l e a s e log on a nd h e lp us do i ta g a in!

HH eellpp RR MMII GGeett MMoorree GGrreeeenn ffrroo mm WW oorrkkiinngg AA sssseettss


24

S t a f f S potlight

things that happen at RMI come togetherthrough serendipity.”

Steve’s leadership is part of the successRMI has enjoyed in recent years in secur-ing new consulting projects and buildinga strong donor base. He works closelywith Executive Director Marty Pickettand the Finance Committee of the Boardof Trustees, chaired by Mike Curzan, toensure that the organization’s financialsystems are supporting strategic and insti-tutional goals. This includes monthlymeetings with the Committee and annu-al budget-setting. Later this year, a majorproject for Steve and the finance teamwill be the shift to a new accounting andproject management software platform,with real-time project reporting andtracking. He is confident that implemen-tation will further hone resource plan-ning and project organization, and there-fore boost overall productivity.

Outside his role as financial helms-man, Steve values time with his family offour. He met his wife Sandy, who is aregistered nurse, when they both workedat Children’s Memorial Hospital inChicago; she was Director of AmbulatoryServices and he was a financial adminis-trator. The pair suffered through “two ofthe coldest winters Chicago has ever

seen” before moving to Basalt, Coloradoin 1978. Sandy has served as executivedirector of Family Visitor Program, anorganization that teaches parenting skillsand provides education on child develop-ment, for almost twenty years. TheSwansons have two children, Dan, 24and Thom, 22. Dan is completing studiesin viticulture (the science and practice ofgrowing grapes) at Cal Poly in San LuisObispo, and Thom is currently workingin Denver at the corporate headquartersfor RockResorts, Inc. Steve considers hiscommitment to his family as paramount:“My goal in life is for my sons to be ableto call me up at any time of day ornight…and say, ‘Hey Dad, let’s go for abeer.’ We’re good friends.” Like his sons,Steve values Colorado’s access to outdooractivities and can be found biking, hik-ing, and golfing whenever time andopportunity allow.

In addition to being the serendipitousmoment when he found his way to RMI,volunteerism is a big part of Steve’s life.As board secretary of the Roaring ForkValley chapter of Habitat for Humanity,he is able to help families in economichardship afford homes of their own—important, as he believes that one of thebiggest challenges facing the region is the

rising price of homes and the ability to“sustain a vibrant community where alleconomic classes can live.” This makessite selection difficult, he noted, as secur-ing outright donations of land amid suchprime real estate is challenging. Recently,however, chapter volunteers workedwith developers to secure a site for theirthird home construction project, inCarbondale. Groundbreaking began inSeptember. Steve is actively involvedwith running the chapter’s Board meet-ings, heads the site selection committee,and, of course, offers his financial expert-ise when needed. But the best part forhim is the hands-on work—“It’s a lotmore fun to get out and hammer nailsthan to sit in meetings talking”—and thechance to help a family in need. Heurges others to get involved: “It’s fun,and you meet a lot of good people.” Andhe reassures those who are new to thecraft, “You don’t need to know muchabout construction. There are people inthe trade who volunteer and tell the restof us what to do.”

By embracing serendipity and hardwork, Steve is helping an integral part ofRMI’s operations to embrace change—and thrive.

—Karen S. Shishido

RMI in the news

A former RMI int ern re cent ly launched aweb-bas ed bus iness tha t st e ers con-sumers to sust a inable choices in goods

and s erv ic e s. J e nnif er B ould e n, who int ern e d a tRMI in a ut umn 2004 a nd he lp e d w it h t heInst it ut e ’s str a t eg ic p l a nning ef fort s, re c e nt lyl a unche d Ide a l B it e, Inc. t o—a s she put s it—“ma ke gre e n more hip.”

T he company provides da ily t ips and news let-t ers (via ema il) and bloggingspa ce on www.ide a lbit e.comwhere gre en consumers canexchange informa t ion and ide as about goods and s ervices.

“ S o many people want to do something to makethe world a he a lthier place for thems e lves andthe ir children, but very f ew of us want to drast ica l-ly change our lif estyles or da ily rout ines,” not edH e a ther S t ephenson, J en’s partner in Ide a l B it e.

J en and H e a ther deve loped the ide a for Ide a lB it e while working together as market ing consult-ants for gre en bus iness es. T hey re a liz ed tha t therewas no pla ce for environment a lly-minded compa-

nies (such as Aveda andPa t agonia) to advert is e to “con-scient ious consumers” on theInt ernet. For more informa t ion,vis it www.ide a lbit e.com.

Former R MIte Launches Ideal B ite, Inc. to “Ma ke Green More H ip”


25


26

W hat A re You D oing?

In this issue of RMI Solutions, we take alook at what some of our recent internshave been up to.

Pat AugustineMy work has focused ondemand response pro-grams for electric utilitiesthat seek to controldemand and providevalue that would other-

wise have to be realized through newsupply. I worked on a project for theHawai‘ian Electric Company (HECO),investigating the economic feasibility ofdirect load-control programs dependingon their cost and potential load reduc-tions. I am also working on a Californiapricing pilot project, in which I’mattempting to quantify load reductionsresulting from smart thermostat technol-ogy. I plan to continue this work as Icomplete my master’s degree at Duke.

Lionel BonyI am an MBA student atHarvard Business Schoolworking out of RMI’sKona office for the sum-mer. My diverse projectshave included research-

ing the impact of climate change onJapanese companies; evaluating the U.S.liquefied-natural-gas market for a whitepaper; holding a workshop on ecosystemservices valuation; developing a financialmodel for a large solar-powered afford-able housing project; and designing asmart growth strategy for the County ofHawai‘i.

Eleanor BranchI have been workingwith RMI’s Research &Consulting team todevelop a system dynam-ics model that lets utili-ties predict what future

electric resource additions will be most

cost-effective, incorporating possiblefuture carbon taxes and calculating eachtechnology’s associated carbon emissions.The model includes traditional and newtechnologies for fossil fuels, nuclear andhydropower, as well as wind, biomass,combined heat and power, and more effi-cient end-use.

