Abstract – In this paper it is discussed about wind turbines (utilities) as an innovation which could with its success influence other renewable energy technologies, sustainable development in general and enforce people to reexamine how society and economy function.

I. INTRODUCTION. Wind energy utilities are a radical innovation. As such, they must be approached differently than usual technological innovation, from many aspects. There is not a clear vision how much will they be present percentage-wise as a source of electrical energy (or it is too moderate [1]), but the urgency of situation (peak oil, environmental problems) forces people to develop and use them as much as possible. In this paper wind turbines are approached through complexity of their surrounding, their possibility to set the path for development of both other renewable energy technologies and eco-friendly products (and other activities needed to protect and regenerate the environment), and society which can help their development and usage or make it difficult.

In this paper wind energy utilities are observed as an innovation which could influence other renewable energy technologies and the entire idea of sustainable development. They are not only a technology for energy production, but also a possible way to prevent the global society from highly unpredictable behaviour and even collapse. As such, possible reasons for a society to collapse from the point of view of complexity and marginal return are also analyzed here. The penetration of wind energy production needs to grow even under ever-changing and possibly chaotic circumstances.

The title is inspired by the book “Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas” by Richard Ogle. It could also be “Extended Mind” (Andy Clark, David Chalmers) but the “smart world” concept seems to be wider. The Extended Mind (tools, symbols and tricks that help us to remember and create) is a subset of the Smart World. Your individual consciousness is also a subset of the Smart World, just like a cell of a bigger brain. The “new science of ideas” doesn’t mean to develop and use ideas in a new way, but to see ideas, creativity and applications from a different angle.

What makes the world smart? First of all, we are not independent thinking entities. We are influenced by our genes, education, parents and acquaintances. Even “worse”, we are indirectly influenced by people we’ve never met. There is a hypothesis that six degrees of separation or less separates you from any other person in the world. Similarly, people you meet are influenced by people or events which you’ll possibly never meet. We’ve been a collective thinking entity influencing each other like some kind of a hologram no matter whether we are aware of that or not.

Besides of other people (and intelligent animals), there is an important nonliving component of the smartness of the world. Any tool, book, notebook, media, multimedia or anything interesting can become an extension of our consciousness. These extensions can help us remember, remind, create or think outside the box. Anything that enhances our minds is in a way conscious. It’s up to us to try to maximize the usage of these tools. We probably don’t use networks and other people’s ideas and data as much as we could.

The last but not the least component of the Smart World mentioned here are tipping points. After reaching a tipping point, a system faces a sudden change into a new equilibrium state. If an emerging idea needs to reach its full capacity, adequate circumstances need to be present in the rest of the (smart or not so smart) world.

In order to make the world smarter, it’s not enough to do some quality thinking. It is also important whom and what we use to help us think and create. In a world of increasingly complicated challenges, we shall have one chance to try and succeed or fail. In the meantime, it would be nice for us to properly perceive the world as a place full of tools, networks, opportunities, surprises, inspiration, information and knowledge. Let yourself be positively surprised.

It’s a big task to collectively create a smarter world. If a person has a good radical idea, his/her hands are tied not just because he/she needs other people for development and implementation of the idea, but also to persist. No one wants to be a tortured genius. We feel more comfortable near the warmth of our herd even when something must be done. You need the community to inspire, encourage and help you. You need to use networks, ad hoc teams and sources of information and inspiration as much as you can. We must be aware of the challenges and opportunities in front of us. We must remind each other that the situation is urgent (actually, considering the inertia, anything within an average human lifespan is urgent) and encourage and be encouraged by other people to stay on the track of thinking and doing things more sustainably. This task can’t be done without the first step.

I am a PhD student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Niš, Serbia. I shall go to the ICEST Conference in Niš. I am trying during my PhD studies to work on something between renewable energy technologies and technologies needed for a more efficient connection between energy production and consumption. It has started solely as an improvisation. Nothing would have happened without this meshwork. It has forced me to think more in this direction. Also, I’ve been receiving some feedback from its members and also from other people. It works fine for me.

These days I found out there is a scientific project very similar to my interests. Its name is “Development of new information and communication technologies, based on advanced mathematical methods, with applications in medicine, telecommunications, power systems, protection of national heritage and education”. Here are links related to it:  http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/projects/projects.htm (Interdisciplinary), http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/projects/044006r.htm (the researchers) and http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/projects/044006e.htm (the description). These links will probably be active as long the project is. Due to its interdisciplinary nature I didn’t find it earlier. It’s been there all the time. I’ve sent e-mail messages to people in charge and now I am waiting for response. If it turns out as I hope, I shall be more active in this meshwork. My idea had started out of thin air and my activities in this meshwork and somehow it started taking shape.

Out of existing technologies, some of them are not being used as much as they should and some are still inventions waiting to become (sold and implemented) innovations. Also, a more sustainable approach (renewable energy, organic agriculture, local exchange of goods and global exchange of ideas) can consume a lot of money, time and human enthusiasm in comparison to a more careless attitude. It is not always wise to care about the future in a highly competitive global environment.

This is the moment in history with the fastest development in science and technology. Based upon previous experience, there is a good reason to believe that science and technology can solve many problems. Still, we cannot know for sure whether this will always be the case. In order to deal with peak oil, science and technology should focus on replacements for oil in agriculture (soil fertility), raw materials and energy. It can be challenging to develop these new technologies especially because it's uncertain what can really be done with the existing knowledge and resources on this planet. Also, peak oil is a very abstract phenomenon before it happens. It is complicated to fight an imaginary problem with imaginary solutions.

