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Endorsements

Photo of Peter Meisen and Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev discusses the GENI solution with Peter Meisen at the "State of the World Forum" in San Fransisco in San Francisco on October 1, 1995.

 

 

 

What's Being Said By the Experts:

The extensive international cooperation necessary would mean alternative expenditures to armaments, and at the same time, help overcome social-economic problems which exist today in developing countries.

Yevgeny Velikhov, Vice-President, Russian Academy of Sciences


 
Birthrates decrease at exactly the same rate that the per capita consumption of inanimate electrical energy increases. The world's population will stop increasing when and if the integrated world electrical grid is realized. The grid is the World Game's highest priority objective.

Dr. R Buckminster Fuller, "Critical Path"


 
The most thoughtful and scientific solution to the world's problems I've ever seen.

Ron Williams, Senior Research Director, General Motors


  Al Gore
A global energy network makes enormous sense if we are to meet global energy needs with a minimal impact on the world's environment.Such advances (in long distance transmission) may even make possible the visionary suggestion of Buckminster Fuller two decades ago that the Eastern and Western hemispheres be linked by underwater cable to assist each other in managing peak energy demand, since the high daytime use in one hemisphere occurs at precisely the low night time consumption by the other.

Al Gore, letter from former US Senator (Tennessee) [Now Vice President], and "Earth in the Balance"


  Walter Hickel

My conclusion is that to build a new world -- to build peace -- we must literally build it... Two billion people live without electricity today. Show me any area in the world where there is a lack of energy, and I'll show you basic poverty. There is a direct tie-in between energy and poverty, energy and war, energy and peace. . . Electrical interconnections between regions -- and even continents -- can and must be tackled now. This can be a vast and visionary undertaking -- worthy of our generation.

Walter Hickel, Governor of Alaska, Chairman of Northern Forum


 M maher Abaza
The construction of long distance transmission lines for the transport of the bulk hydroelectric energy from its distant sources is the aim of environmentalists as well as a hope for the peoples of developing countries. The revenues from the export of renewable hydro-energy would pay back the investments in the power projects and also provide financing for sustained economic and social development.

Eng. M Maher Abaza, Minister of Electricity and Energy, Egypt



Throughout most of the history of electric power, the institutions that furnished it have tended to be vertically integrated monopolies, each within its own geographic area. Selling or borrowing electric power among these entities both for economy and for emergency back-up has gradually grown until larger areas made up of many independent organizations have become physically connected for their own mutual support. This wide area interconnection is already international in its extent, especially in Europe and the Americas. For instance, the North American power network may realistically be considered to be the largest machine in the world since its transmission lines connect all the electric generation and distribution on the continent.

These interconnections already reduce the impact of energy conversion on the environment by allowing the most efficient sources of power to be used regardless of their location. It is the GENI vision to extend this network to the entire globe and to make available, everywhere, electricity generated from the most sustainable sources of power, whose efficiency is continually being increased through the application of new technologies.

A major step toward the realization of this vision would be the development of a realistic model and simulation that could be used to quantify the benefits of a global energy network and specify the enabling technologies needed to put it in place.

A. Martin Wildberger, Ph.D., EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute), Energy Delivery and Utilization Division, Strategic Science and Technology Department


 
Inventor R. Buckminster Fuller first proposed the idea of connecting the world's regional electrical grids into a single global energy network in 1969. Since then, political problems, including domestic and international conflicts, have posed a formidable barrier. However, the development of long-range transmission systems has bolstered the technological feasibility of such plans. In recent years a number of government agencies, utilities, and electrical equipment manufacturers around the world have set aside their geopolitical differences and joined forces to build transmission systems that can economically send thousands of megawatts across thousands of kilometers.

Michael Valenti, Associate Editor, "Mechanical Engineering"


 Hisham Kahtib
We estimate that by 2050, electricity may account for 60% to 70% of the energy consumed. . . 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.


Hisham Khatib, Chair, Committee on Energy Issues in Developing Countries, Vice President, World Energy Council


 
The exploitation of remote energy sources at low cost (e.g. hydro or mine-mouth coal) is now feasible and economical for distances never before entertained. For example, transmission systems can be set-up over a distance of as much as 7000 kilometers in d.c. (direct current) and 3000-4000 kilometers in a.c. (alternating current) such that, by offering an acceptable reliability level for the receiving system concerned, present costs small enough as to make advantageous the exploitation of these sources, when compared to more expense generation located in the vicinity of load centers.

Luigi Paris, Giancarlo Manzoni, Nelson DeFranco, et al. CIGRE (International Conference on Large High Voltage Electric Systems) System Planning Committee


 
With peace at hand, some ambitious development projects no longer look so crazy. Beyond Israel and the occupied territories, some other neighbors could benefit too. A few of the Palestinians' fondest dreams: Power Grids: Interlocking electricity grids could save Israelis and Arabs millions of dollars.

Newsweek Magazine, Special Report on Middle East Peace



The levels of renewable energy development indicated by this scenario (Renewables Intensive Global Energy Scenario) represent a tiny fraction of the potential for renewable energy. Higher levels might be pursued if society should seek greater reductions in CO2 emissions. . . and that most electricity produced from renewable sources would be fed into large electrical grids and marketed by electric utilities.

Johansson, Kelly, Reddy, Williams "Renewable Energy: Sources for Fuels and Electricity"


 Victor Yershevich
We must see the problem as a whole. We must understand and explain to all other men on our planet that the interconnection between power systems of different countries is one of the important tasks for all humanity.

Victor Yershevich, Director of Science, Energoset Project





I
had the good fortune of meeting Buckminster Fuller many times and getting to know him as a person and a gifted genius. He had a profound devotion and commitment to humanity in his world view into the future as well as in time. His desire and purpose, through a Design Science Revolution, was to improve the quality of life on the planet. His was a revolution for integrating and enhancing human systems rather than taking them apart. As we celebrate the Centennial of Buckminster Fuller's birth, we share in his memory and in the opportunity to study his philosophy as we expressed in his work, to learn from this great contemporary master how to make a more livable world. Bucky's idea will continue to nourish us all and will help us know what to do with the option that is ours to improve our home planet Earth.

Dr. Jonas Salk, Discovered polio vaccine


 
The goal of an interconnected network for supplying renewable resource based electrical energy for the world's poorest is one of the most obvious for everyone who controls the direction of technological development. It should become the common rallying point for the world's engineers and scientists.

Rustum Roy, Director of the Materials Research Lab, Pennsylvania State University


Endorsements

 

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