Oil suppliers have more unsellable than unburnable oil: they are more at risk from competition than from climate regulation. Electricity suppliers too, face a swarm of disruptors that will transform their business beyond recognition. As these two vast industries merge and as insurgents in both challenge incumbents, almost everything we thought we knew about energy is ripe for rapid and profound change. In this lecture, physicist and innovator Amory Lovins considers the changing face of the energy market.

About the speaker

Physicist Amory Lovins, FRSA, MA Oxon. (Spec. Resoln.), is co-founder, Chief Scientist, and Chairman Emeritus of Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org), an independent not-for-profit think-and-do tank; advisor to major firms and governments worldwide on advanced energy efficiency for over four decades in 65+ countries; author of 31 books and over 600 papers; and recipient of the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 12 honourary doctorates, the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood, National Design, and World Technology Awards, and Germany’s highest civilian honour.

After two years at Harvard, he came up to Magdalen in 1967 as an Advanced Student, migrated to Merton in 1969 as a Junior Research Fellow, and resigned in 1971 to work independently on energy, which (two years before the first oil shock) was not yet considered an academic subject. An honourary US architect and Swedish engineering academician, he has taught at ten universities, most recently at Stanford’s School of Engineering and the US Naval Postgraduate School. In 2009, Time named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.