[Published by Charles Yulish Associates Inc. in "Soft vs. Hard Energy Paths: 10 Critical Essays", 1977 and subsequently, in abridged format, in Electric Perspectives, 1977/3, pp.21 - 24]
Amory Lovins is a dangerous individual, because he is selling a dream without presenting the bill. The dream is attractive: we can have all the energy we need in a world free from many of today's problems. The dollar price is not yet known, while the conditions of sale include profound changes in our society. Indeed, Lovins makes it clear that social change is his primary objective, and that changes in our energy systems are merely means to an end.
His advertising message is deceptively simple. He shows an idealized picture of the product (all soft, supple, benign, convivial, pluralistic and appropriate) along with a caricature of a non-existent Brand X. The buyer is then pressed to close the deal before discovering a whole range of similar products that may be more to his liking.
What makes Lovins' approach all the more dangerous is that with his broad-brush treatment there is little to criticize in the picture of his product. Much of his argument is based on familiar generalizations that few would dispute. Thus, anyone offering a competing product is put in the position of having to explain why practical details, invisible or obscured in Lovins' picture, are important to the buyer.
Lovins1-4 shows that we are at present critically dependent on conventional oil and gas, to the extent of about two-thirds of all primary energy supplies; that these particular fossil fuels are limited in amount, are being rapidly depleted and will be virtually exhausted in something like fifty years; that all energy sources that might substitute for these fossil fuels will be very much more expensive; that we therefore face a serious energy situation; and that we must soon change many of our uses and sources of energy. All this is now widely recognized and agreed.
Similarly, there is no argument over the need for, and importance of, energy conservation - first to reduce the rate of growth of demand and, eventually, to limit the demand to some acceptable level. Furthermore, nobody can disagree with the mathematical truism that, to be stable indefinitely, an energy supply system must rely on renewable sources.
Lovins argues that, with strong conservation measures, the transition to an indefinitely stable energy system could be achieved by the year 2025. He suggests that most of the low temperature energy demand (including space heating) could be satisfied by solar heating; that synthetic liquid fuels from forest products could satisfy the energy demand in the transportation sector; that existing hydroelectric capacity could satisfy all essential demands for electricity; and that wind energy, wood combustion and biogas might each make minor contributions. He advocates the use of coal to bridge the transition, but specifically rejects nuclear power.
Most people would agree that Lovins' proposal is theoretically possible, but many question whether it is either desirable or necessary, let alone practical. Lovins' own advice5 is relevant here: "Technical experts contributing to public discussion of such choices should call special attention to uncertainties and professional disagreements, lest they give the impression that disputed questions are actually resolved."
First, he is very optimistic about the effectiveness of energy conservation measures, which are outlined in only the most general terms. Where others6 have had to document what could reasonably be achieved here, they have found much less scope for reduction. By all means, let us set optimistic targets for energy conservation, but let us be prepared for short-falls, since the cost to society of failure to meet the demand will be very serious.
Just as important is the need for full and honest disclosure of the societal changes required to achieve the optimistic targets. Lovins talks7 of "rationing by price or otherwise, mandatory curtailments, or gentler inducements." Such "social changes" include car-pooling, smaller cars, mass transit, bicycles, walking, opening windows, dressing to suit the weather, and extensively recycling materials. However, to achieve the claimed energy savings from district heating, co-generation, mass transit, etc., implies a major restructuring of North American society, converting from the present predominantly city-suburban living pattern to a much larger number of smaller urban centers, each integrating industry with residential and commercial accommodation and having a much higher population density than is now normal. Such a restructuring would facilitate energy saving, but it is very doubtful that the changes could be brought about in the time suggested, except in an authoritarian regime and at great public expense. In the real world, individual freedom of choice is worth preserving, and other scarce resources besides energy - notably labor, capital and agricultural land - need to be conserved. The direction advocated by Lovins might well be what the electorate would choose, but they have the right to know what is involved, how it is to be achieved, and at what cost, before being asked to choose. Furthermore, they should be aware that their choice of urban living pattern will not be restricted by the choice of energy systems in the way Lovins would have them believe.
