"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 ... 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." 
-- Nobel Laureate, Vice President Al Gore

TerraWatts
New Power for the Planet
 
There is a new world wide web emerging right before our eyes.

It is a global energy network and, like the internet, it will change our culture, society and how we do business.  More importantly, it will alter how we use, transform and exchange energy.

Enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year.

There is no energy supply problem, there is an energy distribution problem -- and the emerging solution is a new world wide web of electricity.
 
Summary: "New World Wide Web -- Key to Fighting Climate Change"

The articles, reports and presentations listed below describe
the emergence of this new global energy network and are organized into several sections:

  • recent presentations by the author
  • resources supplied by Global Energy Network Institute (GENI) and
  • background on current Smart Grid efforts, which are integral to transforming the global energy network.
Finally, there are links to changes in the electric utility industry,  the deployment of solar energy and other renewable energy resources, which are helping to fuel changes in the market for decentralized electricity.
  • Current News
  • Renewable & Alternative Energy News (Updated Daily)

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  • World Economic Forum - Energy Strategy Meeting, May 10, 2007
  • Speaker Notes
  • Global Energy Grid Slides
  • Biographical Notes - Michael Powers

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  • Stanford University Energy Conference, March 3, 2007
  • Stanford University SAID Presentation on Global Energy Network (3/3/07 - .pdf format)
  • News Release: "New World Wide Web" Key to Fighting Climate Change says expert

    •  
  • Global Energy Network Institute
  • Making the World Work for 100% of Humanity: Responding to 9/11
  • GENI: The Global Energy Network Institute
  • Spontaneous Cooperation: Overview of Interconnection Projects Now Underway
  • My Endorsement of the Global Energy Grid by Walter Cronkite
  • "There is no energy crisis; there is a crisis of ignorance" (GENI video) 
  • Electricity in Africa: the Dark Continent Economist.com
  • Links to Discussions on Smart Grid & Transmission Backbone Issues
  • Superconducting Cable Technology for Renewable Energy Transmission (.pdf - WIREC 2008)
  • Enabling Renewable Energy with a Robust Grid (.pdf - WIREC 2008)
  • WIRES: Working Group for Investment in Reliable and Economic Electric Systems
  • A National Perspective: Allocating the Costs of New Transmission Investment(.pdf) (2007)
  • Integration of Renewable Resources California ISO Report (.pdf) (Nov. 2007)
  • SuperPower plans for amazing future (superconductivity) Albany Times Union, March 4, 2007
  • Powering Up the Smart Grid A Special Report from Climate Solutions, July 2005
  • UN Report: Multi-Dimensional Issues in Int'l. Electric Power Grid Interconnections (2005)
  • Transmission: The Critical Link National Grid White Paper (.pdf) (2005)
  • "Plugging in the Consumer" - IBM Report on Innovating Utility Business Models for the Future
  • 2007 IBM Consumer Survey on Energy Expectation

    •  
  • Green Power Superhighways (SEIA Report - Jan. 2009)
  • The Electricity Economy - New Opportunities from Transformation of the Electric Power Sector (Aug. 2008)
  • Smart Lines: Transmission for the Renewable Energy Economy (.pdf)
  • The Emerging Electranet
  • Bob Metcalfe's "Enernet" presentation (July, 2008)
  • Galvin Electricity Initiative
  • Global Smart Energy
  • Smart Grid Newsletter
  • GridWise Alliance
  • Conference Report, Super Grids 1 and 2, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Microgrids as peer-to-peer energy BBC, 2005
  • Transforming the Electric Infrastructure by Clark Gellings and Kurt Yeager, 2004
  • Followup: Transforming the Electric Infrastructure Physics Today, 2004
  • Building Tomorrow's Supergrid EnergyBiz Magazine, Sept 2006
  • A Power Grid for the Hydrogen Economy Scientific American, June 2006
  • Building a Smarter Power Grid Technology Review, 2001
  • The Energy Web: Reinventing the Electrical Grid for the 21st Century Wired Magazine, 2001
  • High -Temperature Superconducting Transmission Lines: An Overview

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  • Global Energy Grids and Electric Utilities Around the World
  • DESERTEC Project: Clean Power from Deserts (White Paper)
  • Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC)
  • TREC UK
  • Russia Plans World's Largest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska Bloomberg.com
  • Gov. Walter Hickel's Report to Bering Strait Tunnel Conference Moscow, April 2007
  • Bering Strait Tunnel Project
  • AEP Interstate Vision: Transmission Backbone for Integration of Wind Energy
  • Future Global Energy Prosperity: The Terawatt Challenge Richard E. Smalley
  • Global Power: The Electric Hypergrid New Scientist Magazine, 1995
  • Global electric ‘power highways’ could become a force for peace
  • "Why War? Why Not Big Projects?" Walter Hickel's Address to UN NGO Conference
  • The Baltic Ring: a Common Electricity Market in the Baltic Sea Region
  • The East-West Energy Bridge: Pacific Rim Intertie
  • Electric Utilities: A Changing Industry, An Instrument of Change
  • Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs"

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  • Solar Power on a Global Level
  • Solar Thermal Electricity as the Primary Replacement for Coal and Oil in U.S. (.pdf - 2008)
  • Solar Thermal as the Plausible Basis for Grid Supply (.pdf - 2007)
  • Solar Electric Home Energy Systems: A Typical Installation
  • Solar Electric Home: Live Readings from Operating System (Enphase Microinverter)
  • Solar Electric Home: Live Readings from Opererating System (SunPower Monitor)
  • "People Power - The End of Big Generators"
  • How Much PV Area Needed to Equal U.S.Electricity Production?
  • Stellar Solar Home Page
  • BP Solar's program with The Home Depot
  • Other Valuable Energy Links
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    1 Terawatt = 1 trillion watts
    3.327 TW = average daily power consumption of the U.S. in 2001
    13.5 TW = average daily power consumption of the world in 2001
    174,000 TW = average daily supply of energy to Planet Earth
    Every day, Earth receives
    12,000 times as much energy
    as civilization uses.

    "The electrical system supporting life on planet Earth is analogous to computer technology circa 1980... dominated by mainframes, with PC's barely on the horizon and only a rudimentary network in place.

    The next World Wide Web will be a Global Energy Grid
    -- and it will transform everything.

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