Reply #39: Fuller's grid was feasible with 1960's technology (1500 mile transmission lines)

[bananas]

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/geni/rh2000ge.htm

The potential impact and importance of R. Buckminster Fuller's vision of a Global Energy Grid
by Russell D. Hoffman
Spring, 2000

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(2) Historic perspective:

When Bucky originally conceived his idea, energy could be transmitted only about 350 miles, roughly the distance from Boston to Washington, D. C.. At further distances the financial losses caused by the electrical resistance in the wires became too substantial.

The electrical energy transmission industry traditionally considers 15% or 20% loss to be the limit of cost-effective transmission. That was about 350 miles when Bucky thought of the idea for the grid -- making it totally unfeasible at the time.

(3) Technological feasibility reached in the 1960's:

Then, around 1960, Bucky saw that energy could be transmitted cost-effectively (according to industry standards) about 1500 miles, making the idea technologically workable. From then on, the only things holding back Bucky's idea for a Global Energy Grid have been complacency (unwillingness to change from the way we currently do things) and ignorance about the idea (most people still have never heard of it).

When the 1500 mile transmission capability was reached, Bucky began to design the grid itself, that would actually carry the loads, looking at where the population centers are, and where the renewable energy resources are, and what would be needed to connect the two. He also looked into energy-producing equipment that right now produces wasted energy during part of each day, or is shut down, due to the daily cyclic fluctuations of energy needs in a city or geographic area. He wanted to see where that lost energy could be delivered -- where to make the connections so the lost energy could be given to a far away city which was at that time using more energy than their average daily load, during business hours, for instance. For there are not many good ways to store energy. Use it before you lose it. (Pumping water to a high height, then letting it drop through a turbine generator, is still one of the most common energy-storage methods used by humans, but even with very good pumps to raise the water and turbines to turn it back into electricity, it's not very efficient.)

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