What does electrifying the world really mean?
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Protection against
Osama Bin Ladens?
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First a Marshall Plan for
the entire world

As important as electricity has been in the 20th century, says EPRI CEO Kurt Yeager, it will be infinitely more important in this one, but that depends on innovation.
     "Electricity and innovation go hand-in-hand," he said of this century since our challenge today is too many people with too little power.
     He sees grave dangers in the world unless everyone has access to at least a modest amount of electricity.
     "Civilizations and basically all living species ultimately depend on energy.
     They die -- whether it's anthills or human civilizations -- when their populations exceed their access to energy.
     "We are rapidly approaching a world of 9-10 billion people," he forecast, with some 2 billion without access to electricity now.
     He envisions that number's growing -- "at the rate we're going" -- to 4 billion without access to any electricity by the middle of this century.
     That many people without access to any economic opportunity, "is a pretty scary prospect" producing fertile fields for the Bin Ladens of the world ... [with] tremendous urban concentrations of super under-privileged throughout the developing world and that is not a ustainable future," he said in an interview.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:  We have to come up with a portfolio of power sources that will -- as cleanly and efficiently as possible -- satisfy the energy needs of a world of 10 billion people and we've got to get on with that.  As much as I trust that renewable energy may be our most important energy source, in this century I can't bet on that.

"I'm much more concerned about the 'temperature' of the human climate than I am anything else," noted Yeager, referring to global warming as the major concern driving the switch to renewable energy.
     "When you start analyzing the problems, you really can't get at the fundamental issues that create tensions and major global security issues until people have opportunity in this world.
     Yeager is in favor of spreading democracy but before doing that you have to create infrastructure and economic opportunities that in some parts of the world simply don't exist.
     He envisions a Marshall Plan for the world.
     He remembers his parents grumbling about bailing out Europeans but believes in hindsight it was a "brilliant" thing to do.
     The US has "prospered tremendously from that strategic investment," and as the world leader he would like to see that sort of investment on a global basis.
     Yeager doesn't mean "to bankroll the world" since it's not altruism he's proposing but enlightened self interest.
He calls a public-private partnership around electricity and around strategic investment in this country and elsewhere, absolutely essential.
     "Every source of energy today can be improved dramatically, whether it's nuclear, coal, gas or renewable -- we are going to need them all and as much of them as we can possibly get.
     Yeager at EPRI fostered and is most proud of the Energy Technology Roadmap (www.epri.com/roadmap/).
     The roadmap study revealed that we're not at the beginning of the end but at the end of the beginning of opportunities, he told RT.
     Its bottom-line message is that we're running out of time and not putting emphasis on the development of this portfolio of energy sources that are going to be needed to electrify the world.
     Yeager has written an as-yet unpublished paper, Electricity and the Human Prospect on the "thermodynamics of history" and how civilizations have all foundered when they failed to meet their energy challenges.
     "They died [from the] inside out because people were not getting the benefits of what it was costing them to maintain their energy system.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  What we are doing today in terms of propping up an oil regime is certainly very similar to what earlier civilizations did that led them to fail.  It's highly loaded with entropy and it's going to do us in if we don't get off of it.

Entropy here means the drive of natural systems -- such as the universe -- to use up their energy until they reach inert uniformity.
     Yeager looks forward to what he calls an electro-hydrogen economy using electrolysis to turn water into fuel and is concerned about the hype, headlines and promises he doesn't believe are supported by technical or economic realities.
     "We are looking at a process that will take us at least 50 years to reach a level of large scale commercial viability of such a vision and only if we are committed to doing it.
     "We always are looking for instant gratification in everything we do in this society and that's one of our fatal flaws," he cautioned.
     Patient investment in the future not immediate consumption -- is what we have to do and we're going to have to provide a certain amount of our marginal incomes for investment into creating this kind of a future.
     While the outcome is uncertain, Yeager believes an alternative to giving our best effort doesn't exist.
And investment in DG?
     "Tremendous potential," he replied, and not just gas-fired fuel cells, microturbines and big windmill fields but photovoltaics on rooftops.
     They won't replace the centralized power system "but 25% or more of our power can probably ultimately come from these distributed sources over the next 20 to 25 years.
     He urged the industry to see distributed power as an asset rather than a liability on the power system but seeing that "depends again on our transformation to a digital infrastructure.
     He's not amused by power sources that go on and off because they're simply not dispatchable.
     Since the industry can't plan for them "you have to build backup power.
     "It sounds great to build a megawatt of windmills but if I have to go out and build a megawatt gas turbine behind it, that's not a very useful thing to do if I'm running the gas turbine as much as I am the windmills.
     Yeager uses the analogy of an imaginary railroad where it takes 10 days to open or close a switch. Not many trains would get through.
     "That's basically what we have in electricity.
     The "10 days" in the analogy relates to the speed of a switch on the grid opening or closing relative to the speed of light the open or close command travels at.
     A digital switch would move at the speed of light.
     Sending a digital message to the switch doesn't make it a digital grid, noted Yeager.
     Until the grid has a digital system with instantaneous management, DG "will always be a trivial contributor and one that will to a large extent be viewed as a liability on the power system".
     Advice on who to talk with?
     Talk with your kids "and in my case my the grandkids" to find out how the new industry should be created, Yeager advised.
     They were born with a computer and are interested in more than "just keeping the lights on," he reminded.
     "If this industry doesn't offer it, someone else will," and Yeager would see that as a tremendous shame and lost opportunity "for the industry and more importantly for the nation if we don't get on with beginning to recognize that the new generation has got a whole different set of expectations."
     Is Yeager really going to retire.
     "Cold-turkey is probably not the way I want to go," he replied, so he's looking forward to staying "engaged in these topics.
     He joined EPRI in 1974.
     He was named the Technology Policy Leader for Energy last year by Scientific American.
     How will he caution his replacement, Steven Specker?
     His message is that EPRI is a collaborative research organization operating as a public-private partnership.
     "Our first function is to provide the most objective and credible scientific and technical development possible not to replace but to augment the supplier and the community.
     "Our job is to be as absolutely credible as possible."
     EPRI needs to create incentives "for the development and transfer-to-application of the science and technology that will make electricity the most vital resource for man that it possibly can be."
     "Even in a competitive industry, collaboration is a very vital tool," he said.
     Published in Restructuring Today on September 1, 2004.

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