Closer to home, the California Solar Initiative plans to bring thousands of new solar energy systems online during the next 10 years -- each of which represents a new node on the global network. We are creating a new market segment of 'pro-sumers' - energy producers during the daytime and consumers at night. This will launch a new industry to supply equipment and software for managing this energy and tracking renewable energy transactions.
Imagine an energy version of 'Napster." We're talking about peer-to-peer energy trading where a solar homeowner in San Jose can capture kilowatts from the sun - and sell them to a homeowner in Shanghai -instantaneously. That's the future.
The concept of a global energy network was first proposed by Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller - the inventor of the geodesic dome, among other things - at a series of simulation workshops called the "World Games," conducted in the 1970's. As Fuller and his students pointed out during the World Games, electricity is the basis of our modern standard of living but even today, almost 2 billion people do not have access to any electricity. As a result, 18,000 children die from preventable starvation every day - that's about equal to the enrollment of Stanford University - every single day.
The vision offered by a global energy network is a reduction in poverty and hunger, a way to stabilize population growth, to turn back the clock on global warming and phase out fossil fuels. while increasing trade, cooperation and peace between nations.
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Michael Powers is VP, Sales & Marketing and co-founder of Stellar Solar LLP, which supplies PV solar energy systems in San Diego. In 2001, he helped launch The Home Depot's national solar energy program. He serves on the board of Global Energy Network Institute, a non-profit organization he has avidly supported since 1986. Contact him: michael@terrawatts.com
http://www.terrawatts.com
http://www.geni.org
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