Soft energy path

Amory Lovins came to prominence in 1976 when he published an article in Foreign Affairs called "Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?".

[1] The first, supported by U.S. policy, promised a future of steadily increasing reliance on dirty fossil fuels and nuclear fission, and had serious environmental risks.

Active residential solar technologies use special devices to collect and convert the sun's rays to useful energy and are located near the users they supply.

[6] Lovins argued that besides environmental benefits, global political stresses might be reduced by Western nations committing to the soft energy path.

A chief element of the soft path strategy is to avoid major commitments to inflexible infrastructure that locks us into particular supply patterns for decades.

Solar energy technologies, such as solar water heaters , located on or near the buildings which they supply with energy, are a prime example of a soft energy technology.