Rocky Mountain Institute

From KeyWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Rocky Mountain Institute Logo

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) was founded in 1982 by Amory Lovins.

Rocky Mountain Institute's tagline: "Rocky Mountain Institute transforms the global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all." Jon Creyts is CEO.

History

History from the Rocky Mountain Institute website:[1]

"In 1982, Rocky Mountain Institute was founded as a 501(c)3 nonprofit aiming to radically improve America’s energy practices. RMI’s data-led focus on efficiency, whole systems analysis, and levering business to drive change has since extended our influence globally, transforming businesses, revolutionizing energy systems, and improving national economies along the way.
In recent years, the rise of the climate crisis and the need to transition global energy systems away from fossil fuels has amplified the need for and impact of our mission, to help usher the world toward a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future for all.

Celebrating the Green New Deal i.e. Inflation Reduction Act

Rocky Mountain Institute Homepage as of August 19, 2023

Rocky Mountain Institute has benefited from the deceptively-named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was previously named the Green New Deal. As of August 19, 2023, the Rocky Mountain Institute prominently features Joe Biden and praises the Inflation Reduction Act.[2]

Biden Administration Funding

Chart showing Rocky Mountain Institute's taxpayer-funded grants escalated during the Biden years

Chart reveals Rocky Mountain Institute's taxpayer-funded grants escalated during the Biden years.[3]

China Government 'Partnership'

Rocky Mountain Institute partnered with the Chinese Communist Party in 2013 to assist them with their progress on achieving net zero carbon emissions.[4] According to their website, Rocky Mountain Institute "aims to build a solid bridge between international audiences and China’s power system and market progress."[5]

Calls To Ban Gas Stoves

"Rocky Mountain Institute partnered with China to implement 'economy-wide transformation' away from oil and gas". From the Washington Free Beacon:[6]

The green energy group behind a study cited in Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr.'s call to ban gas stoves has partnered with the Chinese government to implement an "economy-wide transformation" away from oil and gas.
Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, which published the December study that attributes 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, is hardly staffed by an objective group of scientists.
The organization is demanding "systemic change and economy-wide transformation" to address a climate crisis it says we must go to great lengths to avoid. In 2013, for example, the Rocky Mountain Institute joined forces with China's National Development and Reform Commission—the government agency tasked with planning the communist nation's economy—to produce a report that advised China to replace existing appliances and generators with "clean energy technologies." The commission went on to set climate goals that included energy reduction targets. When local provinces in 2021 failed to meet those targets, the commission pushed them to implement electricity rations, prompting "dimmed traffic lights that cause chaos" and "half-cooked rice in rice cookers."
The Rocky Mountain Institute is far from the first green energy group to advocate for the banning of gas stoves, which nearly 40 percent of U.S. homes use. But the nonprofit's newfound influence reflects the Biden administration's alignment with the left's loudest climate activists. President Joe Biden has already proposed a natural gas phaseout in federal buildings, which would ban fossil-fuel equipment in new buildings by 2030. Leading green energy groups applauded the move, which will cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually, the Washington Free Beacon reported in December.
Beyond its public mission statement and work with the Chinese government, the Rocky Mountain Institute's biases are reflected in its gas-stove study, academic leaders told the Free Beacon. The study—which spans just nine paragraphs—was based on a hodgepodge of different data and methodologies spanning various years and countries, ranging from 2019 U.S. Census data to conclusions from a 2018 analysis in Australia.
Structuring a study that way is questionable, according to Yale University professor of medicine Dr. Harvey Risch. Moreover, the conclusions of the institute's study differs from what the organization is saying publicly.
"This paper does not do any research on possible association between residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma," Risch told the Free Beacon. "It only calculates a percent of childhood asthma that could be attributable to residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma."
That distinction is important, Risch said, particularly when calling for such a dramatic public policy proposal that would change how tens of millions of Americans prepare their food. The study was also ethically dubious, according to Risch, as its authors stated they held no conflicts of interest despite working for climate change activist groups. The Rocky Mountain Institute's board, for example, is filled with executives at green energy corporations with a financial interest in banning the use of fossil fuels.
Also included among those board members is Wei Ding, the founder and chairman of the Chinese private equity firm Broad River Capital. Ding started the firm after serving as chairman of the China International Capital Corporation (CICC), a partially state-owned investment bank. Former CICC executives include Chinese leader Xi Jinping's vice president and right-hand man, Wang Qishan, while the corporation's website highlights its "deep participation in China's economic reforms and development" and goal to "serve the nation." The Rocky Mountain Institute also sits on the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a Chinese green energy nonprofit whose founding members include China's National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Transport.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio), who last week called on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to renounce any potential gas-stove ban, said he is alarmed by the institute's ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The natural gas industry, Vance said, "is critical to our national security," and its demise would be a boost to our adversary.
"Who benefits from all this? Communist China," Vance told the Free Beacon. "I think it's time for the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to answer some questions before Congress—under oath."
In addition to the Rocky Mountain Institute's green energy biases, the nonprofit's lead authors on the study hold no formal advanced scientific training or education. Talor Gruenwald, who works as a researcher at the group, holds a master of international affairs. Brady Seals, who heads the institute's "Carbon-Free Buildings" program, graduated with an MBA from the University of South Dakota.
Those facts didn't stop multiple outlets from covering the study as a disturbing revelation and call for action. The Washington Post ran at least four stories on the study's findings, with one alleging that gas-stove use "jump-starts childhood asthma."
"But as more and more information emerges about the health risks—and as the Biden administration focuses in on electrifying household appliances across the country—the move from gas to electric may be a question not of 'if,' but of 'when,'" one of the Post's stories concludes.
Trumka, whom Biden tapped as a top federal regulator in 2021, seemingly confirmed that assessment in a Thursday interview. After Trumka's initial comment floating a gas-stove ban prompted widespread public backlash—and a walkback from the White House—the Democrat told CNN that any regulatory action on the appliance would be "forward-looking" and only apply to "new products." "We are not looking to go into anyone's homes and take away items that are already there," Trumka said. "We don't do that."
Those comments likely disappointed the Rocky Mountain Institute, which did not return a request for comment. On Jan. 4, the group—which has pledged to continue its partnership with the Chinese government—explicitly advocated for the removal of existing gas stoves from private homes. "More than 12 percent of U.S. childhood asthma is preventable," the group said, "if we remove gas stoves from homes and move towards electric stoves instead."

