YOUR AD HERE »

RMI scholar at world gathering

Aspen Times Staff Report

Research scholar Richard Heede of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Old Snowmass is off to South Africa to participate in a world conference on energy use.

Heede, of Old Snowmass, left Monday for a research center at the University of Capetown, where he will be an adviser to participants in a conference on the subject of sustainable energy development. More specifically, workshops will be held on standardizing the means by which progress toward sustainability is measured.

The conference is organized by a French group called Helio International, which monitors progress toward global energy sustainability. Heede said the overall goal of the project is to promote faster development of sustainable energy use and delivery. Sustainable energy use, loosely defined, means energy use that can be carried on indefinitely without depleting resources.



Helio has observers all over the world who submit reports based on various indicators of energy development. Heede said the work to be done at the conference is intended to refine wording of the indicators and to ensure that the indicators used are applicable everywhere.

Four examples of energy development indicators, Heede said, might be a nation’s emission of carbon dioxide per capita, net energy imports, percentage of rural households having access to electricity, or energy consumed per dollar of gross national product.




Heede is on the scientific and technical advisory committee for the project.

Helio will compile a report annually and distribute it to the United Nations, the World Bank and interested nongovernmental organizations.