[Env seminars] TODAY-Advanced Design Integration for Radical Energy Efficiency, A. Lovins

[Karen Gibson]

"Advanced Design Integration for Radical Energy Efficiency"
  Amory Lovins, Founder and CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute

February 27, 2006
12:30 PM
E40-496, LFEE Conference Room         

Abstract:
Traditional design optimizes components for single benefits and yields 
diminishing returns to investments in energy and resource efficiency. 
In contrast, optimizing whole systems for multiple benefits often 
yields large (even order-of-magnitude) savings at lower capital cost, 
hence with expanding returns. Practical examples from buildings, 
industrial processes, and vehicles suggest the need for basic reform of 
engineering pedagogy and practice -- and a remarkable opportunity for 
profitably solving many of the world's most pressing problems of 
environment, development, and security.

Bio:
Amory Lovins co-founded and leads the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), 
an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, 
nonpartisan applied research center that creates abundance by design. 
Much of its pathfinding work on advanced resource productivity 
(typically with expanding returns to investment) and innovative 
business strategies is synthesized in Natural Capitalism. RMI has 
served more than 80 Fortune 500 firms, lately redesigning upwards of 
$20 billion worth of facilities spanning 22 sectors.  RMI spun off E 
Source in 1992 and Fiberforge, Inc., a composites engineering firm, in 
1999.  His 28th book, Small is Profitable, an Economist book of the 
year, was published in 2002, and his Pentagon-cosponsored 29th book, 
Winning the Oil Endgame, in 2004.

Amory Lovins has been named a MacArthur Fellow and has been recognized 
by the "Alternative Nobel," Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell 
Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, nine honorary 
doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Time Hero for the Planet, and 
World Technology Awards. He has advised the U.S. Departments of Energy 
and of Defense and industries and governments in more than fifty 
countries.

This seminar is sponsored by the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the 
Environment

Karen  L. Gibson
Program Assistant
MIT Laboratory For Energy and the Environment
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-469
(1 Amherst St., E40-469 - for DHL and FedEx)
Cambridge, MA 02139  USA
Tel:  1 (617) 258-6368; Fax:  1 (617) 258-6590
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 2398 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/environmental-seminars/attachments/20060227/c323c3b4/attachment.bin