Holy crap. @ ~ 15:00 when Amory describes instructing the plumbers to simply “lay out the pipes as if they were drains…” is mind blowing out a simple tweak can totally reverse a limbic system’s scotoma. So cool.
Excellent episode! Wish some of these went a bit longer - suspect you would have come to a satisfying point on the nuclear debate and it would be great to hear you both get into the topics mentioned at the end.
Another great episode, I vividly remember hearing Amory Lovins speak in London 20 years ago - he was and still is inspirational and a great advocate of energy efficiency and systems thinking. It is hard to argue with him on the physics and design principles but it is good to see Michael robustly challenge some ideas from an economic perspective. I feel there are limits to "how low you go" and some of the European examples are a long way from being viable and scaling partly due to this.
Didn’t he invent the expression Negawatts? Which I thought was brilliant. Still do. Unfortunately nobody pays any individual for Negawatts, then and now. But you get a nice warm feeling.
A very long time ago, heating systems were designed on the thermosyphon principle. I suspect that is what Amory was referring to. Of course, the Romans were excellent at aqueducts, then pressure piping came along.
There was a reference in the video to an EdX course by Mr Lovins, can you share more info on that? I cannot rally find it anywhere…maybe still a future project of his?
If only Amory Lovins talked about the actual costs of things and their performance rather than ignoring things he doesn't like. It's great if you can live in a $1.5M house. I'm sure he saves money and that it is efficient. But the grid electricity needs to be available ALL of the time. He was really ducking the questions Michael was putting to him.
@@piajensen3049 Amory Lovins talked about the comparison of nuclear constructed vs. renewable energy constructed over a period of time and mentioned the difference in capacity factor between them as if that accounts for the real difference. It doesn't. Firm energy production that is available ALL of the time is FAR more valuable than a peak value that can be extracted from a renewable source. Dr. Lovins really knows this, but he's not talking about it. He also isn't talking about common mode effects of renewables like no sun at night or loss of wind over a large area for ALL similar production devices. That doesn't happen with nuclear plants unless intentionally shut down by fiat. These are apples and oranges comparisons between energy sources. Regarding energy efficiency, it takes material and manufacturing expense to improve efficiency which costs money. It might be money well spent, but not every house in the US could duplicate this, nor in every geographical area.
@@jlindcary Let's count all the times that nuclear energy has been knocked out by extreme weather events. Or, the massively overdue and over budget NPPs globally that may never actually deliver even one kWh. Your claim that nuclear is available "ALL of the time" is disingenuous.
@@piajensen3049 Not disingenuous at all. Nuclear plants have rarely been "knocked out" by weather, although they have been frequently shut down as a precaution just like fossil plants and renewables. There was a frozen sensing line in TX last Feb that kept a plant down for a short time. That was fixed so it doesn't happen again. Nuclear plants in the USA are kept running virtually all of the time because the fuel is cheap relative to the capital cost. No renewable runs more than about 25% as they are intermittent (not firm) generators.
It’s nice to see Mr. Lovins calling out bullshit so matter of factly. He’s always been a little too gracious. He’s bringing down the hammer on bullshit FUD. Bring it Amory.
Full agreement on existence of perverse incentives against mindful design. In discussing the raison d'être of nuclear, Lovins has some very good pushbacks and also mentions the existence of dispatchable renewables as alternatives, such as Hydro +pumped storage (at what lifecycle carbon intensity), and burning industrial and argi waste (how many GW installed? ). Renewables might be much cheaper than nuclear, but we still need rotational inertia and grid forming inverters or virtual inertia from wind farms are not there yet, and that's why we have ancillary markets? Also what about heat; Not every modelled kWh in E3 models is of the same qualia. Do Heat Pumps for domestic/Commercial and Hydrogen/Ammonia for Industry cut it?
I would love to see very much more time allocated to talking about energy storage infrastructure. How feasible is large scale storage? What are the options? Is not energy storage a requirement if we're going to rely on wind and solar? Point is they cannot be relied on so energy storage is needed, is that not right?
@@garethyoung6067 I would have been talking about electricity storage here I'd say. I am curious about thermal storage as well. I know that sand is being used for this in some prototypes. There's also the approaches that Amory Lovins uses in his own house. If i remember correctly he uses excellent insulation combined with intelligently placed windows and walls to get passive heating from sunlight. The only examples of large scale energy storage that i know of are hydro electric dams which are a form of gravity battery, and then systems of interlinked Tesla megapacks that Tesla installed in recent years. Solar and wind are almost useless, and sometimes even damaging (having to do with problems that arise from turning on and off traditional power sources), if there aren't energy storage systems installed together with them. Civlization depends on reliable on demand power. Wind and solar cannot do this on their own and so the traditional power plants must keep online to provide power when needed. Obviously the whole reason for solar and wind is to be able to turn off some of the tradional power sources and that cannot be done without have energy storage infrastructure in place. By the way i recommend people read Gregory Wrightstone's little book Inconvenient Facts. Don't let the preface stop you from availing yourself of the climatic / atmospheric history of the globe we're living on.
