Book reviews

abundantly clear that abandoning nuclear power - or equably accepting its demise in the market - will not by itself stop nuclear proliferation or bring peace. Rather, if we simultaneously shift nuclear programmes' public resources and political commitment to soft energy paths at home, encourage them abroad, and link these efforts with our work for strategic arms reduction, the combined package offers an excellent technical and political chance of stopping proliferation and of reducing the broader basis for conflict.

The past two years have seen a curious role reversal. People like me, who sought consideration of soft-path ingredients in case there were options there worthy of serious effort, now find ourselves on the cutting edge of policy, whereas prophets of nuclear salvation now find themselves pleading for heroic measures to keep their ailing option alive on the offchance that someone might need it someday. Dr Weinberg skilfully diverts attention from the conditions that led Jack O'Leary to remark on 28 November 1977 that 'the nuclear option has essentially disappeared' in the USA - and, arguably, elsewhere. But if nuclear power is indeed dead at the margin, 7 it is high time we concentrated on what we should have been doing instead. I look forward to recycling Dr Weinberg into that exciting task.

Amory B. Lovins Friends of the Earth San Francisco, USA

1Amory B. Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace, Ballinger, Cambridge, Mass, 1977, and Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1977, pp 141-114. 2 Ibid, p 143. Zlbid, pp 138-140. "lbid, pp 137-138. 5 A.B. Lovins, 'Cost - r isk-benef i t assessments in energy policy', Geo Wash L R ev, V o14 5, August 1977, pp 911-943. B C.F. Zimmerman and R.O. Pohl, 'The potential contribution of nuclear energy to US energy requirements', Energy, Vol 2, 1977, pp 465-71. As Burke and Lovins

note (see Ref 7 below) 1977 data continue the trend. 7T. Burke and A.B. Lovins, open letter to Prime Minister Callaghan, FOE Ltd, 9 Poland St, London W l V 3DG, 21 December 1977. See also A.B. Lovins, testimony to Hearings on the Costs of Nuclear Power, Subcommittee on Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources, Committee on Government Operat ions, US House of Representat ives, Washington, 21 September 1977. 8 See Lovins, op cit, Ref 1, pp 70, 114, 135-136. 9S. Blegaa et al, 'Alternative Danish energy planning', Energy Policy, Vol 5, No 2, June 1977, pp 87-94. lo A.B. Lovins, 'Soft Energy Technologies', AnnRevEn, Vol 3, in press, 1978. 11 This can be seen from analysis of the costs in B.A. Greene, Residential Solar Hot-Water Heating and Space Conditioning Systems in Northern California: A Brief Survey, LBL-5229, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, August 1976. Bruce Anderson (Total Environmental Action, Harrisville, NH)

routinely and profitably builder-installs active air and water systems at $108- 129/m 2 (personal communication, 22 December 1977). Many other existence proofs are available. 12 US Office of Technology Assessment, Application of Solar Technology to Today's Energy Needs, 1977. 13 J.D. 8alcomb et al, Research on Integrated Solar Collector Roof Structures, LA-UR-75-1335, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1975. 14 K.G.T. Hollands and J.F. Orgill, Potential for Solar Heating in Canada, 77- 01, report to National Research Council of Canada, University of Waterloo Research Institute, February 1977. 15 Lovins, op cit, Ref 1, pp 67, 110-112, 128-130, 135-136. le All 30-odd critiques published to November 1977 are collected, with full responses and supplementary material, in US Senate, Small Business and Interior Committees, Alternative Long-Range Energy Strategies, 2 vols, US Government Printing Office, May and December 1977. 1~ Lovins, opcit, Ref 1, pp 71-72.

Alvin M. Weinberg replies:

I am delighted to learn, directly from Amory Lovins himself, that he concedes a place for centralized generation of electricity in his soft Utopia. Having made this concession, the differences between him and me come down to matters of degree - how much hard, centralized electricity is appropriate in an ultimate energy system. Amory Lovins implies that he now knows the proper ultimate mix. I urge caution, even humility, on this. For example, should a successful electric car be developed, the mix will be quite different than if transport always depends on fluid energy vectors.

I cannot take seriously Mr Lovins' flippant rejection of the MITRE study. This was an honest, responsible effort that dotted 'i 's and crossed 't 's. Mr Lovins' claim that solar heating systems are available at $100/m 2 in 'relatively mature solar markets in California' simply does not agree with what I have been able to discover after spending a

month in San Diego trying to locate cheap solar systems. In particular, I find no evidence that the Calmac 'Sunmat ' will last long enough before requiring extensive replacement to confirm his estimate of $71-80/m 2.

I agree with Amory Lovins - let the marketplace decide. If nuclear is dead, there is no need for him (and Friends of the Earth) to use the cost estimates that spring from their hopes as much as from the marketplace, let alone adroit appeals to politics, to twice kill the nuclear cat. But if his intent is to achieve the best mixture of hard and soft, centralized and decentralized, solar and non-solar, and if he is willing to concede some role for nuclear energy in the future, then rather than recycling myself into an elderly solar utopian, I invite Amory Lovins to join with me in

helping devise an acceptable nuclear future.

Alvin M. Weinberg Institute for Energy Analysis

Oak Ridge Associated Universities Tennessee, USA

Amory Lovins adds as a final postscript:

That some centralized electricity generat ion is and will remain appropriate has never been in dispute and is hardly a 'concession'. That this implies a need to build more big power

stations, however, is absurd in view of the manifest saturation of present or even asymptotic electrical needs in all the industrialized countries studied so far (over a dozen). That it implies a need to replace in kind, after their retirement, the thermal electric stations we now have is very doubtful. There may be an

1 7 4 E N E R G Y P O L I C Y June 1978