Amory Lovins' soft path put 115 billion tons of CO2 into the sky
The road we were told not to take
Wendle Whiting marks the 50th anniversary of Amory Lovins' 1976 Foreign Affairs essay that steered America away from nuclear power. He argues the soft path cost the U.S. 65 billion tons of CO2 and the world 115 billion tons, nearly the entire remaining 1.5-degree carbon budget. France ignored the advice, built 56 reactors in 15 years, and now emits 40 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. Whiting asks Lovins for an apology to the earth.
The road Lovins told us to take put the equivalent of 89% of that into the sky.