Kenneth DaviesI came to RMI afterearning two engineeringdegrees from Cornelland a brief experienceon Capitol Hill.Dismayed by the general

lack of social consciousness among myengineering peers and by political grid-lock, I’m thrilled to be working asAmory’s executive intern, and contribut-ing to the dissemination of RMI’s philoso-phy. In the fall I will be entering a gradu-ate program in Environmental Studies atthe University of Colorado at Boulder,with a concentration on the social impli-cations of science and technology policy.

Sarah Darley I worked in Kona,Hawai‘i, on severalenergy-related projects. Ihelped to prepare aneducational workshopfor several Hawai‘ian

electric utilities. The aim was todescribe and endorse methods forattributing reliability value to intermit-tent renewables like wind. I also helpedassess the potential impact of a carbontax in California. For this project, I cre-ated a model to compare levelizedcosts, including the costs of a carbontax, across power generators.

Renaud des RosiersI spent the summerworking on several projects with the RMIIntegrated DesignPractices team and get-ting a broad-based intro-

duction to RMI’s organizational think-ing, culture, and approach to researchand consulting. The RMI internship hasbeen a cornerstone of my graduate stud-ies in business and environmental stud-ies. I look forward to spending the com-ing year as an RMI Research Fellow andworking on a carbon scenario planningtool to help utilities plan capacity addi-tions for a carbon-constrained future.

Elk GlennI am from the Big HornMountains of the CrowIndian Reservation insoutheastern Montana.At first with RMI’sEnergy & Resources

Services group, I worked on a model fora city utility that assessed its potential fordistributed energy tri-generation—heat-ing, cooling, and electrical power. Morerecently, I have worked on a model com-paring—at the national level—the eco-nomics, emissions, and engineering forwind, coal, and gas under various carbontax, gas price, and wind penetration sce-narios. It is a great honor to work withthe people at RMI.

Min HouI have been hoping towork at RMI since I tookthe Natural Capitalismcourse and met AmoryB. Lovins three years agoat Peking University in

China. Now I am a master’s degree can-didate in environmental engineering atStanford University. My work at RMIincludes two parts: one is building theChinese shell of RMI’s website, which


27

W hat A re You D oing?

will help Chinese visitors access theintense information more smoothly. Theother one is data collection, strategicanalysis, and recommendation of China’senergy future.

Virginia LacyI am a graduating mas-ter’s degree candidate atYale’s School of Forestryand EnvironmentalStudies. This summer Iwas extremely fortunate

to work with RMI’s Senior Director ofResearch & Consulting, Kyle Datta, onseveral distributed generation and renew-able energy projects on the Big Island ofHawai‘i—a once-in-a-lifetime learningexperience!

Cory LoweI’ve recently taken overthe outreach desk atRMI, answering e-mail,phone, and mail inquiriesabout everything thatRMI does. My other reg-

ular outreach duties include trackingmedia coverage, writing and distributingpress releases, arranging interviews andspeaking engagements, and managingRMI’s contact database. I also researchand write the bi-weekly columnAdvanced Automotive News, coordinatetours of our superefficient headquartersbuilding, and maintain www.rmi.org’sCalendar of Events page.

Billy MaynardMy work at RMI con-sists of managing the957-acre Windstar LandConservancy. In the pastseveral years, land man-agement at Windstar has

implemented the goals of restoring nativebiodiversity to the ecosystem while main-taining the land’s western agriculturalheritage, doing so in a way that benefits

the health and recovery of the overallbiotic community.

My day-to-day duties serve to meetthese goals and center around the man-agement of a 40-head cattle herd whichwe rotationally graze through the pasturethat surrounds the valley’s wetlands. Iam also responsible for our aggressiveweed control program, removing inva-sive species such as Canada thistle thatchoke out native biodiversity.Along with the restoration of the wet-lands that occurred several years ago,these goals have provided the necessaryconditions for the return of severalnative species of flora and fauna, somequite rare—obvious indicators of thereturning health of an ecosystem.

Anna RitzenI’m a master’s degreecandidate in science andinnovation managementat the University ofUtrecht in theNetherlands. As part of

the program I have to do an internship,and an opportunity arose to do this withRMI. For the last two months I’ve beenworking in Snowmass on different ener-gy-related projects. For the next fourmonths I will be working in Kona,Hawai‘i. This internship is both a greatchallenge and an opportunity, and I’mglad I got this chance!

Linda ShiAs the urban renewalintern, I work on RMI’sproject to regenerateOhio’s Cuyahoga Valley.To help stakeholdersweigh restoration options

for the Cuyahoga River and surroundingindustrial zones, I research the costs andbenefits of different choices concerningecological restoration, stormwater man-agement, and transportation. For this, Iwas able to travel to Cleveland to collect

data in the field. I also research casestudies for a hedonic valuation, whichexamines the effect of ecological restora-tion on property values.

Karen ShishidoI was born and raised inHawai‘i and am current-ly a master’s degree can-didate in energy andenvironmental policy atthe University of

Delaware. I’m working with theCommunications Department on projectsrelated to RMI’s intellectual capital andthe ways to make the wealth of researchdone and information gathered over theyears more readily accessible. Thischiefly involves creating a CD-ROM withkey publications and articles with asearchable user interface. I have alsobeen researching and writing pieces forRMI’s website and newsletter, and out-side publications in which RMI hascolumns.

Eric WanlessI’m working with RMI’sJoel Swisher, PE, andKitty Wang, PE,on a vari-ety of projects. PrimarilyI’ve been focused on theAutomated Demand

Response System (ADRS) project, inwhich RMI is evaluating the benefit of aload-shifting technology with the threeCalifornia utilities. I’ve also had thechance to look at carbon-offset optionsfor a large California technology firm. InDecember I’ll be heading back toStanford to finish my master’s degree inenergy engineering. In my spare time Ienjoy quiet walks with the office staff.


