One of the things I've never understood about Lovins'"soft energy path" is why growth in energy use levels off once the final conversion to "soft technologies" is made. After all, Lovins believes that these technologies have no downside whatsoever, so why wouldn't there be every incentive to develop these sources further? Why would you stop except to fulfill some sort of irrational energy-conservation fetish?
Just further proof that Lovins is no economist. I look forward to seeing "figure three"- I was wondering what it would look like the last time I looked at Lovins' 1977 book.
Lovins showed oil and gas fading away for no obvious reason; nuclear was not shown to be taking their place, the means by which its actual progress has occurred. This was pleasing to oil and gas interests. No-one ever respected him but a lot of people found him useful.
And, because they found him useful, they promoted his "ideas" and paid his bills.
I have no problem with people making money as consultants - I just want people to understand that the source of their support often colors their recommendations.
Lovins advocates that we should "change over to living on our energy income." And while saying this he advocates that we cut our energy income down to a quarter of what it could be. We can imagine doing that, after all we used to live that way two thousand years ago. We can do it again.
I think this a a cowardly attitude. It is an insult to the human spirit. We can do much better than that. I advocate that we should aim to increase our energy income by a large factor. Can you even imagine what we would do with a much larger energy income? No, you can't, so this future vision is discounted. It is really hard to express an optimistic view of the future, and really easy to express a pessimistic one, so everyone is pessimistic. I think that is simply lazy. Come on, there is a lot of adventure coming our way for those who are not too timid to get out of bed. Lovins and his devotees can crawl back weeping into the buggy swamp - I want to dance with the galaxies.
Go ahead spend all your savings on nuclear, but please, please stop asking for tax dollars.
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After 60 years of massive public funding, it's time for nuclear to walk on its own feet.
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