What's Old is New Again

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) once proposed putting wind turbines up in the extremely windy polar areas where the power could be sent to different parts of the world as the need varied by the time of day.  These would optimally be superconducting global circuits.

These concepts are not too different from the recent "supergrid" projects proposed by the Irish wind firm, Airtricity, for Europe.  This would also move wind energy from place to place dynamically as the winds provided and the load demanded.

The bigger question is do we want more interconnectedness (and thus potential for large scale disruption when things don't work right) or do we want more decentralization with less potential for disruption but also less potential for economies of scale and sharing the natural wealth as it has been distributed.   Most likely a mixed model will serve us the best although the bias should be for decentralized where possible, imo. 

A Supergrid for Europe - Technology Review - March 15, 2006

"Last month a Dublin-based wind-farm developer, Airtricity, and Swiss engineering giant ABB began promoting a bold solution to the continent's power grid bottlenecks: a European subsea supergrid running from Spain to the Baltic Sea, in which high-voltage DC power lines link national grids and deliver power from offshore wind farms. When the wind is blowing over a wind farm on the supergrid, the neighboring cables would carry its power where most needed. When the farms are still, the cables will serve a second role: opening up Europe's power markets to efficient energy trading."

A Power Grid for the Hydrogen Economy - Scientific American - July 2006

"By transporting the two together, the grid would serve both as a pipeline and as an energy store. For example, every 70-kilometer section of Super-Cable containing 40-centimeter-diameter pipes filled with liquid hydrogen would store 32 gigawatt-hours of energy. That is equivalent to the capacity of the Raccoon Mountain reservoir, the largest pumped hydroelectric facility in the U.S."

"The Global Energy Grid is the World Game's Highest Priority Objective"  -  R. Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller on the Global Energy Grid - GENI Newsletter - Second Quarter - 1995

"I have summarized my discovery of the option of humanity to become omnieconomically and sustainably successful on our planet while phasing out forever all use of fossil fuels and atomic energy generation other than the Sun. I have presented my plan for using our increasing technical ability to construct high-voltage, superconductive transmission lines and implement an around-the-world electrical energy grid integrating the daytime and nighttime hemispheres, thus swiftly increasing the operating capacity of the world's electrical energy system and, concomitantly, living standard in an unprecedented feat of international cooperation." - Cosmosgraphy, 1993, Fuller and Kuromiya

Girding Up For the Power Grid - Wired -  14 June 01

"New high-voltage DC applications developed by the institute are also serving to make good interfaces between grids. HVDC bridges can act as filters, allowing previously incompatible systems to be linked together, and preventing power disturbances on either side from propagating to the other.

Last summer, EPRI opened a link between grids in Texas and Mexico - a small step toward the global network of energy envisioned by Buckminster Fuller as "the final goal of the World Game."

What's Old is New Again

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) once proposed putting wind turbines up in the extremely windy polar areas where the power could be sent to different parts of the world as the need varied by the time of day.  These would optimally be superconducting global circuits.

These concepts are not too different from the recent "supergrid" projects proposed by the Irish wind firm, Airtricity, for Europe.  This would also move wind energy from place to place dynamically as the winds provided and the load demanded.

The bigger question is do we want more interconnectedness (and thus potential for large scale disruption when things don't work right) or do we want more decentralization with less potential for disruption but also less potential for economies of scale and sharing the natural wealth as it has been distributed.   Most likely a mixed model will serve us the best although the bias should be for decentralized where possible, imo. 

A Supergrid for Europe - Technology Review - March 15, 2006

"Last month a Dublin-based wind-farm developer, Airtricity, and Swiss engineering giant ABB began promoting a bold solution to the continent's power grid bottlenecks: a European subsea supergrid running from Spain to the Baltic Sea, in which high-voltage DC power lines link national grids and deliver power from offshore wind farms. When the wind is blowing over a wind farm on the supergrid, the neighboring cables would carry its power where most needed. When the farms are still, the cables will serve a second role: opening up Europe's power markets to efficient energy trading."

A Power Grid for the Hydrogen Economy - Scientific American - July 2006

"By transporting the two together, the grid would serve both as a pipeline and as an energy store. For example, every 70-kilometer section of Super-Cable containing 40-centimeter-diameter pipes filled with liquid hydrogen would store 32 gigawatt-hours of energy. That is equivalent to the capacity of the Raccoon Mountain reservoir, the largest pumped hydroelectric facility in the U.S."

"The Global Energy Grid is the World Game's Highest Priority Objective"  -  R. Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller on the Global Energy Grid - GENI Newsletter - Second Quarter - 1995

"I have summarized my discovery of the option of humanity to become omnieconomically and sustainably successful on our planet while phasing out forever all use of fossil fuels and atomic energy generation other than the Sun. I have presented my plan for using our increasing technical ability to construct high-voltage, superconductive transmission lines and implement an around-the-world electrical energy grid integrating the daytime and nighttime hemispheres, thus swiftly increasing the operating capacity of the world's electrical energy system and, concomitantly, living standard in an unprecedented feat of international cooperation." - Cosmosgraphy, 1993, Fuller and Kuromiya

Girding Up For the Power Grid - Wired -  14 June 01

"New high-voltage DC applications developed by the institute are also serving to make good interfaces between grids. HVDC bridges can act as filters, allowing previously incompatible systems to be linked together, and preventing power disturbances on either side from propagating to the other.

Last summer, EPRI opened a link between grids in Texas and Mexico - a small step toward the global network of energy envisioned by Buckminster Fuller as "the final goal of the World Game."