28

B oard S potlight

Craig Kennedy

C ross-pollinatingideas has longbeen an impor-

tant aspect of RMI’s activi-ties, and while theInstitute is filled with cre-ative people, the recentaddition of Craig Kennedyto RMI’s Board ofTrustees1 will give RMI’sgoverning body an especial-ly keen insight into public policy andsocial service.

Craig is the president of the GermanMarshall Fund (GMF), a WashingtonDC-based organization that shares ideasabout better ways to do things—in for-eign policy, trade, the environment,immigration, and other matters—between the United States and a num-ber of European nations.

The Fund was created after WorldWar II as a memorial to the MarshallPlan through a series of contributionsfrom the German government. It is anAmerican organization with a Boardlimited to Americans because, as Craigput it, “the founders did not want anysuspicions that GMF was created toserve a foreign government.” The Fundstarted in the 1970s as a fairly conven-tional foundation, but evolved into a far

more complex institution that fundsand operates diverse projects and pro-grams around the globe.

But the most fundamental aspect ofthe Fund, Craig believes, is bringingpeople and ideas together.

“GMF is an odd place: one part thinktank, one part foundation, one part con-vener/educational forum,” Craig said.“But the core ideas are: one, thatAmericans and Europeans can learn agreat deal from one another on a rangeof issues, and two, that many of themajor challenges facing the world canbe addressed effectively only if theUnited States and Europe work in con-cert. Finding the right ideas and theright people who can help us achievethese two aims is the key to my job.”

Craig has been president of the Fundsince 1995, and has been praised for hisleadership through a period of signifi-cant expansion. Craig oversaw theextension of several Fund programsthrough Central and Eastern Europe,and the Balkans. In 2003, he spear-headed the launch of the Balkan Trustfor Democracy, a $27 million grantmak-ing initiative designed to strengthencivil society and democracy, created inpartnership with the U.S., Dutch, andGreek governments and the CharlesStewart Mott Foundation. He alsoopened new offices in Paris, Bratislava,

Brussels, and Belgrade to complementefforts in Washington and Berlin. Inaddition, he established theTransatlantic Fellows program, provid-ing journalists, policy analysts, and aca-demics opportunities to pursue theirresearch and writing interests in one ofGMF’s offices.

Craig didn’t start out at the nexus oftrans-Atlantic policy-making. Indeed, hegrew up as far from international affairsas one could imagine—on a small farmin rural South Dakota, with three sis-ters. He went to a one-room school forthe first eight grades of his academiclife, and was active in 4-H and similarorganizations.

Craig became involved with publicservice early on—his mother, ateacher, and his father, a farmer, weredeeply involved in a range of nonprof-it organizations in the community.

Craig left South Dakota to go tothe University of Chicago, where heearned a BA in civilization studies, anMA in social service administration,and an MBA. He then took a positionwith the Joyce Foundation, where hefirst came to learn about RMI.

“I was focused on the environmentduring my first years at Joyce,” hesaid. “I later developed a strong inter-est in education and served as anadviser to the mayor of Chicago on

R M I B O A R D O F T R U S T E E S

1 RMI recently changed the name of its Board

of Directors to “Board of Trustees.” The

Institute’s current business plan for its Research

& Consulting division contemplates senior staff

members with the title of “Senior Director.”

The name change was made to ensure that

there is no confusion between staff and our

governance Board members. Further, use of

“Trustees” is normally associated with the

Board of a charitable organization and more

appropriately reflects its fiduciary role.

“I was focused on the environment

during my first years at Joyce. I later

developed a strong interest in education

and served as an adviser to the mayor of

C hicago on education re form.”


29

education reform.”Craig’s interest in international

issues evolved later, after a trip toEurope with the Chicago Council onForeign Relations. Craig had neverbeen to Europe, so the trip was aneye-opening experience.

“I went on this eight-day study tourof Germany and came back with awhole new view of the world andespecially of politics and public poli-cy,” he said. “From that point on,international policy became a majorinterest.”

In 1992, Craig left the JoyceFoundation to work for Richard J.Dennis, a Chicago investor and philan-thropist, before joining the GermanMarshall Fund in 1995. Craig wasinvited to join RMI’s Board of Trusteesearlier this year as a result of hisfriendship with Trustee and longtimeInstitute friend Dr. Sue Woolsey.

“What I really enjoy is helpingsmart people make the most of theirideas,” he said. “I have worked withmany different social and policy entre-preneurs over the years as they have

tried to take their ideas to ‘market.’Helping them develop the best strate-gies for developing and promotingtheir ideas is something that gives meenormous satisfaction.”

Craig is not quite certain whataspects of RMI’s work he’d like to seebetter “marketed” (“it’s a bit too earlyfor me to have an opinion yet,” hereadily admits), but he’s eager toexplore ways to boost the Institute’sefforts to bring insightful solutions to arange of challenges and audiences.

—Cameron M. Burns

B oard S potlight

D e ar E dit or,

In A mory’s otherwis e t errif ic review of nucle ar power

succumbing to market forces, you suggest tha t the

RMI study W ill Ke epin and I did in the la t e ’80s

(“ G re enhous e Warming: C ompara t ive A na lys is of

N ucle ar and Energy Eff iciency A ba t ement S tra t egies,”

Energy Po licy, D ecember 1988) did not have a s ignif i-

cant impact— it actua lly had a large impact. In the

U nit ed S t a t es, W ill t est if ied in C ongress about our

f indings, and the report was wide ly deba t ed in places

like Science and contribut ed to a strong centrist con-

s ensus tha t nucle ar power is not f inancia lly viable

domest ica lly. A broad—where nucle ar re actors were

st ill be ing built, its impact was even larger. To cit e a

f ew examples:

• It w a s us e d a s t he ba s is of a very succ e ssf ul

c amp a ign in t he U K by Fr i e nds of t he

E art h/ G re e np e a c e a nd ot hers t o e duc a t e U K f ina n-

c i a l inst it ut ions about nuc l e ar l i ab i l it i e s and cost

probl ems, a nd l e d t o a s e a cha ng e in t he U K f ina n-

c i a l community’s v i e ws about t he va lu e of nuc l e ar

pow er p l a nt s a nd it s w i l l ingn e ss t o f und more

nuc l e ar re a ct ors. T he st udy p l aye d a l arg e rol e in

st opp ing t he misguid e d T ha t cher it e ef fort t o exp a nd

inve stme nt in nuc l e ar pow er in t he U K .

