DOD Energy Blog Interview with Amory Lovins - 5 Part Series (part 1)

This past weekend I had the good fortune to go through a little Q&A with perhaps the best informed expert on energy efficiency, energy metrics and the DOD. Based on what I'd heard about his latest thinking on some new factors to value in force structure considerations and the requirements development process, as well as the current state of energy affairs inside the department, I put forth five questions and got five answers. Here's the first exchange:

1) Do you intend Endurance and/or Resilience as more specific replacements for the long-coming Energy Efficiency Key Performance Parameter (KPP)?

Lovins: No. I hope they become new strategic vectors that enter doctrine and drive strategy, organizational structure, training, reward systems, cultures, and behaviors, just as Speed, Stealth, Precision, and Networking have done. An Energy Efficiency KPP, like Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel (FBCF), is an important tool for ensuring that requirements-writing, designs, choices in the tradespace, and procurement align with the Endurance vector. They also support Resilience, since the most "bounce per buck" in ensuring electric-system resilience comes from end-use efficiency, which stretches what resilient supplies can do, makes failures more graceful, and buys time to fix what's broken or to improvise new supplies.

There you have it. Prior to this response, though I'd heard about Endurance and Resilience for over a year, I wasn't sure how they fit (or didn't fit) vis a vis his thinking on the Energy Efficiency KPP. What of that KPP anyway ... how's it doing these days and where might it go? Part 2 takes the conversation in that direction. Stay tuned.