SUSTAIN
The quarterly newsletter of the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development (Issue
3, April 1997) Opinion
The Missing Link
by Peter Meisen
Index
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.
Fuller proposed
that the premier economic, efficient and sustainable
global strategy would be to connect regional electricity
systems into a single, worldwide grid that drew especially
on renewable energy resources.
In 1971, the UN Natural Resources Council corroborated
Fuller's findings, but Cold War politics for many
years got in the way of any real international progress.
However, in the lead-up to the Earth Summit in 1992,
UNEP described the grid initiative as one
of the most important opportunities to further the
cause of environmental protection and sustainable
development.
Technology transforms
the economics
Although a fully integrated global grid is still years
away, technological advances over the past two decades
have made feasible the linking of international and
inter-regional networks. Thirty years ago, electricity
could only be transmitted efficiently up to 600 kilometers.
Breakthroughs in material-science from the
NASA program extended that distance to 2,500km
in the 1970s, and research has shown that ultra-high
voltage (UHV)
transmission is now economic and efficient to 7,000
km for direct current and 4,000 km for alternating
current.
Buying and selling power is common nowadays in all
developed nations, as utility companies seek to level
the peaks and valleys of demand. The resulting savings
mean reduced costs to the customer and wider markets
for the power producers - a massive win-win situation.
The latest improvements in technology open up the
possibility of extending this trade in energy to the
transmission of electricity between North and South
hemispheres, so helping balance variations in seasonal
demand. Similarly, East-West linkages across continents
and time zones could smooth out hourly and day/night
fluctuations.
For the developing regions, UHV technology offers
immense economic potential. Some of the planet's most
abundant sources of renewable energy such as hydro-electric,
tidal, solar, wind and geothermal are found in remote
locations in the developing world. But, thanks to
the latest technology, they are now within economic
transmission reach. Exports of this excess, untapped
energy to the industrialized world could provide cheaper
and cleaner power for the North while injecting much-needed
cash into the developing world.
Environmental and health
benefits
Over the next few decades in the developed economies,
a key environmental question will be that of replacing
the present generation of polluting power sources
as their economic life expires. Having access to the
remote sources of renewable energy via power grids
that crossed political boundaries would open up new
economic and environmentally sustainable alternatives.
Daily, our planet's population increase by 235,000
people, and 35,000 children die of hunger and hunger-related
diseases. Comparative trend analysis shows that as
electricity becomes available for developing societies,
food and health-care systems are strengthened, infant
mortality rates decrease, as do birth rates, while
life-expectancy rises. It is important to remember
that securing personal survival precedes environmental
concern. So while end-use efficiency is a priority
in first world economies, demand-side management is
difficult in the developing countries in times of
accelerating energy demand.
What's missing?
If the technology exists, and the economics make sense,
why haven't we accelerated these international grid
linkages? Politics, bureaucracy, nationalistic thinking
and ignorance of the larger picture are the barriers.
What's missing is an informed public that can influence
political will. Our aim at GENI is therefore to bring
the facts to the public's attention.
Peter
Meisen is founder and president of GENI, a Californian
non-profit organization which conducts research and
education on the interconnection of electrical power
networks, with an emphasis on tapping remote renewable
energy resources.
Current projects include an Optimized Sustainable
Energy Computer
Model, a documentary/film, The
Powerful Planet ,and The
International Conference on the Global Grid. Contact
Peter Meisen in San Diego at (619)595-0139 or visit
GENI's homepage on the Web: http://www.geni.org
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