Lovins' proposed dependence on solar heating also implies a trend towards a more communal style of living. The economics of solar heating are much more favorable for multi-unit dwellings than for single homes. As Lovins puts it8, "The medium scale of urban neighborhoods and rural villages offers fine prospects for solar collectors -- some can take excess collector area while others cannot take any." And9 "There are often good reasons to share even simple energy systems among, say, 10 - 1000 people." Anyone who has shared the ownership of a lawn-mower, shovelled snow from a shared driveway, or experienced institutional space-heating in apartments or hotels knows that there are disadvantages as well as advantages to communal living. These should be openly acknowledged. Will communal solar panels be any less prone to vandalism than communal school windows?
Lovins, by ignoring tar sands and oil shales, by derogating coal and by ruling out nuclear power for doctrinaire reasons, forces the transitional period to a predominantly renewable economy to something over twenty years. Inclusion of coal and tar sands (or oil shales in the U.S.) could extend this period to two hundred years, while nuclear power permits an extension of something like two thousand years and possibly longer. The longer periods would allow the transition to be made in a much more orderly and less disruptive manner than that inherent in Lovins' proposal.
Most people will agree with Lovins that the costs of health and environmental protection should be internalized in arriving at the true costs of each energy source. Indeed, the nuclear industry has led other industries in this regard. Unlike Lovins, however, many of us who favor the principle of renewable energy sources acknowledge that this requirement will seriously penalize certain renewable energy technologies, such as geothermal, tidal and the use of wood. We agree that renewable energy sources should be used where these are economically competitive and publicly acceptable. Evidence for support of these energy sources by the "energy establishment" exists in the fact that three-quarters of Canada's present electricity supply is provided by renewable hydro-electric power.
Similarly, most of us agree with Lovins that, in making the necessary choices, economics is not the sole criterion even after all appropriate indirect costs have been internalized. Certain value judgments are involved and these choices should not be made by the elite on either side. Each energy source should be assessed rationally, having regard to both its potential and its problems, and not ruled out by emotional rhetoric. We agree with Lovins when he says that the public should be properly informed of the implications of the possible choices, but we do not agree that he has done this fairly in presenting his "soft" path. (Some specific inconsistencies are noted in Appendix A.) Most important, we do not agree10 that the choices are restricted to the two extremes that Lovins is forcing on us.
A consumer pressured to choose, and confused by inconsistent advertising, will want to know the real issues. Lovins makes it perfectly plain that he is opposed to centralized authority and institutions, and is advocating "soft technologies" as a means of achieving decentralization. (Quotations illustrating his views on the direction social changes should take are listed in Appendix B.) Many people are frustrated and antagonized by large, remote, centralized institutions and it is certainly legitimate to advocate changes in the present system. It would be only fair, however, to point out the disadvantages and problems associated with the decentralized alternatives. Apparently, Lovins' customer can choose anything he likes as long as it is "soft", decentralized, and approved by his local community.
Large centralized energy systems are expensive, but dividing them up into a multitude of small systems does not necessarily make the total any less. In areas other than costs, individual problems may be decreased in magnitude but greatly increased in number. It may well be easier to reach agreement on siting a local district heating plant than a central power station, but there will be many more local plants to site and they will have to be closer to residential areas. It is not axiomatic that decentralized systems are more reliable, or less vulnerable, than centralized systems. When equipment failure or adverse weather disrupts a major utility's service, customers are confident that highly competent and well-equipped crews will be available wherever they are needed to restore service. A small decentralized community would be on its own without any reserves to call on under similar circumstances. A labor dispute threatening to shut down a centralized utility would probably result in government intervention, but would the same happen for a small decentralized community service? In the latter instance, many fewer people would be affected by any given dispute, but that would be little comfort to those who were affected. Historically, the trend to centralized energy systems has been largely due to the resulting cost savings and improved reliability. The consequences of deliberately reversing the trend should be carefully considered.