• In H ung ary, which had be e n l e a ning nuc l e ar, t he

st udy had broad re p ercuss ions. I t e st if i e d about it t o

bot h t he E conom ic a nd t he E nv ironme nt C ommit t e e s

of t he ne w ly-s e a t e d H ung ar i a n p ar l i ame nt, a nd t he

st udy prov id e d a comp e l l ing argume nt t ha t der a i l e d

t he sophist ic a t e d a nd de c e pt ive s a l e s p it ch t ha t

E D F a nd ot hers w ere ma king a t t he t ime a nd t ha t

w a s ha st en ing t ha t country t ow ard nuc l e ar pow er

inve stme nt s.

• It prompt e d t he B rit ish B i l l iona ire S ir J ame s

G oldsmit h (t o whom I w a s adv isor a t t he t ime) t o

prov ide in it i a l f und ing for na t iona l energy ef f ic i ency

c e nt ers in E a st ern E urop e. T his re sult e d in, among

ot her t hings, a na t iona l energy ef f ic i ency c e nt er in

U kr a ine (t he A g e ncy for R a t iona l E nergy U s e a nd

E cology) which ha s had a very l arg e imp a ct on t ha t

country’s e nergy code s a nd adva nc ing ef f ic i e ncy

na t iona l ly, a nd t he f irst (a nd very succ e ssf ul) e n ergy

ef f ic i e nt p erforma nc e contr a ct ing f irm in R oma ni a,

a nd—I be l i eve—t he f irst in E a st ern a nd C e ntr a l

E urop e.

O ur RMI st udy did have a l arg e imp a ct (over 15

ye ar l a t er it is st i l l probably t he s ing l e most w id e ly

c it e d st udy on t his issu e), a nd is a not her rem ind er of

why t he work RMI do e s is so import a nt.

B e st,

G reg K a t s

[ A mory re p l i e s: “ Wow! S p e c i a l t ha nks t o G reg—on e

of t he f ine st innova t ors RMI’s ever had— for a l l t his

gre a t ne ws, prev ious ly unknown t o us.”]


30

NNaattiioonnaall SSoolluuttiioonnss CCoouunncciill

* invited to participate in various discussions with RMI staff and/or Board of Trustees about global issues. Several members attended our 22 April Blue Sky Session, led by Richard Kidd of the U.S. State Department. Mr. Kidd shared news

of the State Department’s work ridding certain war-torn regions of landmines, as well as America’s role in the post-9/11, energy-precious world.

* special invitees to RMIQs (RMI’s Quest for Solutions presentations) and other RMI events.Environmental writer, designer, educator and RMI Trustee Prof. David Orr spoke in April at an RMIQ

co-hosted with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies.

* sponsors of regional RMIQ lectures or series.NSC member Bud Konheim hosted an event in New York on 2 December 2004 that featured Amory Lovins and a

discussion of the most recent outcomes of Winning the Oil Endgame. Amory also presented a RMIQ public lecture 22August 2005 in Aspen’s Paepcke Auditorium on “Nuclear Power: Is It Part of the Solution?”

* recipients of advance notification of key upcoming RMI publications.

The NSC extends an invitation to all RMI donors of $1,500+ annually to join. Watch your mailbox for upcoming NSC events!

For more information about the Council, please contact Development at (970) 927-3851 or [email protected].

Mary and John AbeleRachel and Adam Albright

Diane AndersonPat and Ray Anderson

Anonymous (4)Judith Barnard and Michael Fain

Rita and Irwin BlittGinny and Charles BrewerConnie and Jim Calaway

Marion Cass and Stephen DoigSally Cole

Hilary and Kip CrosbySusan Crown and Will Kunkler

Charles CunniffeLois-ellin Datta

Martha DavisDrs. June and David Ewing

The Fackert FamilyKathy and Charles Farver

Suzanne FarverKathryn Fleck

Angela and Jeremy FosterAnn and Tom Friedman

Jessica and John FullertonNancy Gerdt and Glenn Lyons

Jennie and Mark GordonDana and Jonathan Gottsegen

Margie and John HaleyMarcia and John Harter

Judy HillGerald Hosier

Holly HuntMary and Michael Johnston

Bruce KatzAlex Kaufman

Colleen and Bud KonheimElaine and Robert LeBuhn

Stephen MacAuslandLee Melly

Jacqueline Merrill and James E. Hughes, Jr.

Scott MillerCyndi and Jerry MixRichard L. Ottinger

Melinda and Norman PaysonMarty Pickett and Edgell Pyles

Drs. Agi and Henry PlenkElaine Ply and David Henry

Sara RansfordNancy and Cy Rich

Diana and Jonathan F. P. RoseEmily M. Sack and Robert J. Schloss

June and Paul Schorr, IIIAbigail Seixas and Mark Horowitz

Karen Setterfield and David MuckenhirnChris SmithTina Staley

Mr. and Mrs. Foster StanbackAlice and Fred Stanback

Diane Troderman and Harold Grinspoon

Lynda and Doug WeiserKarry and Tom Wieringa

Janice and Peter WizinowichJane Woodward,

Mineral Acquisition Partners, Inc.Sue and Jim Woolsey

Richard WrightB. Wu and Eric Larson

Members of the National Solutions Council are:

Co-Chair Elaine LeBuhnCo-Chair Douglas Weiser

Honorary Chair Kathy Farver


31

R MI S upporters

We a lso w a nt t o t ha nk t hos e indiv idua ls who have contr ibut e d t o RMI t hrough E art h S hare, t he combin e df e der a l c amp a ign, and ot her workp l a c e char it ab l e progr ams. If you would l ike t o have RMI a s a char it abl eopt ion in your workp l a c e c amp a ign, p l e a s e cont a ct our D eve lopme nt D e p artme nt a t (970) 927-7201.

