A handshake... the first step to becoming partners
Please help us fund the vision of GENI

Dear GENI Friend;

Changes in the world seem to occur faster than we can integrate their consequences into our lives. Television brings the face of war and hunger into our homes. Information overload is constant for most of us. Yet GENI is making a clear difference amid the noise.

With high hopes, we watched Israel and the PLO sign a peace treaty after decades of conflict. What seemed impossible--a handshake between Itsak Rabin and Yasir Arafat--was viewed around the world. Our hearts soared--if these former enemies can put down their weapons and work together, isn't it possible everywhere else?

Then, just a few days later, an article appeared about Palestinians rebuilding their homeland. Under the heading Dreaming Up Peace Projects was the following statement:

Last year, the GENI initiative was given to energy planners throughout the Middle East. Before the peace, most experts scoffed at the notion. What a difference a handshake can make!

The GENI Computer Simulation Model described in our last newsletter has begun with an impressive international team. The goal is to produce a clear-cut cost/benefit analysis comparing various energy future scenarios. The model will contrast the economic and environmental benefits of interconnecting global renewable energy resources versus the results of other projected world energy scenarios (such as those of the World Energy Conference and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The project will support GENI's ideal of achieving a low-emission sustainable energy future that supports the economic growth of developing countries.

We need you continuing help in this effort. Last year we launched the Campaign to Fund the Vision of GENI. The goal for 1994 is one million dollars, and while we have a good start, your financial support is needed more than ever. We invite your help in making GENI real in the world. Please use the enclosed pledge form and contribute at a level appropriate to your vision.

Thank you for your generous contributions over the past year. Your financial gifts, time and expertise ARE making a difference.

Sincerely,

Peter Meisen
Executive Director

GENI DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS: Len Bateman, Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Davis, Floyd Geis, Nyhl Henson, Mike Fisher, Bill Shopoff

GENI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Peter Meisen

GENI ADVISORS: Raghbir Basi, Brian Bieler, Milton Byrd, David Cline, Terry Lipman, Karen Morgan, Robert Muller, Glenn Olds, Malcolm Roberts, Marshall Thurber

Electricity generation for the renewables-intensive global energy scenario. Renewables can play major roles in the global energy economy in the decades ahead. In the global energy demand scenario for this study, global electricity production would more than double by 2025, and more than triple by 2050. The share of renewable energy generation would increase from 20% in 1985 (mostly hydroelectric power) to about 60% in 2025, with roughly comparable contributions from hydropower, intermittent renewables (wind and direct solar power) and biomass. The contribution of intermittent renewables could be as high as 30% by the middle of the next century.

GENI's previous newsletter (1st Quarter 1993) highlighted the Alternative Energy Futures in 2020 as projected by the World Energy Council (WEC). The growth in energy demand will be driven by the population surge of the developing countries to over 8 billion people. Yet the WEC forecasts very little change in the renewable/non-renewable ratio over the next three decades.

Currently, renewables comprise 18% of the generation mix, non-renewables (fossil and nuclear) provide 82%. Energy demand is projected to grow between 30% to 100% by 2020. Even the most ecologically driven WEC case expanded the renewable portion to only 31%.. All of GENI's discussions with the International Energy Agency, United Nations and environmental groups have agreed that these WEC energy scenarios are not sustainable as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the Agenda 21 of the Earth Summit.

Fortunately, another scenario has been forwarded by five internationally respected authors in the recent book "Renewable Energy: Sources for Fuels and Electricity," by Thomas Johansson, Henry Kelly, Amulya Reddy, Robert Williams and Laurie Burnham, Island Press, 1993. The summary graph is presented here for what the authors call the Renewables Intensive Global Energy Scenario. The authors cite benefits of this scenario that are not captured in standard economic models:

• increased economic and social development in rural areas can help reduce poverty and slow urban migration
  
  
• land restoration through biomass growth will help prevent erosion and provide wildlife habitat
  
  
• Reduced air pollution caused from the burning of fossil fuels on both transportation and power generation
  
  
• abatement of global warming as renewable sources produce no carbon dioxide of other greenhouse gasses
  
  
• diversity of the fuel supply would create more interregional energy trade, and users would become less vulnerable to monopolies or supply disruptions
  
  
• reducing the risks of nuclear proliferation as competitive renewables would reduce the incentive to build further nuclear supply.

Renewable Energy also concludes two items central to the GENI initiative. First that—

The second conclusion is central to the point that renewable energy sources are site specific, oftentimes located in remote areas, and oftentimes in neighboring countries.

The evidence grows stronger that both Buckminster Fuller and the United Nations Natural Resources Council were correct in their proposal of 1971. The question remains if the political will can redirect nationalistic energy strategies into a global strategy that benefits everyone.

Peter Meisen, Executive Director of GENI, provides a keynote presentation at the T&D International Expo in Amsterdam

GENI first met Dr. Hisham Khatib at the 1992 World Energy Conference in Madrid, and shortly thereafter received his endorsement of GENI's investigation. Peter Meisen, GENI's Executive Director, and Dr. Khatib shared the podium at the Transmission & Distribution International Expo in Amsterdam, September 1993. The following are a few highlights of Dr. Khatib's address:

Dr. Khatib cited figures showing global investment in generation, transmission and distribution (T&D) capital facilities of $1250 billion (US) between now and the year 2000. T&D will represent 50% to 60% of this global investment.

He argued that poverty, emissions, and pollution are global problems and demand global solutions. Accessibility to electricity is crucial to solving these problems. Today, two billion people worldwide are without any electricity at all. He stressed that the need to supply these people with electricity demands novel ideas including inexpensive distribution techniques. He estimates by 2050, electricity may account for 60% to 70% of the energy consumed. He showed that there are two main ingredients marking the future of the industry: competition and transparency. Private Utilities are going to compete; and services, tariffs, regulations are becoming more transparent--the consumer has got choices. Because of these trends, there will be a growing trade in power, not just between neighboring countries, but across neighbor countries to a third country.

All this demands strong interconnections. Extra high voltage (EHV) transmission will become more important for wheeling. Research into EHV in the future is going to be of paramount importance.

Dr. Hisham Khatib
Chairman, Committee on Energy
Issues in Developing Countries
World Energy Council

To Mission Earth the GENI 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
  
  
• effect of more power in some places upon international tensions
  
  
• the effect of more power upon each nations or regions GNP (modified to account for negative effects upon the environment)
  
  
• depletion of any nonreplaceable resources used in producing power
  
  
• the consequences of varying the sequence of incorporating new sources and other effects presumed to be smaller

This tool can be used to evaluate a variety of management and engineering alternatives. At a later stage, there will have been sufficient use of the simulation to enable GENI to identify and demonstrate the probable success of selected alternative policies for policy makers.

Therefore, we endorse the project without reservation.

Ben Clymer, Chairman
Mission Earth Activity
Society for Computer Simulation

My Pledge to Fund the Vision of GENI

Thank you for your commitment to make the world work for everyone. Your stand makes a big difference this year. Please contribute at a level appropriate to your vision of GENI in the world.

ONE TIME SUPPORT:

I want to help GENI now,

Dymaxion™ Map

Beautiful four color poster printed on heavy-gauge paper.

"For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share are far more valuable than those which divide us."

Astronaut Donald Williams, from "Home Planet"