@@carlwatts1230 There are various good engineers who can design thermal storage, in conjunction with district thermal energy systems. Mainly in Denmark, I believe.
They can forecast and bid in the predicted wind power, but they can't make it blow. Our current grid has to sustain the worse case scenarios, where the wind doesn't blow and the power is needed (deep winter, peak summer). The plants that exist to sustain the grid through these times are given no financial value. "Hardly ever" still happens. You would lessen the problem if you overbuilt the solar and wind and over built the high voltage long distance transmission interconnections, but you will still need some guaranteed power source available at some level. Storage remains far too expensive. (Or we would need to build our dwellings, factories, hospitals, with the ability to function on intermittent power.)
The neo nuclear crowd seems desperate on one level: to be controversially relevant and an outside intellectual crowd denied their relevancy. But here’s the thing. I don’t’ need to argue with them. Why? Because their arguments will all be rendered mute in just a handeful of years of their own mediocre (at best) business case. IOWs, I already won this debate.
YOU WANT THE TRUTH ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGIES SUPPOSED RESURGENCE? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH… More importantly on one level is the fact the the rich, high-tech elites support it not for its “energy,” but its “power.” This minute group LOATHES decentralization - thought they talk a good game. But the LAST thing they want decentralized is their money, their political influence, energy, labor or speech.
Holy crap. @ ~ 15:00 when Amory describes instructing the plumbers to simply “lay out the pipes as if they were drains…” is mind blowing out a simple tweak can totally reverse a limbic system’s scotoma. So cool.
Lovins: "According to an outfit known as Bloomberg New Energy Finance"...damn, well played!😆
great convo. Lovins is a legend
Yes. His stupidity is legend.
Excellent episode! Wish some of these went a bit longer - suspect you would have come to a satisfying point on the nuclear debate and it would be great to hear you both get into the topics mentioned at the end.
Literally taking 50 years for the world to finally catch up to his important ideas!
Thanks Michael. It's not clear to me why this guy hasn't won the Nobel Prize - yet.
Nobel Prize for what?
Another great episode, I vividly remember hearing Amory Lovins speak in London 20 years ago - he was and still is inspirational and a great advocate of energy efficiency and systems thinking. It is hard to argue with him on the physics and design principles but it is good to see Michael robustly challenge some ideas from an economic perspective. I feel there are limits to "how low you go" and some of the European examples are a long way from being viable and scaling partly due to this.
Didn’t he invent the expression Negawatts? Which I thought was brilliant. Still do. Unfortunately nobody pays any individual for Negawatts, then and now. But you get a nice warm feeling.
"Bend mind not pipes", "Shorter, Fatter, Straighter" Integrated design. Particularly enjoyed Amory skewering Michael with data from NEF.
A very long time ago, heating systems were designed on the thermosyphon principle. I suspect that is what Amory was referring to.
Of course, the Romans were excellent at aqueducts, then pressure piping came along.
There was a reference in the video to an EdX course by Mr Lovins, can you share more info on that? I cannot rally find it anywhere…maybe still a future project of his?
“But he would deserve it.” Bam! Drop the mic!
Does RMI do any work with ALSET Homes? Would be so cool, no doubt.
Nice video contuning wach
“Never impose today upon tomorrow - it never works.… Never! “- GM
If only the US Dept. of Energy were paying attention to Amory instead of continuing to subsidize so much nuclear.
If only Amory Lovins talked about the actual costs of things and their performance rather than ignoring things he doesn't like. It's great if you can live in a $1.5M house. I'm sure he saves money and that it is efficient. But the grid electricity needs to be available ALL of the time. He was really ducking the questions Michael was putting to him.
@@jlindcary I see. So - what data do you have?
@@piajensen3049 Amory Lovins talked about the comparison of nuclear constructed vs. renewable energy constructed over a period of time and mentioned the difference in capacity factor between them as if that accounts for the real difference. It doesn't. Firm energy production that is available ALL of the time is FAR more valuable than a peak value that can be extracted from a renewable source. Dr. Lovins really knows this, but he's not talking about it. He also isn't talking about common mode effects of renewables like no sun at night or loss of wind over a large area for ALL similar production devices. That doesn't happen with nuclear plants unless intentionally shut down by fiat. These are apples and oranges comparisons between energy sources. Regarding energy efficiency, it takes material and manufacturing expense to improve efficiency which costs money. It might be money well spent, but not every house in the US could duplicate this, nor in every geographical area.
