In this paper we discuss the background to the problems of finding effective flow properties when moving from a detailed representation of reservoir geology to a coarse gridded model required for reservoir performance simulation. In so doing we synthesize the pictures of permeability and transmissibility and show how they may be used to capture the effects of the boundary conditions on the upscaling. These same concepts are applied to the renormalization method of calculating permeability, to show its promise as an accurate, yet fast method.