No easy fix for storm power outages - Trapped by Infrastructure?

Although this submission draws inspiration from the extended power outage… “No easy fix for eastern US storm power outages as heat wave persists…” which goes on to say…

“In the aftermath of violent storms that knocked out power to millions from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic, sweltering residents and elected officials are demanding to know why it’s taking so long to restring power lines and why they’re not more resilient in the first place.

The answer, it turns out, is complicated: Above-ground lines are vulnerable to lashing winds and falling trees, but relocating them underground involves huge costs — as much as $15 million per mile of buried line — and that gets passed onto consumers.

With memories of other extended outages fresh in the minds of many of the nearly 900,000 customers who still lacked electricity Wednesday, some question whether the delivery of power is more precarious than it used to be.”

It did get me thinking about how… in the past hundred years,  decisions made a century ago have pinned us down… in that “original significant infrastructure” designs back then have played a huge roll in preventing forward looking innovation due to “modern refinements” having to comply to existing and very old infrastructure design.

A few examples…

Above ground power distribution.
Sever weather invariably has disastrous effect – alternative – underground distribution, now too expensive to convert – prevented innovation, wireless distribution.

Railroad tracks
Still the same gauge and basic configuration. – alternative – much more efficient trains and running surfaces, now too expensive to convert.

Automobile highways
Modern traffic faces the fact of closing speeds in the triple digit speed range, narrowly passing oncoming traffic. Thousands are killed or maimed daily.

Even technology of a hundred years ago is still prevalent, The Wright brothers first powered aircraft is still easily recognizable as the prototype of “modern aircraft,” as too is the internal combustion engine, steam generators, and most other motive power systems.

The question being I suppose…. has the energy of potential human ingenuity by and large been expended on refining hundred year old innovation rather than introducing break through strategies which would have moved us out of the ancient and now sorely inadequate infrastructure trap we find ourselves in?

I know many will say, “What about all the marvelous electronic and medical and pharmaceutical and chemical and nuclear discoveries we have made in the past few decades?”

This is very true, the appearance of much “modern” discovery is of great advancement, yet it still all has the hallmarks of refinement rather than innovation.

For instance “sickness” is still epidemic in proportion – not getting sick would be preferable to a million expensive and debilitating ways to manage sicknesses.

Communications have improved, but has seemed to set the world into a “lock down”  mode of terror and intrusion or a mode of constant marketing bombardment.

Utensils and tools are lighter and stronger but a plastic spoon is still a spoon.

“We” (a few dozen) are in space, but does that go beyond novelty or does the collective benefit mightily in some way? (Better spoons exempted)

What seems to be missing is a way “Humanity” can apply “modern advancement” beyond the desire for convenience or a way to effectively “weaponize” innovation.

Aftermath of production and disposal of “throw away technologies or short lived solutions” now commands a lions share of innovative energy.

We are now literally drowning in our own industrial effluents and spending Trillions to find a way to unwind ourselves from reckless and short-sighted application of “WOW” innovation, most of which is used to accommodate rather trivial ends.

Certainly a small percentage of grubbing banksters, elitist corporate shirts and politico’s have benefited immensely from the model described… but by and large humanity itself  is backed up against the wall of exclusion, marginalization and indeed survival on many levels.

It is not all bad of course, but if our “far-sight” matched our “hind-sight” I am pretty sure most of it would have remained on the drawing boards. The same could be said for “our” ability to see beyond the obvious.

Or, is it our inability to refuse the urgings of self-anointed authority?

One could lose faith in the actual “intelligence” displayed by humanity in the wild, and I would have problems defending that.

Cause of death – Science

Stay tuned…

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