The Road Not Yet Taken: Abundance by Design

This briefing by RMI reflects on Amory Lovins's 1976 'soft energy path' concept, arguing that modern challenges—including AI-driven electricity demand, critical mineral scarcity, and geopolitical instability—should be addressed through design, efficiency, and demand management rather than traditional supply-side infrastructure expansion.

• The 'soft energy path' prioritizes efficiency, renewable sources, and matched end uses to provide energy services more cheaply and securely than the centralized, capital-intensive 'hard' path. This approach is described as 'abundance by design' and is considered superior in terms of speed, cost, resilience, security, and scalability, especially given that solar panel costs have decreased by 99.9% since 1976.
• The electricity demand growth driven by artificial intelligence and data centers is often viewed as a threat to power system adequacy, but this assumes demand is fixed. In reality, data center load can be reshaped using efficiency improvements, advanced cooling, workload flexibility, energy storage, and co-optimized clean generation to reduce peak demand and lower system costs.
• Current electricity grids are inefficient, with an average capacity utilization of only about 40%. Modernization through demand-based strategies—such as efficiency, demand response, automation, strategic storage, and reconductoring—is presented as a faster way to add capacity than building new supply.
• Concerns regarding critical mineral scarcity for batteries and electric vehicles are framed as design problems rather than purely supply problems. Through efficiency, better battery utilization, managed charging, and vehicle-to-grid integration, the demand for mining cobalt, nickel, and lithium could peak around 2035 and reach zero by 2050.
• The document advocates for a shift in policy and investment where efficiency and demand flexibility are core opportunities. It argues that planning processes should move away from treating demand forecasts as laws of nature and instead focus on shaping demand to reduce risk and capital requirements.

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} }