@@jlindcary Let's count all the times that nuclear energy has been knocked out by extreme weather events. Or, the massively overdue and over budget NPPs globally that may never actually deliver even one kWh. Your claim that nuclear is available "ALL of the time" is disingenuous.
@@piajensen3049 Not disingenuous at all. Nuclear plants have rarely been "knocked out" by weather, although they have been frequently shut down as a precaution just like fossil plants and renewables. There was a frozen sensing line in TX last Feb that kept a plant down for a short time. That was fixed so it doesn't happen again. Nuclear plants in the USA are kept running virtually all of the time because the fuel is cheap relative to the capital cost. No renewable runs more than about 25% as they are intermittent (not firm) generators.
It’s nice to see Mr. Lovins calling out bullshit so matter of factly. He’s always been a little too gracious. He’s bringing down the hammer on bullshit FUD. Bring it Amory.
Producing carbon fiber emits about 80 kg CO2-eq./kg.
All good, i do wonder how the huge quantity of 'waste' (product) being generated by the renewables industry is being dealt with.
Look at the TH-cam video” secret green house of survival “
Full agreement on existence of perverse incentives against mindful design. In discussing the raison d'être of nuclear, Lovins has some very good pushbacks and also mentions the existence of dispatchable renewables as alternatives, such as Hydro +pumped storage (at what lifecycle carbon intensity), and burning industrial and argi waste (how many GW installed? ). Renewables might be much cheaper than nuclear, but we still need rotational inertia and grid forming inverters or virtual inertia from wind farms are not there yet, and that's why we have ancillary markets? Also what about heat; Not every modelled kWh in E3 models is of the same qualia. Do Heat Pumps for domestic/Commercial and Hydrogen/Ammonia for Industry cut it?
I would love to see very much more time allocated to talking about energy storage infrastructure. How feasible is large scale storage? What are the options? Is not energy storage a requirement if we're going to rely on wind and solar? Point is they cannot be relied on so energy storage is needed, is that not right?
Storage is a last resort. Other sources of flexibility are cheaper.
Are you talking about thermal or electricity?
@@garethyoung6067 I would have been talking about electricity storage here I'd say.
I am curious about thermal storage as well. I know that sand is being used for this in some prototypes. There's also the approaches that Amory Lovins uses in his own house. If i remember correctly he uses excellent insulation combined with intelligently placed windows and walls to get passive heating from sunlight.
The only examples of large scale energy storage that i know of are hydro electric dams which are a form of gravity battery, and then systems of interlinked Tesla megapacks that Tesla installed in recent years.
Solar and wind are almost useless, and sometimes even damaging (having to do with problems that arise from turning on and off traditional power sources), if there aren't energy storage systems installed together with them.
Civlization depends on reliable on demand power. Wind and solar cannot do this on their own and so the traditional power plants must keep online to provide power when needed.
Obviously the whole reason for solar and wind is to be able to turn off some of the tradional power sources and that cannot be done without have energy storage infrastructure in place.
By the way i recommend people read Gregory Wrightstone's little book Inconvenient Facts. Don't let the preface stop you from availing yourself of the climatic / atmospheric history of the globe we're living on.
@@carlwatts1230 There are various good engineers who can design thermal storage, in conjunction with district thermal energy systems. Mainly in Denmark, I believe.
The generally arrogant founder of BNEF, yet no longer with them, gets schooled by "The Einstein of Energy" and discovers a new data planet.
They can forecast and bid in the predicted wind power, but they can't make it blow. Our current grid has to sustain the worse case scenarios, where the wind doesn't blow and the power is needed (deep winter, peak summer). The plants that exist to sustain the grid through these times are given no financial value. "Hardly ever" still happens. You would lessen the problem if you overbuilt the solar and wind and over built the high voltage long distance transmission interconnections, but you will still need some guaranteed power source available at some level. Storage remains far too expensive. (Or we would need to build our dwellings, factories, hospitals, with the ability to function on intermittent power.)
The neo nuclear crowd seems desperate on one level: to be controversially relevant and an outside intellectual crowd denied their relevancy. But here’s the thing. I don’t’ need to argue with them. Why? Because their arguments will all be rendered mute in just a handeful of years of their own mediocre (at best) business case. IOWs, I already won this debate.
YOU WANT THE TRUTH ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGIES SUPPOSED RESURGENCE? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH…
More importantly on one level is the fact the the rich, high-tech elites support it not for its “energy,” but its “power.” This minute group LOATHES decentralization - thought they talk a good game. But the LAST thing they want decentralized is their money, their political influence, energy, labor or speech.
This guy’s middle name is “assumption.”
Literally taking 50 years for the world to finally catch up to his important ideas!