REPORT AUTHORS & ACKNOWEDGEMENTS

From the Report titled: "Health Effects from Gas Stove Pollution" by Brady Seals and Andee Krasner, Rocky Mountain Institute, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Mothers Out Front, and Sierra Club, 2020:[7]

LEAD AUTHORS

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

Contacts

Acknowledgements

  • Megan Benka-Coker, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Gettysburg College
  • Jonathan Buonocore, Sc.D., Center for Climate Health and the Global Environment, Harvard T.H. Chan, School of Public Health
  • Robert M. Gould, MD, President, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, Physicians for Social Responsibility; Associate Adjunct Professor, Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine.
  • Brita Lundberg, MD, Board Member, Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and CEO, Lundberg Health Advocates
  • Drew Michanowicz, DrPH, Research Associate, Center for Climate Health and the Global Environment, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • Shelly L. Miller, PhD, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Krystal Godri Pollitt, PhD, P.Eng, Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Yale University
  • Poune Saberi, MD, MPH, Immediate Past-President, Physicians for Social Responsibility

World Economic Forum Contributions

Jules Kortenhorst, Kieran Coleman, Mark Dyson, Radhika Lalit, Ankit Kalanki of the Rocky Mountain Institute has contributed to the World Economic Forum:[8],[9],[10],[11],[12],[13],[14],[15]

Staff

From the Rocky Mountain Institute website:[16]

John Hickenlooper Connection

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (left) and RMI Trustee John Abele 2008
RMI Co-Founder Amory Lovins and U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper 2022

John Hickenlooper has close ties to the Rocky Mountain Institute.[17],[18]

From the Aspen Daily News June 1, 2022:[19]

