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THE
SOCIETY FOR COMPUTER SIMULATION
(Simulation Councils,
Inc.) - P.O. Box 17900 - San Diego, California
92l77-7900
Telephone: (619) 277-3888
FAX: (619) 277-3930 Email: scs@sdsc.ed
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- 32
Willow Drive, Suite 1B
- Ocean,
NJ 07712
- 21
November 1993
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To Whom
It May Concern:
This note
constitutes endorsement by the Mission Earth Activity
for the global electric power system simulation project
currently being planned by GENI (Global Energy Network
Institute). The Mission Earth Activity is an organization
within the Society for Computer Simulation.
To Mission
Earth the project is perceived as a special global
simulation undertaken to investigate the extent to
which and the rate at which progressive interconnection
of the existing system to new sources and new markets
will be economically profitable and environmentally
acceptable. It is of interest to Mission Earth because
it is global in scope, it is long-term, and it will
have to involve to some significant extent a consideration
and possible inclusion of at least each of the following
aspects of the global system affected: population
growth as affected indirectly by the availability
of more power, economics of power at a number of node
points, environmental consequences (e.g., atmospheric
pollution increases), benefits of power in markets
reached by the power system, quality of life or other
index of human status in each region, the effect of
more power in some places upon international tensions,
the effect of power upon each nation's or region's
GNP (modified to account for negative effects upon
the environment), depletion of any non replaceable
resources used in producing power (intended to decrease
with time), the consequences of varying the sequence
of incorporating new sources, and other effects presumed
to be smaller.
The
use of simulation for this purpose is the next best
thing to a crystal ball that works and has numerical
output.
This tool can be used to evaluate a variety of management
and engineering alternatives. At a later stage, in
a follow-on project, there will have been sufficient
use of the simulation to enable GENT to identify and
demonstrate the probable success of selected alternative
policies for political units.
The proposed
outlay for the project (approx. $1.6 million) is appropriate
to the effort anticipated. The benefits could amount
to tens or hundreds of times the cost in a decade
or two.
Therefore,
we endorse the project without reservation as being
a good example of the simulation studies that Mission
Earth is urging simulationists to undertake.
A.
Ben Clymer, Chairman
Mission Earth
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