Let's see what Bucky had to say:
Quote:
Mankind now has enough knowledge to be able to invent our way into a future of plenty. We are just not aware of the fact that we now have that possibility. According to the engineers, the world's industrial system is now operating at only about four percent efficiency, but it could easily be improved to an average of twelve percent. In other words, all we have to do is start using already existing inventions and stop being so wasteful!
Ok. That sounds great, but having two or three times as much wealth would not do much good if the world's population keeps growing. Luckily, it just so happens that as industrialization increases, the global birth rate decreases. As the amount of energy per person increases, the birth rate decreases, so that if the world is completely industrialized by about the year 2025, the total population should peak at about 8 billion & then start declining.
Therefore, if we only double the average efficiency we could easily take care of the world's present one billion poor (the other four billion are already "making it" now). And if we triple the efficiency we could not only take care of any future population growth, but dramatically raise everyone's standard of living.
|
Ecomod society!
From the article at
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER'S GRAND STRATEGY
FOR SOLVING GLOBAL PROBLEMS.
Here he is on power grids:
Quote:
|
We now have the know-how to connect together all the world's electrical generating plants. That one project would almost double the amount of energy available in the world because right now most generating plants run at about half capacity & use the other half for peak demand only. By interconnecting they could all swap power (especially between the light & dark sides of the earth) and therefore be run at almost peak capacity most of the time--without building any new generating plants.
|
Arragonis -- Is that you in the profile pic, or Isambard Kingdom Brunel ?