Events at Reed

The world’s mightiest industries—oil and electricity—now face grave and potentially fatal disruption from many directions. Advanced energy efficiency and renewable supplies are taking over the world market so quickly that even more fossil fuel is becoming unsellable for competitive reasons than will be unburnable for climate reasons. The pace of this transformation is set not by incumbents but by agile and uninhibited insurgents who leave the old industries no place to hide. For incumbents to survive and thrive in the new energy world will take fundamental and uncomfortable change. This epochal shift and its relocation of capital have already begun and will only accelerate.

Physicist Amory B. Lovins—ex-Oxford don, honorary U.S. architect, Swedish engineering academician—has written 530 papers and 31 books, taught at ten universities, redesigned numerous buildings, vehicles, and factories, and advised industry and governments for 40+ years in 60+ countries. A U.S. National Petroleum Council member, he advises the Chief of Naval Operations. He received the “Alternative Nobel,” Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 12 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, National Design, and World Technology Awards. Time named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people; Foreign Policy, one of 100 top global thinkers.

Sponsored by the environmental studies program.