Positive Power Spotlight, July 2007: Rocky Mountain Institute

16 Jul, 2007 Positive Power of Principled Profit Spotlight, Principled Profit, Recommended Books

Back in 1977, Amory Lovins published a groundbreaking book called Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace. I stumbled on it a year or two later and was blown away by the idea that not only didn’t we need nuclear power, but that the whole idea of mammoth, centralized power generation using fossil fuels, uranium, or other non-renewable fuels was basically dinosaur thinking, and that as a society, we not only needed to move beyond that, but could easily do so, using the sun and wind as our primary power sources.

Lovins has been a hero of mine ever since. He has gone on to write or co-author several other very important books, including Natural Capitalism. And to establish a profit-making consulting firm, the Rocky Mountain Institute, based out of the ultra-energy-efficient model home he built for himself in Old Snowmass, Colorado, in 1983. How efficient is ultra-efficient? So efficient that the 4000 square foot luxury house paid back the entire cost of all its energy saving features in just ten months (at a time when fuel was a whole lot cheaper than it is now so today’s payback would be even faster). A few years ago, Lovins told an audience that the residential portion of his house (not counting RMI’s offices) had a $5 average monthly electricity bill–and that despite living in the snowbelt just outside Aspen, he was keeping the house warm enough to grow bananas.

RMI makes its living in part through selling informational resources about soft energy technologies–but more importantly, by consulting on energy reduction.

And by looking holistically, the savings can be huge. RMI has helped with projects such as…

A house in a city known for extreme temperatures (up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit) that doesn’t need an air conditioner or central heater
An industrial piping system that is not only 92 percent more energy efficient, but is also lighter, quieter, cheaper to build, and easier to maintain
A prototype SUV that compares favorably with today’s models in comfort and storage capacity, but uses only as much energy for everything as the typical SUV uses for air conditioning

In short, RMI can be an international model for developing sane energy use patterns that don’t interfere with our lifestyle, and earn a healthy profit.

Note: a longer profile of Lovins and RMI appears in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

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