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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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