Lovins' broad brush treatment, ignoring the details, can mislead. By his argument, which he himself describes11 as "incomplete and even naïve", the total capital investment needed to supply a consumer with solar heat is less than that required to satisfy the same requirements by nuclear electricity. In practice, the comparison depends critically on how much thermal storage capacity the consumer installs and how much reserve electrical capacity the utility has to install to back-up a partial solar-heating supply. Complex analysis of the whole system is needed to provide a valid conclusion. Elsewhere12, Lovins has claimed that the proposed U.S. energy program would take about three-quarters of the cumulative net private domestic investment for 1976-85. This surprising conclusion results mainly from rounding up the annual energy investment from about $500 million to $1 billion, and rounding down the gross national product from $1.5 trillion to $1 trillion. In arguing13 that a chemical industry 14 times the scale of the present U.S. beer and wine industry could produce, by organic conversion, enough fuel to supply one-third of present U.S. gasoline requirements, he admits that the beer and wine are "not all alcohol, of course". He fails to allow, however, that subtracting the water content would alter his figures by a factor of roughly twenty. Finally, to claim14 that doubling our end-use efficiency for energy would make us "twice as affluent" is misleading when energy costs account for only a fraction of production costs and personal expenditures.While Lovins devotes much time and space to attacking nuclear power, trying to convince him of the acceptability and advantages of nuclear power would be fruitless. His writings clearly show that he regards the nuclear issue as only incidental to his primary objective, which is social change. He has stated that even if he were convinced that "nuclear power were clean, safe, economic, assured of ample fuel, and socially benign per se, it would still be unattractive because of the political implications of the kind of energy economy it would lock us into."15 To him nuclear power is symbolic of the "hard" path which he believes16 "nurtures dirigiste autarchy, bypasses traditional market mechanisms, concentrates political and economic power, centralizes human settlements, persistently distorts political structures and social priorities, encourages bureaucratization and alienation, compromises professional ethics, is probably inimical to greater distributional equity within and among nations, inequitably divorces costs from benefits, enhances vulnerability and the paramilitarization of civilian life, introduces major economic and social risks, reinforces current trends towards centrifugal politics and the decline of federalism and encourages -- even requires -- elitist technocracy whose exercise erodes the legitimacy of democratic government." Nobody should be in any doubt that, for Lovins, abolishing nuclear energy would be merely the first step towards fundamentally changing our present society.
All new energy sources are going to be much more expensive than those to which we have become accustomed. In discussing what he terms the "hard" route, Lovins stresses1 p.69 the difficulty in providing the necessary investment capital. Although "soft" technologies can be just as capital intensive (sometimes more so), in discussing them, he stresses1 p.73 the employment they will create. His spiralling argument then criticizes1 p.67 the "hard" route for its high labor requirements.
Lovins, like us, argues1 p.77 that diversity of supply is desirable in giving resiliency to the system, but rules out some technologies (nuclear power and tar sands) whose capability has already been demonstrated. This same arbitrary exclusion is inconsistent with his stated support1 p.75 for encouraging competition.
One characteristic by which "soft" technologies are defined1 p.78 is that they are "relatively low technology which does not mean unsophisticated, but rather, easy to understand and use without esoteric skills." Does this criterion exclude the use of computers, solar electricity or even biomass energy via photosynthesis? Does Lovins really intend mankind to be limited by the comprehension and skills of the average individual?
Another characteristic of "soft" technologies1 p.78 is that they are "matched in energy quality to end-use needs". Since nuclear energy can be delivered at very high temperatures but is, in practice, used at modest temperatures, it is described as a "hard" technology. Solar energy can be delivered at very high temperatures, but in practice is proposed for use at relatively low temperatures, but is a "soft" technology according to Lovins. Lovins' strongest argument2 p.32 for matching is that to offend against it is "inelegant, a cardinal sin to a physicist." However, non-physicists will appreciate that, where a mismatched energy source is economically competitive, some other resource, such as labor or capital, is being conserved more efficiently. Thermodynamics is not the final criterion. Lovins argues1 p.78 that "People do not want electricity or oil, nor such economic abstractions as 'residential services' but rather comfortable rooms, light, vehicular motion (travel?), tables and other real things." The same pragmatic approach should deny matching and other "soft" characteristics as valid criteria for selecting energy sources.
