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Endorsements
>> Individual
Endorsements >> What's Being Said
by the Experts
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
 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) former Vice President, and "Earth
in the Balance"
 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
 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"
 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"
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 ideas 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.
Rustom Roy, Director of the Materials Research
Lab, Pennsylvania State University
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