In 1976, Amory Lovins published an incredibly famous and (over)cited paper in the journal Foreign Affairs in which he posited two future energy paths. The hard path called for crazy amounts of energy demand growth, satisfied by new nuclear and coal plants.

The soft path, heavy on small-scale renewables and efficiency, is illustrated above. While not quite a “forecast” — Lovins was more of a “could/should” guy than a “will” guy — it certainly represented a vision of a future that did not come to pass.

Vaclav Smil, the energy scholar, has rather unkindly taken Lovins to task for missing on his predictions. He notes that Lovins expected 750 millions of tons of oil equivalent (MTOE) of American energy to come from soft technologies by 2000. In fact, we only got 75 MTOE in 2000.

For those of who sympathize with Lovins, explaining the 90s is a key rhetorical challenge.