Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security

This is one of the few books around on actually trying to solve the energy problems, and he puts up enough thinking and new concepts that the book is definitely worth reading. For instance, his main thrust is for the auto industry to develop untra light vehicles that get double the gas mileage. Having watched the auto industry over the past few years go on a spree of building bigger and heavier SUV's I am not encouraged that they are willing. The auto industry fought the CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) rules that were in place, and they got the Republicans to kill it. The auto unions fought it just as hard because building SUV's required more workers, so they got the Democrats to kill it. Now this book says that we could give the auto companies government backed loans to help them do what other companies (Toyota, Honda, etc. have already done). Maybe I would agree if you cut management and worker incomes. Hey, if you want to get double the gas mileage, reduce the speed limits. You save 40% by reducing speed from 70 to 55. Or take a penny or two out of the highway trust fund and put it into Amtrak - perhaps free travel for students, military, seniors and greatly reduced fares for anyone riding the train rather than driving. This book was at least partially funded by the Defense Department and they state: 'We adopt only options that provide 2025 mobility transparently to the user, with no change of lifestyle or loss of convenience.' Sorry guys, it isn't going to work that way. Maybe, again MAYBE, you can get what you want by 2025, but by 2050 or 2075, this is an out of date plan.

The book is available for download in pdf from the author's site without charge.

OK, I've never written a review - but I feel really passionate about this book. My jaw dropped when I saw the price just now (a friend let me borrow his copy). However, I am debating just purchasing it anyway to have my own. First of all, I am active in this area. I run my business on wind power. I drive the most fuel efficient car on the market (2001 Honda Insight) and compete in fuel economy competitions. In short, I've done a ton of research on this topic. This book, however, has everything I know and contributes 10x as much that I don't on almost every page. Note: It covers topics ranging from the biofuels, nuclear, our government's actions versus others, military strategy, hybrids on the market, etc, etc, etc. If it weren't so expensive, I would give copies to family and friends.

This study was funded partially by the Pentagon and written by scientists from the Rocky Mountain Institute, led by Amory Lovins. According to them, the US could end the need to import oil by 2040, and not need oil at all by 2050. "Winning The Oil Endgame" talks a game of improved efficiency, making cars out of lightweight carbon instead of steel, powering them with hybrid engines, substituting with biofuels, and using saved natural gas until Hydrogen fuel technology takes over in 2050. Unfortunately, some data indicates the oil will already be all gone by 2040. Lovins's plan requires extensive subsidy input from lobby-infested Congress. At the same time (for those businesses that would profit), it's business oriented and would create business savings and profits. BTW, before I forget to mention it: No wonder the Pentagon is concerned about oil usage: every tank that proceeds at 1/2 mpg is followed by two fuel trucks. Enemy artillary units have quickly learned to target those trucks first. I don't share Lovins's optimism about voluntary Congressional, political, corporate, or personal compliance with this plan. I have noticed, however, that every time gas prices go up, fewer people buy SUV's and more hybrid vehicles are sold. I believe most of his technologies will occur as societies become convinced that we really are ruining the atmosphere - and especially when they find oil really is running out and is pricing itself out of reach. They will then be forced into making do with less oil - and eventually doing without it altogether. Meanwhile, PV solar panels are way too inefficient, I don't see wind power taking off, biofuels are inefficient to produce (and their production uses energy), and I wouldn't discount prematurely the need for many more nuclear plants. Very much worth reading - you can read it on the internet as I did - downloaded from RMI homepage.

This study was co-funded by the Pentagon -- a plan for reducing U.S. oil use by 50% by 2025, and ending foreign oil dependency. Amory Lovins has been pursuing energy efficiency and renewable energy since the 1970s, when he wrote the influential SOFT ENERGY PATHS. That initiative was thrown off-track by the drop in oil prices in the 1980s. Now Lovins is back in demand in the post-9/11 world with the global Hubbert's Peak for oil upon us. This is not a radical strategy. It is market-based, and is all based on existing technology. According to Lovins and his co-authors, "...it will cost less to displace all of the oil that the United States now uses than it will cost to buy that oil. Oil's current market price leaves out its true costs to the economy, national security, and the environment. But even without including those now "externalized" costs, it would still be profitable to displace oil competely over the next few decades. In fact, by 2025, the annual economic benefit of that displacement would be $130 billion gross (or $70 billion net of the displacement's costs)." WINNING THE OIL ENDGAME involves 4 shifts -- 1) doubling the efficiency of using oil, through measures such as ultralight vehicle design, 2) applying creative business models and public policies to speed the profitable adoption of superefficient light vehicles, heavy trucks and airplanes, 3) embarking on the crash development of biofuels, cellulosic ethanol in particular, and 4) applying efficiency measures to save 50% of the projected 2025 use of natural gas. Lovins goes on to elaborate necessary policies, such as feebates as incentives for consumers, government acquisition plans, federal loan guarantees, and so forth. He notes that while eminently practical and market-based, the plan will not benefit all companies. He points to the examples of Shell and BP, oil companies that are in the process of tranforming themselves into energy companies, as models for success in this energy transition. (see www.oilendgame.com for more) I admit that I am not by nature optimistic about the human condition, but Amory Lovins is, and he always makes me feel more confident about the future. Despair and fatalism produce nothing of value, so each and every one of us should join Amory Lovins and the Pentagon and fight for an end to foreign oil dependency, and fight for renewable energy! That will certainly mean fighting the Bush/Cheney Oil Administration -- let's roll!