"Sitting around U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colorado, and Rocky Mountain Institute co-founder Amory Lovins on Tuesday morning felt like a bit of a homecoming for many of the people in attendance. After all, many of them have worked together over the years.
“I’m also a former RMI employee, and this is where we used to have our staff meetings, and then our work, we would all work down in the little [room] down there … so it’s really great to be back in this building,” mused Alice Laird, now executive director of Clean Energy Economy for the Region. “My work is deeply inspired by Amory, trying to make it real on the Western Slope.”
Hickenlooper, for his part, said that he was there to listen — an extension of the general approach to his newest political post after serving as Colorado governor from 2011 to 2019. Though, he said, he didn’t mind having behind-the-scenes conversations, like the hours-long one he held with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, before the confirmation hearing for Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the Bureau of Land Management.
Now, after essentially a living-room discussion — albeit with the soothing sounds of a waterfall and nearby banana trees growing in Lovins’ home greenhouse area — it’s possible that Mona Newton and Chris Caskey may get an audience with Stone-Manning. Newton, former executive director of the Community Office for Resource Efficiency now consults with Caskey, a Paonia-based climate scientist and owner of Delta Brick and Climate Company. They are working together on a methane-capture project in Coal Basin.
The mining district, near Redstone, leaks approximately 1.3 million cubic feet of methane per day; Hickenlooper was recently instrumental in securing $1.2 million in federal funds for the project. The senator suggested Newton and Caskey pool together a group of stakeholders to better their chances at luring the BLM director out of Washington, D.C., but also took notes as he was making his offer to facilitate a conversation. Lovins offered his home as a meeting place.
Hickenlooper also jotted down notes with interest when hearing from Holy Cross Energy President and CEO Bryan Hannegan, who charged the senator with examining current federal law as it pertains to energy — especially where federal lands are concerned.
“... What we’re seeing across the broader West, we’re seeing shorter winters, drier summers, more wildfire risk. For those of us that are reliant on hydropower and the federal transmission system, I think an honest question for you to consider [is], to what extent can federal lands become a source of other resources that we can use to make up for the hydro?” he posed. “Can we develop wind and solar projects that can replace [other Bureau of Reclamation or BLM projects]?”
That’s not currently possible under federal law protecting public lands, he continued, but it’s the kind of innovative rethinking he and other stakeholders would like to see from the national government in tackling climate change.
And Holy Cross is doing its part, Hannegan noted.
“Holy Cross is one of six utilities in the country with a 100% clean-energy goal by the end of this decade,” he said. “Eight years from now is yesterday in utility planning terms, so we’re already working on that. By the end of next year, we’re looking at being 85-90% clean and carbon free in our portfolio.”
Some of the utility co-op’s regional partners in those efforts were in the room on Tuesday. As far as examples of electrified buildings — that also tackle the housing crunch — there were two representatives present: Habitat for Humanity President Gail Schwartz and Aspen Skiing Co. Sustainability and Philanthropy Manager Hannah Berman. Habitat for Humanity, “with the support of RMI and others,” Schwartz said, was able to “create the concept of the homes, where it produces more energy than it uses … and Holy Cross used it as a beta site.”
For the 27 families living at the development, their utility bills hover around $14, she continued.
“I think we’ve shown internationally what we can do,” she said. “Twenty-seven homes took $10 million in subsidies. Why that subsidy is required to bring on efficient homes … that’s where we need to break it down.”
Berman, too, spoke to the policy concerns and arenas in which her employer hopes to see even more support when combating the climate change that poses an “existential threat” to the resort’s business model.
“We’ve seen a month less of winter since 1980 — it isn’t that long ago,” she said, “And now we’re increasingly concerned that wildfires during the summer are what would prevent us from staying in business … We’ve seen other ski areas have to turn on their snowmaking equipment in the summers to fight fires, and that’s not something that our local mountain community or economy could necessarily withstand.”
Right after climate is affordable housing, Berman said of SkiCo’s list of concerns. Which is why it recently built The Hub in Willits, an all-electric building in the valley.
“For us, having the federal support and local policy, state-level policy to be able to take action on climate and rapidly electrify and decarbonize is critical because … the whole point is it needs to be bigger than ourselves.”
Hickenlooper thanked the group of stakeholders who took the time to speak with him Tuesday morning, emphasizing the challenges of putting himself “in the middle of all this ruckus.” He also spoke to the political realities, such as having the oil and gas industry’s “feathers smoothed over” — that is, reassuring that nobody will be immediately put out of business by more eco-friendly initiatives.
“Unfortunately, most of the American people just want to go to work every day and come home and spend time with their family. They’re not caught up in this stuff — at their own risk, admittedly,” he said.