The same term of product lifecycle management can be used in marketing and production. Marketing is more focused on economic growth and problems and production is focused on solutions. These are two different approaches sharing the same world. Marketing encourages competition (isolated silos - recycle and interact with the rest of the world only if you must) and innovations for maximization of profit (more profit allows more new investments and chances for development). It feeds on consumerism and a constant lack of satisfaction with previous generations of the product (only new technologies are competitive and good for "cheating" while calculating the GDP growth). Profit can indeed be used for investments in development of new technologies (and implementation of those that already exist), but under the paradigm of constant competition and growth there is never enough profit. Also, the growth has its limits on a limited world.

When peak oil appears and hits the root of global economy and society, it will never go away. It will be just becoming increasingly tough. The whole story about peak oil can be applied to any natural resource. Actually, the challenge of limited natural resources (raw materials, infrastructure, urban vs. rural) will happen within a single lifetime of our generation. So, to existing technologies, new technologies and product lifecycle management, one must add the human component. Competition, monetary equivalents of value, specialization and growth (population and economy) are good as long as they serve human needs. The system should support people and not the other way round. An alternative approach to getting things done is possible unless proven opposite.

Even when the solution is at least partially visible, it can be challenging to implement it. The unsustainable approach to business as accumulating profit (power, influence, connections...) and the gap between rich and poor people is still growing. Even if corporations wanted to change their direction, their competition and stakeholders wouldn't easily allow them to do so. This is exactly the situation (stretching careless behaviour and debts to the limit) that has caused the financial crisis. Perhaps the crawling financial crisis will slow down the pace of global competition and become a chance for new approaches.

There is peak oil. Peak oil is an event after which becomes increasingly complicated to dig out more oil. It is a point of no return. Oil is being used both as a fossil fuel and raw material. It's relatively easier for a limited number of people to earn money on fossil fuels. Also, fertilizers (food production) are made of oil. It's difficult to define priorities, especially because food production and water protection is very complicated profitability-wise. Food production and supply chains may especially be in trouble in big urban areas. It is like moving to the wall (increasingly fast because of global competition) even if it is very probable (if not 100% certain) that we are about to hit it soon. We don't know how soon will it happen (global competition and investments don't allow oil companies to make their limitations public), but we are talking here about a maximum of a decade or two.

Global economy is also too big to fail. It is not only about global competition, but also about covering every person and activity living in developed societies (settlers instead hunters and gatherers) under one big roof of free enterprise. Also, the rich tend to be richer because they have know-how, experience and tradition, experts, investments, connections and habits on their side. Their habits can be especially challenging because luxury and careless behaviour are driving forces of business as usual - they give it a purpose. Also, as long as natural and debt limits are not reached, diversified activities and investments (if they are the best in the world) are good for business because risks are spread across different areas (all eggs are not in one "basket"). If we presume that global corporations (an alternative name for globalization as usual) are indeed too big to fail, what would exactly happen if they failed? When they enter natural markets, they eliminate less competitive companies. Differences between more and less competitive companies are very subtle and sometimes marketing is the only difference. When global corporations (and their investments and the latest know-how) withdraw, there won't be local and national companies ready to replace them.

Competition, new technologies, innovations and interactions are forcing businesses to move increasingly fast. If your business doesn't move fast enough, someone else's will and your business will not be competitive anymore. The difference between innovation and invention is that innovation is accepted and bought by other people. As such, an innovation or a new product must be advertised. Customers need to be convinced that they will be happy only after they have bought the latest product or service. Global economy as usual feeds on consumerism, perpetual unhappiness and large numbers. In this kind of arrangement time intervals between the previous generation of a product and the new one should be increasingly short.

Modern economy relies more on services than on goods. Products are the root of every society, but "everyone" can make them, so global competition doesn't depend much on them. At least things used to work this way with business as usual on a supposedly unlimited planet.

Global population, if growing forever, can become too big to fail. It is probably already too big to fail. Population growth and challenges to control it make more visible the inertia existing in all systems that are too big to fail. Also, how will towns (or even worse large cities)  deal with the modern challenges?

Once the environment is devastated, it can be very complicated to regenerate it. We have forgotten that we are an animal species just like any other. Even worse, we are physically weaker and younger than some of them (crocodiles and mosquitoes have survived many different climate conditions).

So, it seems that climate change belongs to just one out of many too big to fail interconnected systems. Negative outcomes, because of our inertia, look highly improbable even when they aren't. They will look obvious and logical after the tipping point has been reached.

A single person can be an expert for a very specific situation. As circumstances change (and we are living in times of ever-changing circumstances), someone else may be helpful. There should be some kind of ad-hoc and adaptive (Online?) network capable to both behave flexibly and encourage its members. Complex problems should be dealt with complex approaches to solutions. Elected politicians, whoever they are, are a few people out of many. They are elected after their promises ("lies") of the eternal growth. The eternal growth of population and economy is one approach to reality out of many. It's our choice to sacrifice everything, even lives of our children, to that cause or not.

If we presume that natural resources are unlimited, anything opposite to this presumption appears to us as "highly improbable" and unexpected. We can't blame anyone or anything (except our evolutionarily advantageous herd mentality) for our wrong perception. If simple mathematics (simpler than proving that we live on a round planet that moves around the Sun) is enough to prove that spreading the virus of eternal growth and global competition can cause some serious damage, experts can't change the situation by their perception (belonging to the past) and wishful thinking. Bell curves are models of static reality, and our reality is anything but static. Politicians and experts are as much to blame as people who force them to make predictions (as optimistic as possible) and put the real world in "realistic" models and predictions. Only changes are eternal. Our thoughts and hopes can't change anything about this fact.

Since this meshwork is dealing with the "blackest" swans of all (such as climate change and renewable energy - expected, but hard to grasp from past experiences), this whole concept deserves to be observed here more closely.