Superhierachies are being augmented if not displaced by supernetworks (e.g., the Internet) for coordinating the world's work and development. The so-called Big Three met in 1945 in Yalta and were said to have divided up much of post-war Europe triggering a cold war that ended nearly half a century later. Gone now are world wars, the cold war, and dependence on hierarchies that fostered them. Superhierarchies died when superpowers became obsolete. Enter supernetworks.
Networks are emerging as (re)new(ed) organizational forms supporting devolution of power in decentralizing ways that are not well understood but are nonetheless compelling. Information networking through interactive mass media and networked computers is but the tip of the networking iceberg. Decisions are better made by "nodes" in networks, not "cogs" immeshed in hierarchies. Knowledge is power. So is energy power. New knowledge of networking promises to empower us all. This is not just a play on words. Energy drove the industrial era. Knowledge is driving the new era, which can best be depicted as the networking era. Networking is transforming industry and energy as well as politics and people.
"Power" is ambiguous, but "political power" and "electrical power" both are being transformed by networking. Centralized and concentrated fossil fuels dominated the field of energy for the first half of the last century, while nuclear power dominated the second half. Numerically that century ends on 31 December 2000, when Chernobyl's infamous nuclear power plant is due to close.
The supersonic Concorde has just been grounded. Perhaps "small is beautiful" somehow will prove to be true in the new century, the new millenium -- thanks perhaps to how networking emerges to transform/decentralize all sorts of power. Ukraine, the home of Chernobyl, and its autonomous ("decentralized") republic of Crimea, with its southernmost port, Yalta, propose to empower power producers.
How? Network small(er) producers of power -- ranging:
Networked power produced at homes and farms could make that estimate seem small.
In between those "farm" extremes are solar energy panels on Crimea's sanitoria and hotels. These tourism facilities, key to Crimea's economy, need power and water, obtained and heated by similar energy needed to generate electricity. The power grid becomes decentralized as each node supplies excess power when sunny or windy and then drawing stored or networked power when not. Rural electrification of the industrial era destroyed farmer windmills in the US, while the networking era may bring them back first in the former USSR -- in Ukraine's Crimea's Yalta, where both Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to retire.
Conditions are not only right; people here are ready to lead this effort. Yalta wants to create a "high profile" wind farm -- as both a power producer and a new attraction in scientific tourism -- beside Ay Petry, its highest peak, along a wide ridge where winds blow constantly. Also Crimean coasts make Ukraine second only to Norway in shallow water areas that are suitable for large wind farms.
Four hours from Yalta on the Black Sea is Crimea's Schelkino on the Azov Sea. There wind energy and solar energy experiments are on display -- beside working oil wells, nearby geothermal resources, large gas deposits, and an incompleted nuclear power plant abandoned when new seismic studies revealed it to be unsafe. The city was built three decades ago to build that nuclear power plant, and the energy experts who stayed there were allocated 9 million hryvnias by Ukraine for developing an alternative energy center to gather information, prepare technical specifications, select wind farm and other energy sites, engineer designs, test and certify sites, and, most of all, to exhibit, advertise, and market a wide range of alternative energy technologies -- e.g., 10 - 500,000 kw windmills. Economic hardtimes in Ukraine have delayed this program. A Yalta-Schelkino consortium now proposes to obtain from foreign sources some of what is needed to complete that center and a web site and to engineer Yalta's wind farm to begin:
a new millennium of globally networked power
The first three modern windmills in Ukraine were installed in 1993. In 1994, one million kw-hours were generated. Now 60 of those operate in one Crimea location, while five other wind plant sites have been developed in Ukraine, which manufactures the equipment under joint ventures with American and German companies. This may prove to be an area where Ukriane may lead globally. It would be fitting, since Ukraine burst into global consciousnous with Chernobyl.
Networking of dispersed power sources, such as in sanitoria/hotels and on small farms, needs to be studied and understood, since the small windmills for farms, as proposed above, could nearly double power output in most areas of Ukraine.
Come to where the Big Three met and see how a little new history is being made -- in this PowerFUL Peninsula -- in Crimea, a GLOBAL STEPPING STONE. Attend seminars on how foreign investors can benefit from Crimea's trade zones while supporting economic development of tourism, agriculture and energy sites:
These seminars are sponsored by Yalta's Crimean Tourism Development Center (CTDC), Nikita Botanical Gardens, and the Tavrichesky Consulting Group, which helped develop trade zone laws and energy development plans. The United States Peace Corps is supporting these seminars, in which a few of its volunteers are participating. Phone (380-654)32-4243 or mailto:ctdcyalt@mail.ylt.crimea.com.
Crimean trade zones/red & wind regions/white |
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Where Ukraine is in Europe |
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How to get to CTDC in Yalta Fly or take train to Simferopol, then take a bus or taxi to Yalta center. CTDC is on the third floor of the Crimea Hotel. The seaport of Yalta is a major cruise ship destination. Weekly boats go to and from Instanbul in Turkey, arriving in Yalta Monday mornings. 
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In the above map on the left, two outlined red regions are the new Crimean trade zones that offer incentives for development of new energy. The best way to understand what is now being proposed is to consider the meaning of five white regions depicted on that map, relating to I-V in the list below:
I. Double current capactiy to 100+ windmills in Donuzlav and export experience.
II. Develop 100+ windmills in Schelkino and alternative energy research centers.
III. Develop 100+ windmills on mountains & an energy marketing center in Yalta.
IV. Lease 10,000+ smaller windmills networked on farms and reform Crimea laws.
V. Extend windmills (100+ large, 10,000+ small) in the rest of southern Ukraine.
VI. Extend windmills (100+ large, 100,000+ small) around the rest of Ukraine.
VII. Via scientific tourism, the Web & mass media promote Ukraine as an example.
VIII. Make alternative energy equipment one of Ukraine's future global exports.
IX. Introduce new decentralized network technolgies for power distribution.
X. Counter the infamous Chernobyl accident with new Ukrainian energy leadership.
We have not yet targeted grant organizations, so we can not say how much we may raise -- except to say it may be in the $30,000 to $3,000,000 range. Implementation of what is outlined above would require more -- in the $6 million to $6 billion range, but it is expected that would be sought from foreign investors rather than from grants. Future PCVs specializing in business development and ecology might help by being placed potentially in one or more of the five agencies (i-v) below that correspod to Tasks I-V above:
i. the Dunuzlav wind plant that includes 53 wind turbines in weastern Crimea
ii. an eastern Crimea holiday hotel that is developing an energy research center
iii. Yalta's Nikita Botanical Garden or Crimea's Tourism Development Center
iv. Simferopol's Center of Investment Attraction, Crimea Chamber of Commerce
v. Kiev's US Peace Corps or another agency to chair Ukrainian-wide consortium
In effect, Peace Corps volunteerism represents matching in-kind support for what may now be proposed -- partially in response to the US and Ukraine having agreed to closing the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in December 2000.
Ideas regarding this energy proposal should please be emailed to energy.TOPIC@co.net, which you may also join (to receive other information on this project and related ideas) by sending blank electronic mail to energy.JOIN@co.net, to which you would get an automatic confirmation as well as further introductory information about this topic.
| ©:2000 by Nikita Botanical Gardens | Last update: 27 September 2000 | hstevens@smig.net |