CHINA CAN LEAD THE WORLD ON A SOFT PATH

By David B. Sutton, Ph.D.

 

Three decades ago the brilliant physicist, Amory Lovins, argued that the United States should disengage from the vulnerable and highly wasteful dependence on fossil fuels and develop a plan to increase the efficiency of energy use and the use of renewable energy resources. (1) He further maintained that it should take a “soft path” in its implementation.  For a moment during the President Jimmy Carter years, it appeared that it just might happen.  At that time I worked for the U.S. Department of Energy.  That was the first and last time the US Government had a National Energy Plan that emphasized increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy resources.

 

But, it was short-lived.  Corporate oil interests, supported by subsequent administrations, had their way and put the country back on the path of “exuberant exhaustion,” fueling one war, and one boom and bust cycle after another.  We now are all too aware of the global implications of the path taken.

 

In his classic, Soft Energy Paths (Cambridge, Ballinger,1977),  Lovins very precisely characterized two fundamentally different ways, or "paths," to supply our energy needs.  The "hard path" involves large scale, highly technological approaches that rely on centralized electrical production.  This strategy implies large capital investments in plants and distribution networks, increasingly costly technologies to locate, extract, transport, and convert the raw fuels, and a centralized bureaucracy of managers and technicians to organize and maintain the system.  In contrast, the "soft path" involves small scale, widely dispersed, elegantly simple approaches that rely on a mix of different local sources of energy tailored to specific needs.

 

The distinction between hard and soft energy paths rests not on what energy source it uses but on the technical, socio-political structure of the energy delivery system thus focusing our attention on consequent and crucial political differences.  Soft energy systems are characterized by:  (a) a reliance on renewable flows that are always there whether we use them or not (e.g. sun and wind, and vegetation) -- on energy income not on depletable energy capital; (b) the use of diverse energy sources – supply is seen as an aggregate of many modest contributions, each designed for maximum effectiveness in particular circumstances; (c) flexible, low-tech (not unsophisticated) applications; (d) the matching in scale to end-use needs, taking advantage of free distribution of local energy flows; and, (e) the matching in quality to end-use needs.  Each of these aspects deserves an article of its own and Lovins fully details them all in his book on Soft Energy Paths and many subsequent writings. (2)

 

Over thirty years later, it is clear that the United States is still not ready to take a road to sustainability and independence.

 

Now that China leads the World in both energy use and its impact, it is also at crossroads.   How will it meet its growing demands for energy while reducing the impact of its use?

 

While it is very encouraging that its government is wisely advocating and issuing policies to encourage and mandate gains in energy efficiency and renewable energy use, it remains to be seen how it will implement this vision.   I want to suggest, like Lovins three decades ago, that it take a “soft path” towards meeting its energy needs.  This is not a matter of “freezing in the dark” as President Carter’s detractors once claimed.  It is simply applying all our ingenuity to wring out the most one can by the most efficient and cost effective, environmentally benign means.

There is ample historical precedent in this amazing country’s ingenuity and creative use of local resources.  One only needs to consider community biogas production, the use of wind and water power, and solar ovens and hot water heaters.

 

Unfortunately many of China’s initial projects involving renewable energy resources are not encouraging.   Large mega-damns (e.g. Three Gorges Damn), nuclear power plants, wind farms in Mongolia and solar farms in Inner Mongolia are all hard path applications with all the concomitant vulnerabilities, inefficiencies, diseconomies of scale and the like.  The simple fact is the all the potential end users served by these projects could have been better served more cost-effectively and efficiently -- with a mix of “soft path” options having less waste, environmental impact and concentration of wealth, control and power. It is assuredly certain that the ultimate social, environmental and economic costs will far out weigh the benefit of these “hard path’ applications.

 

For the money spent on these mega-projects thousands, if not tens of thousands, of community energy programs (small scale solar, wind, hydro, biogas, industrial process heat/co-generation… etc.) could have been developed using local resources employing thousands of local residents generating income and building local economies meeting the specific determined needs of each community.   At the community level first steps can also be better addressed, steps like reducing the need for delivered energy in the first place by “plugging the leaks,” using technical fixes and simple design solutions such as sealing drafts, thermal insulation measures, increasing the efficiency of appliances used, heat recovery and co-generation of electricity – all being produced at site of use and under local control.

 

“Scientific Development” does not necessarily imply hard path technologies and delivery.  The most sophisticated and elegant science, technology and engineering often include the simplest design techniques and low-tech applications.   The goal should be the elegant simplicity of applying the most appropriate, efficient, cost (economic, environmental and social) effective means to meet the specific desired ends – this is the soft path.

It is my view that an enlightened leadership of the Communist Party, that has the goal of meeting the needs of all its people, is more likely to see the advantages of the soft path and take it than any state of Corporate Capitalism.   I look forward to seeing China lead the world down this road less traveled.

David Sutton is an international consultant living in Shanghai for the past seven years.

After a long academic and research career in the United States he relocated to China

where he believes, “real adaptive change accommodating humanity to the Earth’s essential life-support systems is possible.”

Reference Notes:

(1) These ideas of Amory Lovins first appeared in his article called,  “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken” published in the journal of Foreign Affairs (Fall, 1976).   Later he expanded his analysis in the book, Soft Energy Paths (Cambridge, Ballinger,1977).  More recently he co-authored,  Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Little Brown, 1999). A prolific writer, he continues his cutting edge analyses at the Rocky Mountain Institute.  (www.rmi.org)

 (2) Note to the Editor:  I would be happy to prepare a series of articles detailing each of these aspects of the soft path, reviewing the rarely acknowledged costs and vulnerabilities of the hard path and fully articulating what I see as the amazing opportunities available to China to lead the world in doing exactly what needs to be done.