C ontributions to R MIbet ween A pril 16, 2005and July 31, 2005

V I S I O N A R IE S$100,000+AnonymousWilliam & Flora Hewlett

Foundation

P A T H FI N D E R S $50,000 – $99,999Rachel & Adam AlbrightThe Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.

I N N O V A T O R S$25,000 – $49,999The Cleveland FoundationMason & Morse Real Estate,

Penney Carruth & Bob StarodojClarence F. StanbackThe Streisand Foundation,

Barbra Streisand

I N T EG R A T O R S $5,000 – $9,999

Argosy FoundationJessica & John FullertonStephen H. & Mary Booth JohnsonColleen & Bud Konheim,

in honor of Eric KonheimOverbrook FoundationRichard G. Rockefeller &

Nancy C. Andersen,The Philanthropic Collaborative

Warren Wilson College

S T E W A R D S$1,000 – $4,999

Anonymous (2)James & Wendy Aresty,

in honor of Judy Hill’s birthdayRita & Irwin BlittCharles M. & Ginny Feltus BrewerMartin Bucksbaum Foundation,

Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy

Connie & Jim CalawayCity of AspenHoward P. Colhoun Family

FoundationJohn & Marcia DonnellEarth Share (4)Kathy & Charles FarverJohn Hirschi Fund of Wichita Falls

Area Community FoundationThomas & Karen KonradDouglas A. & Susan LinneyMary Sue & William F. MorrillAbby & George D. O’NeillHugh PerrineFranz P. Reichsman &

Judith BellamyDiana & Jonathan F. P. Rose,

Lostand FoundationSankyo Seiko Co., LTD,

in honor of Eric KonheimSusan & Ford Schumann

FoundationSeymour Schwartz,

The Common Sense FundJane Sharp MacRae &

Duncan MacRaeBradford G. Stanback &

Shelli Lodge-StanbackTR Tharani Memorial Fund,

in honor of Eric KonheimEdward A. WiegnerTom & Karry Wieringa,

Barnabas Foundation Stewards Fund

O P T IMIZE R S $500 – $1,000

Joel & Marla AdamsAnonymousCarter F. & Suzanne Bales,

in honor of Eric KonheimJudy & Woody BevilleGrace R. BrodDavid C. BrownsteinSusanne B. BushChaffin Light Associates,

James Chaffin & Jim LightLois-ellin Datta (3)Mary K. Dougherty &

Erik Neumann,in honor of Eric Konheim

Cynthia FranklinRoger & Sandra Goldman,

in honor of Eric KonheimDr. John & Margie HaleyMartin HellmanEmily & Numa C. Hero, IIIBarbara HodginCalleen & Francois Letaconnoux,

in honor of Eric KonheimMicrosoft Matching Gifts

Program (2)Connie & Jay Moak Mazur,

in honor of Eric KonheimNorthwestern University -

SEED, in memory of Phil Semmer

Dr. Robert & Nancy OdenElise M. O’ShaughnessyKarl Ludwig & Dorothee

Schweisfurth-StiftungJames V. Walzel

I N - K I N D C O N T R I B U T I O N S

Aspen TimesJohn Beatty, Australian ArtisanalRita & Irwin BlittClark’s MarketJudy HillMichael KinsleyParadise BakeryDave ReedAlex & Jerelyn Wilson,

Environmental Building News

WillsBelow is suggested word-ing for including RMI inyour will. But we also sug-gest you consult yourattorney.

“I hereby leave _____ percent of my estate (ora fixed amount, specificproperty, or the remain-der of my estate) toRocky MountainInstitute, a Coloradononprofit corporation,whose purpose is to fos-ter the efficient andrestorative use ofresources to make theworld secure, just, pros-perous, and life-sustain-ing.”

The following people havenotified us that they haveincluded RMI in their wills and/or trusts. We aregrateful to each of them.

Esther & Francis BlighJoanne & Mike CaffreyVirginia CollierAnne CookeRichard FordStanton KloseJoel ShapiroMarge Wurgel &

Keith Mesecher


32

Milit ary

ffoorrccee.. We do that too, via the accessand influence we’ve achieved. Butwhere it becomes an issue of politics,RMI—as a scrupulously nonpartisan andapolitical nonprofit organization—sim-ply can’t go there.

““ DD oonn’’tt hheellpp tthhee mmiilliittaarryy kkiillllppeeooppllee mm oorree cchheeaappll yy ((bb yytthhee wwaa yy ,, II’’ mm aa vv eett))..” Inessence, this asserts that any moneyDoD saves on fuel will be used to do

bad things. So should one make militarybuildings and platforms less efficient,turning more oil into “global weirding”in order to promote peace? I doubt it.The political forces that cause the civil-ian leadership to send platforms on mili-tary missions seem far stronger thanpenny-pinching over fuel—an after-thought for the logisticians to handle.Conversely, saving fuel—ultimatelyeven fuel logistics worth tens of billionsof dollars a year—seems unlikely to

make wars materially more attractive orlikely…save perhaps in one respect:

MMoorree eeffffiicciieenntt ppllaattffoorrmmsswwiillll mmaa kk ee iitt eeaassiieerr ttooddeepplloo yy aanndd aappppll yy UU.. SS .. mmiilliittaarryy ffoorrccee wwoorrllddwwiiddee..True, and a cornerstone of currentefforts at “military transformation.”Heavy, gas-guzzling platforms are hardto deploy and sustain. If deployed any-way, they arrive later, move slower, put

Two F-15 Fighting Falc ons from S pangdahlem A ir B as e,G ermany awa it ref ue ling en rout e to the MoscowInt erna t iona l Avia t ion and S pace S a lon.

