SPEAKERS SERIES EVENT –  Dec. 6th  :  Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute

Wednesday December 6th in the Aspen Elks Lodge Room

Doors @ 6:30pm, Presentation @7pm

Members, and guests of Members welcome.

Beyond Fossil Flight: the Impending Clean Aviation Revolution

Aviation-dependent communities like ours often struggle with airplanes’ noise, air pollution, and emissions. But help is on the way: a far-reaching technology revolution, long assumed decades away, now looks set to start transforming aviation in this decade. Ultralight materials, super-sleek aerodynamics, and better propulsion technologies will let commercial flight use far less energy. That makes electric and hydrogen propulsion practical. Electric planes and electric cars strongly reinforce each other by sharing many technologies and capabilities—but the planes are evolving even faster, because their developers have higher ambitions and almost unlimited capital. Against the new super-clean and -quiet aircraft, next-generation fossil-fueled jets will struggle to compete they may well become obsolete before they can be deployed. That’s not the only reason such deployment may be imprudent, but happily, this important new context, absent from official plans, provides an additional and unexpected new way to help manage our community’s risks, improve our health and safety, and enlarge our opportunities.