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RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) is an organization in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
co-founded by Amory Lovins dedicated to research, publication, consulting, and lecturing in the field of
sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...
, with a focus on profitable innovations for energy and resource efficiency. RMI was established in 1982 and has grown into a broad-based institution with 550+ staff and an annual budget of $120+ million. RMI's work is independent and non-adversarial, with an emphasis on market-based solutions. The institute, which includes the Carbon War Room (which merged with RMI in December 2014), operates many global programs. RMI is headquartered in
Basalt, Colorado The Town of Basalt is a home rule municipality located in Eagle and Pitkin counties, Colorado, United States. The town population was 3,984 at the 2020 United States Census with 2,917 residing in Eagle County and 1,067 residing in Pitkin County ...
, and also maintains offices in
Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
, New York City, Washington D.C., Oakland, California and Beijing, China.


History

By 1978, experimental physicist Amory Lovins had published many books, consulted widely, and was active in energy affairs in some fifteen countries as a synthesist and lobbyist. Lovins is the leading proponent of the
soft energy path In 1976, energy policy analyst Amory Lovins coined the term soft energy path to describe an alternative future where energy efficiency and appropriate renewable energy sources steadily replace a centralized energy system based on fossil and nuclea ...
. Later in 1979, Lovins married L. Hunter Sheldon, a lawyer, forester, and social scientist. Hunter received her undergraduate degree in
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
and
political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studie ...
studies from
Pitzer College Pitzer College is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. One of the Claremont Colleges, the college has a curricular emphasis on the social sciences, behavioral sciences, international programs, and media studies. Pitzer is k ...
, and her J.D. from Loyola Marymount's
School of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...
. In 1982, Amory and Hunter founded Rocky Mountain Institute, based in Colorado. Together with a group of colleagues, the Lovinses fostered efficient resource use and policy development that they believed would promote global security. RMI ultimately grew into an organization with a staff of around fifty. By the mid-1980s, the Lovinses were featured on major network TV programs, such as ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique sty ...
''. At RMI's headquarters the south-facing building complex is so energy-efficient that, even with local -40 °F (-40 °C) winter temperatures, the building interiors can maintain a comfortable temperature solely from the sunlight admitted plus the body heat of the people who work there. The environment can actually nurture semi-tropical and tropical indoor plants. The Lovins described the "hard energy path" as involving inefficient liquid-fuel automotive transport, as well as giant centralized electricity-generating facilities, often burning
fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...
s such as
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead ...
or
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...
, or harnessing a
fission reaction Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioac ...
, greatly complicated by electricity wastage and loss. The "soft energy path" which they wholly preferred involves efficient use of energy, diversity of energy production methods (and matched in scale and quality to end uses), and special reliance on "soft technologies" (alternative technology) such as solar,
wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...
,
biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA ...
s, and geothermal. According to the institute, large-scale electricity production facilities had an important place, but it was a place that they were already filling in the middle 1970s; in general, more would not be needed. In a 1989 speech, Amory Lovins introduced the related concept of
Negawatt power A negawatt market is a proposed idea of implementation of the demand response ( balancing the electrical grid through the changes in consumption) that uses an energy market where the commodity traded is a ''negawatt-hour'', a unit of energy save ...
, in which creating a market for trading increased efficiency could supply additional electrical energy to consumers without increasing generation capacity—such as building more power plants. In recent years, RMI has convened a team of designers and engineers to develop a super-efficient prototype automobile, which they've dubbed the Hypercar. In December 2014, RMI merged with Carbon War Room, an organization with similar goals but a different approach. In June 2017, RMI merged with WattTime, an organization providing real-time power plant data to consumer devices for automatic dispatchable power consumption.


Programs

RMI operates programs in many countries: * Carbon-Free Electricity * Carbon-Free Buildings * Carbon-Free Mobility * Climate-Aligned Industries * Breakthrough Technologies * Climate Intelligence * Urban Transformation * Strategic Analysis & Engagement * Global South * China Program * India Program * US Program.


Electric vehicles

In January 2008, led by John E. Waters, Bright Automotive launched from RMI with the goal of building on the work of a consortium of organizations, including
Alcoa Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...
,
Google.org Google.org, founded in October 2005, is the charitable arm of Google, a multinational technology company. The organization has committed roughly US$100 million in investments and grants to nonprofits annually. The organization is noted for sev ...
,
Johnson Controls Johnson Controls International is an American Irish-domiciled multinational conglomerate headquartered in Cork, Ireland, that produces fire, HVAC, and security equipment for buildings. As of mid-2019, it employed 105,000 people in around 2, ...
and the Turner Foundation. Bright Automotive sought with its Bright IDEA project to develop a brand new,
plug-in hybrid A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engin ...
electric (PHEV)
fleet vehicle Fleet vehicles are groups of motor vehicles owned or leased by a business, government agency, or other organization rather than by an individual or family. Typical examples include vehicles operated by car rental companies, taxicab companies, ...
. It launched Bright eSolutions to consult on engineering, design,
powertrain A drivetrain (also frequently spelled as drive train or sometimes drive-train) is the group of components that deliver mechanical power from the prime mover to the driven components. In automotive engineering, the drivetrain is the components o ...
, battery technology and plug-in hybrid conversion technology services. Bright Automotive secured a conversion contract with the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (
TACOM The United States Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM), and its subordinate Life Cycle Management Command (LCMC),
) to convert military non-combat vehicles into a parallel
PHEV A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engine ...
for evaluation, including V2G testing. The venture failed. Advanced Energy, in partnership with RMI, announced a Request for Information (RFI) for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) specific to charging stations for
plug-in electric vehicle A plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) is any road vehicle that can utilize an external source of electricity (such as a wall socket that connects to the power grid) to store electrical power within its onboard rechargeable battery packs, which then ...
s (EV).


Books

Books published by RMI include: *''
Winning the Oil Endgame ''Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs and Security'' is a 2005 book by Amory B. Lovins, E. Kyle Datta, Odd-Even Bustnes, Jonathan G. Koomey, and Nathan J. Glasgow, published by the Rocky Mountain Institute. It presents an indep ...
: Innovation for Profit, Jobs and Security'' (2005)
Available Online in PDF
*'' Small is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size'' (2003) *''
Natural Capitalism ''Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution'' is a 1999 book on environmental economics co-authored by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins. It has been translated into a dozen languages and was the subject of a Harvard B ...
: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution'' (2000) *'' Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era'' (2011) .


Recognition

Co-founder Amory Lovins received many awards.


See also

*
Association négaWatt Association négaWatt is a French advocacy group based in Valence, Drôme. It was founded in 2001 to promote the negawatt concept and its application to French society. The association seeks to reduce the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Its ...
* E. Kyle Datta *
Negawatt power A negawatt market is a proposed idea of implementation of the demand response ( balancing the electrical grid through the changes in consumption) that uses an energy market where the commodity traded is a ''negawatt-hour'', a unit of energy save ...
*
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engine ...
*
Soft energy path In 1976, energy policy analyst Amory Lovins coined the term soft energy path to describe an alternative future where energy efficiency and appropriate renewable energy sources steadily replace a centralized energy system based on fossil and nuclea ...
*
Soft energy technology Soft energy technologies may be seen as ''appropriate'' renewable technologies.The soft energy pa ...
*
Transition town The terms transition town, transition initiative and transition model refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instabilitythrough r ...


References


External links


RMIYouTube channel
{{Authority control Climate change organizations based in the United States Energy policy Sustainability organizations Renewable energy organizations based in the United States Environmental organizations based in Colorado