The Global Energy Grid

A 20-year-old scheme devised by the late Buckminster Fuller "to make the world work for 100% of humanity" may soon become a reality.

A global grid connecting the energy resources of every nation on earth could increase standards of living worldwide, reduce pollution, defuse the population explosion, and promote international peace, according to Peter Meisen, director of the San Diego-based Global Energy Network, International (GENI).

Energy — electricity in particular — is crucial to societal development according to a report by GENI. Living standards have been found to improve substantially when electricity is introduced for such purposes as lighting, refrigeration, irrigation, and communication. Fuller predicted that once the Global Energy Grid was in place hunger would end and industry would boom.

The primary reason for connecting national electricity supplies is that, while peak demand occurs during the daytime, all countries are not in daylight at the same time. With the grid, a nation experiencing peak demand could "borrow" electricity from another country experiencing low demand in another time zone. This more efficient transmission of electricity means less energy will have to be generated — resulting in fewer new power plants built and less dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

The technologies that can make this daytime-to-night-time exchange possible already exist, according to GENI: "Thirty years ago, the limit of efficient transmission was 350 miles. Then, through technical breakthroughs by our space program (new metals, ceramics, etc. ), the new effective distance became 1500 miles. This means utilities could now span adjoining time zones and begin to even out the peak and valley use patterns of the different time zones. ... Current research shows that ultra-high voltage direct current transmission today has an effective distance of 4000 miles! Although no such interconnection of this length exists, this now means we can begin to connect power grids between continents."

Today, 50 countries already are connected with neighboring nations to exchange electricity. One promising development is the connection made between the energy grid of Western Europe and that of Eastern-bloc nations. "Although the transmission capacity is small, " notes Meisen, "the barrier across the 'Iron Curtain' is broken." Special focus is thus being placed on a Soviet-U.S. connection across the Bering Strait. Such an intertie would have the advantage of making the two superpowers more interdependent and, according to GENI，would cost less than 1% of their combined annual military budgets.

"Both short - and long-term benefits dwarf this figure," according to GENI. "Additionally, every other country will explore the advantages of interconnecting with neighboring nations if the United States and Soviet Union are cooperating with each other."