Alternative History Eco Project

Matt Jones has posted an essay about what it might take to transform the world’s energy production, and whether China will become a new green superpower. In the midst of the essay is a link to The Golden Institute :

Another friend, Sascha Pohflepp, just graduated from the Royal College of Art with a fascinating project illustrating a counter-factual history where Jimmy Carter won against Ronald Reagan, and gave us a 1980s where the arms race was transmuted into an energy race; where a fictional government agency –“The Golden Institute” (2), turns Nevada into a weather lab and Vegas into an array of gaudy lightning catchers that supply the USA with power; where the kiloton energies of thunderstorms are engineered with silver-iodide balloons, and giant gyroscopes near the North Pole harness the world’s rotation to keep the lights on in the West, while slowing down the Earth just enough to make the days longer in the USA than Russia…

The page for the project has pictures of architectural mock-ups and an alternative history video.

Great optimistic Science Fiction, told in a non-traditional manner.