"Soft technologies are by definition non-violent."2 p.40 Yet solar energy was used as a weapon of war by Archimedes, and battle ships were powered by wind for centuries. It is the application and not the technology that is violent or non-violent.
A claimed advantage1 p.87 for "soft" technologies is that "everyone can get into the act, unimpeded by centralized bureaucracies, and can compete for a market share through ingenuity and local adaptation." Conversely, "hard" technologies are criticized2 p.36 for their "gargantuan scale." However, in order to justify the economics of "soft" technologies, Lovins claims1 p.80 the benefits of mass production, and notes1 p.82 that "such firms as Philips, Honeywell, Revere, Pittsburgh Plate Glass and Owens-Illinois" are among those getting into the act.
"An inherent engineering feature of soft technologies (is) that their lead times are qualitatively shorter than those of conventional big systems."2 p.9 Judged by all the characteristics defining "soft" technologies, a hydroelectric station supplying a nearby city would be "soft" but nobody would claim a short lead time for it.
"Any soft technology, given ordinarily good engineering, will have an operation-and-maintenance cost lower than the sum of fuel cost and operation-and-maintenance cost for a conventional technology (which, unlike the soft one, requires fuel)."2 p.17 This claim seems most unlikely to hold for the cultivation and collection of biomass for conversion to heat or synthetic fuels, especially if comparison is made to nuclear power.
Soft energy systems are said2 p.32 to be "inherently benign." How does this apply to an array of wind-driven machines liable to shed massive projectiles? Would those suffering from respiratory diseases regard a wood-burning community as benign? Wood smoke curling up from a cottage by an old-world windmill presents a romantic picture but Lovins' proposal would require something completely different.
Social changes recommended1 p.72 to achieve the desired level of energy conservation are described as "mandatory curtailments or gentler inducements", while those predicted for "hard" technologies are labelled1 p.95 "friendly fascism".
"For electrical systems, distribution accounts for more than half the total capital cost."1 p.79 Not only can this be shown to be untrue for Ontario Hydro by referring to their published accounts, but it is also inconsistent with Lovins' own information.2 p.20 "Total distribution capital cost is thus about $420/kW(1974$)" and "Total cost per installed kW (for a nuclear-electric system) is thus $1135 in 1974$ plus $100 in 1976$." Even more specifically, Lovins has said2 p.23 "In 1974, privately-owned electric utilities in the United States spent about 35% of their total capital expenditures for transmission and distribution equipment." Moreover, the distribution cost of a "soft" energy source will include wholesale and retail mark-ups plus the costs of a service infrastructure. Those costs, for many industrial products, account for about half the cost to the consumer.
"... the scale and complexity of centralized grids ... make them politically inaccessible to the poor and the weak."1 p.92
"... old political concepts begin to reassert themselves. Grassroots democracy acquires a more concrete meaning. Jefferson and Mao gain a curious affinity ... absolute, monopolistic ownership of land ... is in a sense blasphemous. In our dynamic, pluralistic culture, our decisions will be made at the points of tension between competing value systems."2 p.43
"... though humanity and human institutions are not perfectable, legitimacy and the nearest we can get to wisdom both flow ... from the people; pragmatic Hamiltonian concepts of central governance by a cynical elite are unworthy of our people and are ultimately tyrannical."2 p.41
"... the concept of a soft energy path ... offers a potential argument for every constituency: civil rights for liberals, States' (Provinces') rights for conservatives, availability of capital for business people, environmental protection for conservationists, old values for the old, new values for the young, exciting technologies for the secular, spiritual rebirth for the religious."2 p.45
"... long-term discount rates should be zero or even slightly negative, reinforcing a frugal (though not penurious) ethic of husbanding."2 p.4
"... more and more nations are looking for ways of becoming more independent, rather than more inter-dependent, even if to do so they will have to be satisfied with a lower standard of living."2 p.42