(con tinued from p. 5)

A group of A T&T employe es recently showed theirsupport for the Institut e by donating $1,000 they wonthrough a work-based competition support ed by A T&T.T he competition calls for int ernal t eams to submit envi-ronment ally-driven projects, ranging from recyclingefforts to sust ainable sourcing. Recently, A T&T ’sG lobal N etwork Technology S ervices ( G N T S) EnergyTe am—a multidisciplinary, cross-organizationa l groupfocused on the implement ation of cost-eff ective, ener-gy-efficient me asures—won the competition’s covet ed“ C hampions of the Environment Award” by implement-ing methods for reducing energy consumption through-out A T&T ’s network f acilities. Many of the ir methodswere based on RMI’s work in energy-efficient buildings.

B etwe en 2002 and 2004, the f acilities’ energy use f e llmore than 6 percent just through energy awareness andthermost at setpoint management.

A ccording to Te am members, A T&T N etworkO perations plans to reduce its energy consumption andresult ant carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent overthe next five ye ars, in both buildings and network oper-ations, and from mobile sources.

A ccording to Miche le B lazek, A T&T D irector ofTechnology and Environment, “the energy managementsyst em optimization program designed to he lp me etthis goal includes air balancing, variable chilled wat ersetpoints, optimization of outside a ir, a ir ba lancing, andf le et efficiency operations.”

RMI in the news

A T & T Employees S upport R MI

U.S

. Air

For

ce p

hoto

by

Mas

ter

Sgt

. Val

Gem

pis


far more troops in harm’s way for alonger time to operate vulnerable supplylines, and ultimately increase combatrisks and casualties. Those who favorthese outcomes in the hope of gummingup the works are really objecting to theuse of military force, either in particularcases or generally. At times I have per-sonally disagreed with civilian leaders’choices about the use of military power.But the proper remedy lies in devisingnonviolent paths to security, and ulti-mately in the voting booth. That’s not acop-out; it simply recognizes the differ-ence between the purpose of this specif-ic nonprofit organization and the civicduties of every citizen.

TT hhee PP eennttaaggoonn iiss aann iimm ppeenn --eettrraabbllee bbuurreeaauuccrraacc yy iinnwwhhiicchh nnoo ssmmaallll oorrggaanniizzaa--ttiioonn oorr mm ooddeesstt eeffffoorrtt ccaannmmaa kk ee aa ddiiffffeerreennccee.. One of thefinest public servants we know at DoDtalks of “the tunnel at the end of thelight” (and, in fairness, ascribes much ofthe mess to Congress’s appetite forpork). But isn’t it better to redirect avast bureaucracy’s supertanker-like

momentum so it’s hard to stop fromdoing good things? Whether RMI’ssmall but innovative and well-targetedeffort can achieve this is an empiricalquestion, but so far, I’m encouraged.Yes, military reform is slow and difficult.But someone has to do it and to help itsinternal advocates continue to gainstrength, as they’re now doing—oftenprecisely because flawed policies proveso costly.

AA dd vv eerrssaarriiaall mm uussccllee iiss tthheeoonnll yy ppoossssiibbllee aanndd hhoonnoorr--aabbllee ppaatthh ttoo mmiilliittaarryyrreeffoorrmm.. The same was long said ofimproving major firms’ behavior. OurNatural Capitalism practice showed oth-erwise: the industrial collaboration RMIhas pioneered for more than twodecades is now the hottest fashionamong major environmental groups.And with the military as with industry,we’ve found it’s often more effective toinfluence from within as a trusted part-ner than from outside as an adversary:working together on what we agreeabout often makes the rest superfluous.RMI’s track record in such military col-

laboration is unusual if not unique, andis getting more so. Outside pressures forreform are important too, but they workbetter in combination with internal“trimtabs” than in isolation.

TT hhee mmiilliittaarryy ddooeess mmaann yytthhiinnggss ooff wwhhiicchh yy oouu mm uussttssttrroonnggll yy ddiissaapppprroo vv ee.. Yes, asdo many other organizations we workwith: if we helped only corporationsand individuals deemed free from sin (atough test for any of us), our clienteleand effectiveness would be tiny—ornon-existent. While we have a sensitivemoral compass and use specific criteriafor choosing clients (see RMI Solutions,Summer 04), we also believe in the pos-sibility of redemption and in theredeeming value of humble and compas-sionate dialogue without self-righteous-ness. When civilian or uniformed mili-tary leaders err, the judicial and politicalprocesses, propelled by the vitality ofcivil society, will ultimately fix responsi-bility, do justice, and drive learning.Meanwhile the need intensifies for thetechnical, institutional, and doctrinalimprovements that RMI seeks to advance

A mory D elivers C old Truth in N ew VideoRMI C E O A mory L ovins was re cent ly f e a tured in af ilm about oil and the A rct ic N a t iona l W ildlif e Ref uge.Re le as ed 9 A ugust by Lightye ar E nt ert a inment, O il onIce is cons idered one of the most controvers ia l e co-polit ica l f ilms in re cent ye ars. P roduced and dire ct edby D a le D jerass i and B o B oudart, the award-winningdocument ary s ets the issues of oil, consumerdemand, globa l warming, W ashington polit ics, andenvironment a l concerns aga inst the backdrop of theA rct ic Ref uge, the indigenous G wich‘in people, a ct iv-it ies a t Prudhoe B ay, and the Exxon Valdez dis ast er.T he f ilm expla ins how the f a t e of the Ref uge is inex-tricably linked to energy policy and transport a t ionchoices, while the live lihood of N a t ive A laskans and

the surviva l of migra torywildlif e are caught in the ba l-ance. A mory appe arsthroughout the document ary.For more on O il on Ice,ple as e vis itwww.oilonice.org. For det a ilsof why drilling in the Ref ugeis une conomic and wouldundercut na t iona l s e curity—the two best-kept s e crets ofthe deba t e—s e e the L ovins es’ 2001 Foreign A ffairsart icle a t www.rmi.org/images/other/E nergy/E01-04_Fools G old A nnot.pdf.

