The Road Not Yet Taken: Abundance by Design

The briefing advocates for a "soft energy path" based on efficiency and design rather than increasing energy supply. It argues that current anxieties over AI electricity demand and critical mineral shortages can be addressed through demand flexibility, efficiency, and system optimization rather than building more power plants and mines.

• The "soft energy path" prioritizes efficiency, renewable sources, and matching energy quality to end uses to deliver services more cheaply and securely than centralized, capital-intensive "hard" paths.
• Electricity demand from data centers and AI, often seen as a threat to power adequacy, can be managed through efficiency, advanced cooling, workload flexibility, and energy storage to reduce peak demand and lower system costs.
• Modernizing electricity grids through demand-based strategies like automation and strategic storage can increase the current average capacity utilization, which is only about 40%.
• Critical mineral scarcity is framed as a design problem rather than a supply problem; through efficiency and recycling, the demand for mining cobalt, nickel, and lithium for batteries could peak by 2035 and reach zero by 2050.
• Transitioning to building efficiency, electric heat pumps, and thermal storage can reduce peak loads and exposure to fuel price shocks in space and water heating, which are major global fossil fuel consumers.

APA

RMI (2026). The Road Not Yet Taken: Abundance by Design. https://rmi.org/resources/the-road-not-yet-taken-abundance-by-design/

Chicago

RMI. The Road Not Yet Taken: Abundance by Design. 2026. https://rmi.org/resources/the-road-not-yet-taken-abundance-by-design/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=The Road Not Yet Taken: Abundance by Design |date=16 June 2026 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/the-road-not-yet-taken-abundance-by-design/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2026road, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{The Road Not Yet Taken: Abundance by Design}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2026}, month = jun, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/the-road-not-yet-taken-abundance-by-design/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }