GENI Articles, Opinion Editorials, Papers

• Flip The Old Energy Model Upside Down
  Feb 2008
  
  It's almost hard to imagine. Mankind has had access to electricity for only 130 years. In just over a century, we have extended transmission lines, light bulbs and refrigeration to nearly 5 billion people around the world. This extraordinary feat has elevated three-quarters of humanity out of the daily toil experienced by our pre-Edison generations. Still 25% of humanity lives without access to electrical services - spending their days in labor, fetching water and wood, preparing food and farming simply to survive. In the past four decades alone, we've landed a man on the moon and launched satellites to explore the universe. How large a task, given our technology, to electrify the rest of humanity?
  
  
• Solving Climate Change – Follow the Money
  Jan 2008
  
  Climate change is the challenge of our time. It’s not our only global problem: terrorism, water shortages, fishery depletion, pervasive hunger and poverty all persist on the planet. Yet climate affects everything, and how we deal with this issue will make matters better or worse for all the rest.
  
  
• Spontaneous Cooperation -- Decades in the Making
  
  After WWI, President Woodrow Wilson said, "the highest and best form of efficiency is the spontaneous cooperation of a free people." Where is the evidence of spontaneous cooperation in our world today? Historically, it seems that the cause of war -- Pearl Harbor, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and September 11th -- will catalyze a society and nations to cooperate. Must we have our backs to the wall, or is it possible for a compelling vision to create spontaneous cooperation?
  
  
• Opinion-Editorial: A Crisis of Ignorance
  Jan 12, 2001
  
  "There is no energy shortage, there is no energy crisis, there is a crisis of ignorance." Buckminster Fuller
  Over three decades ago, visionary engineer Buckminster Fuller made the statement that seems heretical today. Any rational person viewing our energy quagmire would dismiss Dr. Fuller's notion as utopian and out of touch. Yet it's possible that our present situation in California and the Western U.S. has everyone focused on immediate answers -- and that few are asking the larger questions.
  
  
• Linking Renewable Energy Resources Around the World:- A Compelling Global Strategy
  Feb 2, 1998 - IEEE/Power Engineering Society
  
  The expansion of high-voltage AC and DC interconnected systems continues to develop around the world. The power pools of North America, UCPTE, CENTREL, the CIS and Nordel networks are proven energy infrastructure -- providing enormous cost savings in power trading, reduced capacity requirements and emergency backup. Economic growth in Latin America, India, China and Southeast Asia is driving the demand for more capacity and the transmission systems to deliver this power.
  
  
• Linking Electricity for Peace: A Compelling Global Strategy
  1997 - The Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol 17, No 4
  
  East and West Germany connected two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Israel and Jordan initiated interconnections after the Washington Declaration. Now electrical inter-ties are also planned between North and South Korea and between Turkey and Iran. As former enemies tear down their walls, they are also building important economic bridges — electrical energy bridges.
  
  
• Power Transmission: False Fear or Global Solution?
  Dec./Jan. 1997 - Vol X No 6
  
  Fear is a prime motivator of mankind, whether the fear is real or unfounded. Since 1979, electromagnetic fields (EMF) have been vilified by some environmentalists as a cause of childhood leukemia. Power transmission lines were suspected as the carriers of this unseen danger, and utility opponents blocked projects and advocated the re-routing or burial of lines -- at tremendous additional expense to the power companies and ultimately to the consumer.
  
  
• Asking the Right Question for Spaceship Earth
  Nov 1997 - Asia Engineer
  
  World leaders, probably with the best intentions, hold summit meeting after summit meeting to discuss environmental problems, but nothing seems to change. It is time to consider another approach — one that seeks a global cure for a global problem.
  
  
• Opinion-Editorial: No cure for a sick world?
  Nov 3, 1997, No 21, - Chemistry and Industry
  
  Five years ago, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders met in Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit. They pledged to take better care of our planet; reducing pollution, protecting biodiversity and saving rainforests. At the United Nations last month, Rio+5 convened to assess our collective progress. In almost every category, any objective reporter would give us a failing grade. The headline nearly screamed, World leaders say "Earth is sick, but fail to agree on a cure."
  
  
• The Missing Link
  Apr 1997, Issue 3- Sustain - Newsletter of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
  
  Electricity's essential quality was first pointed out more than two decades ago by inventor, scientist and mathematician, R. Buckminster Fuller, who argued that it was the common denominator of all society's infra-systems - food, shelter, health-care, sewage, transportation, communication, education and finance.
  
  
• The GENI Model
  April 1995, Vol 64, No 4 - Simulation
  
  As a result of early research, GENI identified a major limitation for the industry's wider use of interconnection of large scale, renewable energy resources: the lack of a suitable, validated computer simulation model to demonstrate the cost/benefit of various scenarios which would include a comparison with other energy scenarios, for example, those of the World Energy Council. So in August of 1992, a Computer Simulation Model was conceived to be this management tool. It would factor in quality of life indicators including infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy and safe drinking water, as well as criteria for meeting the environmental standards set forth by the Earth Summit Agenda 21 and signed by nations around the world.
  
  
• Want to Contain Global Population? Expand Energy Resources
  Oct/Nov 1994, Vol VIII, No 5 - World Citizen News
  
  Delegates attending the recent U.N.-sponsored population conference in Cairo spent all their time discussing family planning, abortion and the empowerment of women. These are all critical issues, but their attendant action programs are almost impossible to implement for the two billion people in the world who have no electricity or potable water.
  
  
• Remote Renewable Energy Resources made Possible by International Electrical Interconnections - A Priority for All Continents (revised)
  1994 - Power Generation Technology
  
  Over the past few decades, international electrical interconnections have become increasing widespread as technology has improved and the benefits of integrated systems are realized. System interconnection facilitate reduced requirements for spinning reserve, improved efficiency, load leveling between time zones and seasonal variations, less fossil fuel emissions and the harnessing of remote renewable energy sources.
  
  
• Remote Renewable Energy Resources made Possible by International Electrical Interconnections - A Priority for All Continents (draft)
  
  
• The Economic, Environmental and Developmental Benefits of High-Voltage Interconnections Between South and North America via Central America and the Caribbean
  Jun 15 - 18, 1993 - ENERLAC 93
  
  This paper addresses the potential for expanding current efforts to complete power system interconnections in Central America towards an Inter-American Transmission System (IATS), that would interconnect northern South America with North America via Central America and the Caribbean.
  
  
• Worldwide Interconnections May Be An Idea Whose Time Has Come
  Dec 1992 - Transmission & Distribution International
  
  E xpanding power grids has proven to be both economically and environmentally desirable since the time-zone and seasonal diversity that exists between adjacent power systems can postpone or eliminate the necessity of building redundant generation. Approximately 80% of all generation presently is based on non-renewable fuels, which create greenhouse gases, acid rain and toxic waste. With sites around the world that boast of energy sources like hydro, tidal solar, wind and geothermal, it is reasonable to project the benefits for the future if these sites were connected into existing grids.
  
  
• GENI Initiative
  1992, Vol 4 - Development, the Journal of the Society for International Development
  
  
• Oil, Iraq, war - a new paradigm needed now
  Oct 1990, Vol 5, No10 - Florida Business
  
  
• A light seen round the world
  Aug 4, 1990 - The Globe and Mail
  
  Buckminster Fuller's idea of a global energy system is back in favor.