RMI in the news

Milit ary

33


34

Milit ary

within the military and, through the mili-tary, within our whole society. I think thegreater sin would be to ignore the oppor-tunity to help influence such a potentiallydecisive ally for profound change.

IItt’’ss iinnaapppprroopprriiaattee ffoorr pprroo--mmootteerrss ooff ppeeaaccee aanndd sseeccuurrii--ttyy ttoo aacccceepptt ffuunnddss ffrroomm mmiillii--ttaarryy ssoouurrcceess.. If one abhors all mili-tary activities in principle, one mightwant to take money away from them (orat least to pay in their stead). More seri-ously, we do think hard about this issue,because we don’t take money or engage-ments from those who lie, cheat, steal,or greenwash. But so far we’ve beencomfortable with our specific sources ofDoD funding for specific activities, andwith those activities’ purpose, scope, andresults. They all support our mission,both in detail and in the big picture; thefunds come from people of high purposeand integrity; and our military partnersare often people of extraordinary person-al and professional quality whom we’reproud to count as friends and mentors.(We’re honored that two of them—retired Vice Admiral Denny McGinn, for-mer Deputy Chief of Naval Operations,and serving Navy Medical Corps physi-cian Commander Eric Rasmussen, one ofthe world’s leading experts on humani-tarian relief—are Senior Fellows of RMI.)Our personal experience does not sup-port the view that military people are badpeople—generally quite the contrary. Weseek to work with people of honor andconscience no matter where they arefound, and we distinguish between peo-ple and organizations.

AA nn oorrggaanniizzaattiioonn ooff ccoonn--sscciieennccee ssiimmppll yy ccaannnnoott hhaa vv eeaann yytthhiinngg ttoo ddoo wwiitthh tthhee mmiillii--ttaarryy.. Are all military activities bad—even humanitarian relief or force protec-tion? (RMI’s spinoff Fiberforge makes

advanced composite materials, good notonly for making ultralight vehicles butalso for stopping bullets, thus saving ourfellow-citizens’ lives and limbs. Thatsounds right even if one disagrees withhow they got into combat.) Is force ofarms always the wrong answer? (Thatis of course a principled pacifist posi-tion, which some of our staff andfriends may hold; that is their privateaffair, and we respect their views as wewould hope they would respect others.)There is much suffering in the universe,and we seek to reduce it in ways thatfeel right and play to our distinctivestrengths. Our boundary is not inwhom we talk to but in what we do.We don’t glorify war, nor create waysto break things and kill people, but wedo join with all kinds of partners, oftenunusual ones, to try to reduce the rootcauses of violence and to build authen-tic, durable, and universal security. Foras Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,remarked, “Peace is not the absence ofwar, it is the presence of justice.” Manywho wrongly blame the armed forcesfor the orders they receive from civil-ians would be astonished by the pas-sionate and sophisticated drive for jus-tice and peace that activates many whohave made their careers in the military.

MMiilliittaarryy pp oo wweerr iiss oo nnll yy oo nneeooff mm aann yy ddii mm eennssiioo nnss——ssuucchhaass pp oolliittiiccaall,, ddiipplloo mm aattiicc,,iinnffoorrmm aattiioo nnaall,, hh uu mm aanniittaarrii --aann,, eeccoo nn oo mm iicc,, aann dd iiddeeoolloo gg --iiccaall——oo nn ww hhiicchh wwee mm uusstt aallllssttrruu gg ggllee ffoorr aa ffaaiirreerr aann ddssaaffeerr ww oorrlldd.. Absolutely. RMIseeks to influence and integrate allthese dimensions, not only the non-military ones.

TT hhee UU nniitteedd SS ttaatteess iiss oo vv eerrll yymmiilliittaarriizzeedd aanndd ssppeennddss ffaarrttoooo mm uucchh lliiffee aanndd ttrreeaassuurree

oonn wwaarr.. Fair comment. RMI aims tosupport those in the military who wantto change this and to eliminate war.Avoiding wars over oil seems to us anexcellent place to start, and inclusive-ness the best way to proceed. Leadingthe world off oil could be thePentagon’s greatest-ever contribution toits national-security mission—a messagethat resonates strongly within the sen-ior leadership.

IIff yy oouu hhaa vv ee tthhee PP eennttaaggoonn’’ssmm oonnee yy ,, yy oouu ddoonn’’tt nneeeeddmmiinnee.. I wish it were so. RMI has lostmoney on every DoD engagement sofar—because we thought the job wasworth doing, because the DefenseScience Board was an all-volunteereffort, and because DoD usually paysfar below the market rates that wecharge our industrial clients to helpsupport our creation of new intellectualcapital. I daresay our military work’sresults and influence have dispropor-tionately fulfilled RMI’s purpose, butthis work continues to depend on thesupport of many friends who appreciatewhy we’re doing it the way we are. Ifany feel unable to join us on this part ofthe journey, we are deeply sorry; butwe hope others will feel that we aredoing the right thing for the right rea-sons, not compromising but celebratingour shared values.

These are not easy times or easyissues. Executive Director MartyPickett and I would welcome yourthoughtful comments on whether myreactions are valid, what I might bemissing, and how to do even better atcreating abundance and security bydesign—an area whose staff and effortwe continue to expand.

Amory B. Lovins is Cofounder andCEO of Rocky Mountain Institute.

35RMISolutionsF a l l 2 0 0 5

RMISolutionsRMI Solutions is published three times a yearand distributed to more than 10,000 readers (by mail and online) in the United States andthroughout the world. © 2005 Rocky MountainInstitute. All rights reserved.