Ruth Adams Connection

Ruth Salzman Adams was a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, her edited and co-edited books include works on human migrations, the anti-ballistic missile, and contemporary China. At the time of her death she was a Board member, Trust for Mutual Understanding and the Maki Foundation; and a course director and consultant to the Italian School on Disarmament and Research on Conflict (ISODARCO). Formerly she had been Program Director for Peace and International Cooperation of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and prior to that Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Ruth Adams was a former Trustee, Rocky Mountain Institute, former Board member, Council for a Livable World, former Council member, Federation of American Scientists, former Executive Director or the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union, former Organizing Committee and Governing Board member of the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, Kenya, former Visiting Scholar, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego; former Board member, Women's National Forum, the Chicago Network. Her numerous awards include the Public Service Award of the Federation of American Scientists, the Adlai Stevenson Award for International Human Understanding of the United Nations Association, and the Forum on Physics and Society Award of the American Physical Society.[20]

References

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818224427/https://rmi.org/about/history/ History (accessed August 18, 2023)
  2. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230819150243/https://rmi.org/ Rocky Mountain Institute Homepage (accessed August 19, 2023)
  3. ↑ https://www.highergov.com/awardee/rocky-mountain-institute-10353577/ Rocky Mountain Institute Awardee (accessed August 18, 2023)
  4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818224504/https://rmi.org/our-work/china-program/ China Program (accessed August 18, 2023)
  5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818225109/https://rmi.org/insight/2023-china-power-outlook-key-trends-for-power-market-players/ 2023 China Power Outlook (accessed August 18, 2023)
  6. ↑ https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/meet-the-green-energy-group-behind-the-study-thats-driving-calls-to-ban-gas-stoves/ Meet the Green Energy Group Behind the Study That's Driving Calls To Ban Gas Stoves (accessed August 18, 2023)
  7. ↑ Brady Seals and Andee Krasner, Health Effects from Gas Stove Pollution, Rocky Mountain Institute, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Mothers Out Front, and Sierra Club, 2020, https://rmi.org/insight/gasstoves-pollution-health (accessed August 18, 2023)
  8. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818195842/https://www.weforum.org/organizations/rocky-mountain-institute World Economic Forum website: Rocky Mountain Institute (accessed August 18, 2023)
  9. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230608083947/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/heres-what-the-pandemic-means-for-the-energy-transition/ Here's what we know and don't know about the energy transition by Jules Kortenhorst (accessed August 18, 2023)
  10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20211025150244/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/4-questions-ceos-must-ask-this-year-to-reach-net-zero/ 4 questions CEOs must answer this year to achieve net zero by Jules Kortenhorst and Michel Fredeau (accessed August 18, 2023)
  11. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230608024401/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/these-innovations-could-keep-us-cool-without-heating-us-up/ These innovations could keep us cool without warming the planet by Radhika Lalit (accessed August 18, 2023)
  12. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230422061302/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/india-heat-cooling-challenge-temperature-air-conditioning/ How India is solving its cooling challenge by Radhika Lalit and Ankit Kalanki (accessed August 18, 2023)
  13. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230320195450/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/a-low-carbon-energy-world-is-dawning-but-we-must-move-faster/ A low carbon energy world is dawning – but we must move even faster by Christina Lampe-Onnerud and Jules Kortenhorst (accessed August 18, 2023)
  14. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230328123942/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/05/clean-energy-natural-gas-coal-rocky-mountain-institute Clean energy will do to gas what gas has done to coal by Mark Dyson and Jules Kortenhorst (accessed August 18, 2023)
  15. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230601123400/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/6-ways-to-align-energy-transition-and-economic-growth 6 ways to align the energy transition with economic growth by Kieran Coleman and Jules Kortenhorst (accessed August 18, 2023)
  16. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818230506/https://rmi.org/about/people/ People (accessed August 18, 2023)
  17. ↑ https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press_releases/hickenlooper-colleagues-introduce-bill-to-expand-access-to-clean-affordable-heating-and-energy/ Hickenlooper, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Expand Access to Clean, Affordable Heating and Energy (accessed August 18, 2023)
  18. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818210619/https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Solutions_Journal-Fall_2008.pdf RMI Solutions Fall 2008 Journal (accessed August 18, 2023)
  19. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20230818211307/https://www.aspendailynews.com/news/hickenlooper-hears-climate-concerns-from-aspen-stakeholders-tuesday/article_fc0e1f34-e14a-11ec-82d7-1b7c3fe859cf.html Hickenlooper hears climate concerns from Aspen stakeholders Tuesday (accessed August 18, 2023)
  20. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20050305212109/http://www.pugwash.org/publication/obits/ruth-adams.htm Ruth Adams Obituary (accessed August 18, 2023)
Retrieved from "https://keywiki.org/index.php?title=Rocky_Mountain_Institute&oldid=609948"