Letters to the EditorWe want to hear your comments. Please address all correspondence to:

Cameron M. Burns, EditorRocky Mountain Institute1739 Snowmass Creek RoadSnowmass, CO 81654-9199tel: (970) 927-3851fax: (970) [email protected]

For reprint permission, please [email protected]. As a leader in promotingresource efficiency, RMI supports innovative recycled paper manufacturers. This publicationis printed on New Leaf EcoOffset (100% post-consumer waste, processed chlorine-free) usingvegetable-based ink. Contact New Leaf Paperfor more information, (888) 989-5323. No new trees were used in the production ofthis newsletter, and we offer paperless electronicdelivery via our website or on request.

About the InstituteRMI is an entrepreneurial nonprofit organizationthat fosters the efficient and restorative use ofnatural, human and other capital to make theworld secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining.We do this by inspiring business, civil society, and government to design integrative solutionsthat create true wealth.

Our staff show corporations, communities, individuals, and governments how to createmore wealth and employment, protect andenhance natural and human capital, increaseprofit and competitive advantage, and enjoymany other benefits—largely by doing whatthey do more efficiently.

Our work is independent, nonadversarial, and transideological, with a strong emphasis onmarket-based solutions.

Founded in 1982, Rocky Mountain Institute is a §501(c)(3)/509(a)(1) public charity. It has astaff of approximately 50. The Institute focuses itswork in several main areas—business practices,climate, community economic development,energy, real-estate development, security, trans-portation, and water—and carries on internationaloutreach and technical-exchange programs.

A Welcome C orrection on Utility EconomicsD e ar A mory,T he S ummer 2005 R M I Solutions cont ains a generally exce llent articleby Lena H ansen entitled “ C re ating a B a lanced Energy Policy.” Itincludes a discussion of “utility incentive structure” that is incorrect onone import ant point, however (and Lena isf ar from a lone here). S he says that “[u]nderthe current rat e-setting process, a utilitymakes a profit for every kilowatt-hour itse lls (say, 2 cents profit on the 12 cents perkilowatt-hour you pay on your power bill),and loses that same 2 cents profit marginfor every kilowatt-hour it doesn’t se ll due tomore efficient use.”

T his both underst at es and mischaract erizes the problem in animport ant respect. T he issue is not sole ly or even primarily one of “lostprofits,” but rather the typical linkage of a utility’s recovery of most orall of its authorized fixed costs to ret ail sales volumes (and, to be sure,for investor-owned utilities those fixed costs include an authorizedreturn on the utility’s investments). T he recovery of these fixed costs(ref lecting previous capit al investment in distribution, transmissionand generation assets) typically accounts for more than half of ane lectric utility’s revenue requirement and e lectricity charges (not one-sixth as in the example), and of course fixed-cost recovery is equally aconcern for public and privat e power (where as “profits” are an issueonly for investor-owned utilities). A n investor-owned utility’s “profits”depend he avily on its success in controlling costs and are not recov-ered in a uniform charge per k W h; by contrast, a utility’s authorizedfixed-cost revenue requirement is set by its regulators in e ach rat ecase, as is the amount of fixed costs included in the charge for e achk W h, and the utility’s success in recovering that sum is tied directly tosales volumes, unless (as in C a lifornia) regulators int ervene to fix theproblem with modest rat e true-ups (ref lecting the diff erence betwe enauthorized and actual recovery of fixed costs over specified periods).My most recent t estimony on this issue (in W isconsin)…[concludesthat] five ye ars of re asonably aggressive energy efficiency investment(saving about one percent of syst em use per ye ar) would cost thisaverage-sized utility about $85 million in unrecovered fixed costs (split$75 million/$10 million betwe en the electricity and natural gas busi-nesses). T his is about much more than “lost profits;” it goes straight tothe he art of the fiscal int egrity of the ent erprise. Lena is absolut e lyright about the import ance of the problem and the urgent ne ed for solu-tions, of course, and equally right to point to C a lifornia as a le ader.

B est,Ra lph C avanagh, N R D C

[Editor’s not e: We’re sorry this error e luded us. Ra lph is right—and one of thenational le aders in diagnosing and fixing this key regulatory problem. S e ealso www.raponline.org]

Editor’s note:A va lu e d col l e a gu e a t N a t ur a l R e sourc e sD ef e ns e C ounc i lre c e nt ly s e nt us t hisimport a nt corre ct ion.T ha nks, R a lph!

G re e n D e s ign P r a ct ic e Joins RMI

W hy We Work w it h t he Mi l it ary

S e t t ing t he R e cord S tr a ight on Et ha nol

N S C We e ke nd a S ucc e ss

N uc l e ar Fol l i e s Me e t Marke t R e a l i t i e s

A S ma l l but E ncour a g ing S t e p Tow ard Ma king L ight Trucks

Special Section: Rebuilding A fter Katrina

1

4

6

8

10

15

18

RMISolutionsRMISolutionsRMISolutionsRMISolutions

N O N - P R O F I T O R G

U. S . P O S T A GE P A I D

P E RMI T #9

G R A N D J C T., C O

Rocky Mountain Institute1739 Snowmass Creek RoadSnowmass, CO 81654-9199

C H A N G E S E R V I C E R E Q U E S T E D

Rocky Mountain Institute/volume xxii #3/Fall 2005

14 L if e A t RMI

22 D onor S pot l ight: Min er a l

A cquis it ion P art n ers, Inc.

24 S t af f S pot l ight: S t eve S w a nson,

RMI Fina nc e D ire ct or

26 W ha t A re You D oing?

28 B oard S pot l ight: C r a ig K e nn e dy

31 RMI S upport ers

FEATURES IN EVERY ISSUE

rocky mountain institute/volume xxii #3/fall 2005n 1 august, rocky mountain institute and ensar...

Documents