Infrastructures are the foundation of which our nation’s security, health and economy are built and operate upon. They provide services from an individual level to the national level. Amongst the services they provide are the power we use in our homes (electricity), the water we drink (water and sewage), the transportation that moves us (railways, airports, and seaports), and the communication systems we depend on to communicate with family and friends, as well as, conduct daily business (i.e. internet and telephones). If one of these infrastructures was to become disabled it could send the affected areas back to the Stone Age; meaning it could affect national security, public health, and or safety; slowing daily activities to a crawl.
This report will be focusing on the power grids and how their aging may present a national problem in the immediate future. The 2003 the Northeastern Power Outage displayed how vulnerable our current power grids are and the problems that is associated with them, therefore, gaining independency from a single source of energy in this aspect must be achieved in the future due to restraints that was observed during this incident. Traffic lights became inoperable; sewage did not work due to the lack of electric power, food spoiled because there was not any refrigeration, people was forced to sleep without air condition during extremely high temperatures, and trains that is powered by electricity became stranded on rail lines due to the lack of power. Patching the problem is not a fix; we must explore new technology aimed at providing this service and install it on a national level and expand it into our neighboring countries within the North and South American continent. This type of solution not ...
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...our Mind. Retrieved from http://www.infowars.com/21-facts-about-americas-decaying-infrastructure-that-will-blow-your-mind/.
Thompson, K. (2013). How To Save The Electrical Grid. Popular Science.
U.S. electric customers are now paying 43 percent more to build and maintain local power grids than they did back in 2002. At the same time, t. g. (2013, March 8). Bad news: The U.S. power grid is getting pricier, less reliable. The Washington Post.
United States: The Problem of Aging Infrastructure on Inland Waterways. (2013, November 7). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2013/11/07/united-states-the-problem-of-aging-infrastructure-on-inland-waterways/.
White, Adam. (2013, December 30). Infrastructure Policy: Lessons from American History. Retrieved from http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/infrastructure-policy-lessons-from-american-history.
Do you feel like having power is easy as turning on a light switch to to plugging an appliance into the wall maybe you do but after reading this your opinion might change.This research paper will discuss the idea of barehanding and how to work on energized power lines.
On August 14th, 2003, a major blackout swept across portions of the northeastern United States and Canada. It was reported that a series of equipment outages in the Midwest led to uncontrolled cascading outages of power transmission lines and generators serving parts of the Northeast, Midwest and Canada. Automatic protective systems operated to open circuits and shut down power plants to prevent further spread of the outages. This is very similar to what happened in The Great Northeast Blackout of 1965. In both situations, the “grid system” shut down one generator in line at a time to protect a surge from the station before it.
Central Idea: Nuclear energy only contributes a small amount to the world’s electricity yet it has hazards and dangers that far out-way its benefits. There are many other alternative power producing sources that can produce energy more efficiently and more safely than nuclear power plants can.
On September 9th, 2011, I have personally experienced the massive power outage in Southern California. The blackout, which lasted over 11 hours from the afternoon of the 9th to the morning of the 10th, caused major traffic congestions in Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego. Stop lights and street lights were non-functional, making every intersection a four-way stop. As a safety precaution, officials suspended schools and local universities for one day. That night, suburban residents of San Diego went to bed early, at around 9 o’ clock, because there was no electricity to power the lamp and internet-router which kept people up past sun-down. Consequently, the overall productivity of businesses decreased due to crippled traffic. In a published article from San Diego Union Tribune, the president of the National University System's Institute for Policy Research, estimated a loss of $97 million to $118 million from the loss of productivity in the affected areas (Showley, 2011).
Infrastructure is a key part of modern life; we use it every day without thinking about it, and because of this, it goes neglected. Most people only think about the road that they are driving on when they hit a pothole; infrastructure is invisible, until it breaks. The fact that infrastructure is largely invisible means it gets neglected and abused, it is not an issue most people think about, politicians do not win by talking about it, and any solution in the near term generally requires raising taxes, making the subject more unpopular for the citizenship at large. The longer we ignore our infrastructure problems, the more it will cost to fix, and the more likely it is for a disaster to happen.
Since the advancement of the technology has taken place, the infrastructure should implies more technology to build up a more secure and also environment friendly compound for the citizen so that in the near future, these people will increases the work productivity to support the economic growth in their working place which this will help them to expand the financial status of the country.
...h over one hundred operational power plants that contribute to approximately one fifth of the countries electricity consumption. America is also estimated to be 3 trillion dollars in debt. With the prices to open power plants being over two billion dollars it is easy to understand why America is in debt. It seems that the only negative on a political aspect is the cost.
... line the canal today. The development of the railroad in the 19th century and the automobile in the 20th century sealed the fate of the Erie Canal.
...ional standards. Our Security index remained steady as our control measures met the goal of being proactive enough to prevent, sustain, and repudiate a good amount of cyberattacks. The downtime, unfortunately, was more than we planned. But unlike other sectors, the electrical grid is a more complex system when one area is affected. It often requires isolation of systems to get the components back on line and at full operations range before restoration commences. Isolation can also translate to the significant amount of time to properly re-cycle the systems before it is ready to be integrated into the grid. Lastly, the profit margin is hit when the downtime increases. The profits evaporate in fines paid to the state, and federal entities regulating the energy sector. Also, profits are not being generated when power producing systems are isolated from the grid.
First, we have seen a nation-wide increase in both wholesale and retail electricity prices. In California as an example, the wholesale prices increased seven times last year compared to 1999 (Kahn and Lynch 13). The average residential electric bill almost doubled from $40 to $80 in San Diego when the SDG & E’s retail price freeze ended in June 2000.1 According to Washington Governor Gray Locke, “the whole energy prices have gone up from ten to twenty times the prices of a year ago (1). In New York, more specifically in New York City and parts of Westchester County which are one of the first areas in the country to deregulate retail prices entirely, the retail rates have increased almost 30% (Eisenberg 47). This is bad when you consider that ones that are going to be most hurt from these unreasonably high electricity prices will be the individuals and families that are in the low-income bracket.
Infrastructure is a fundamental component to economic growth and urban life. From the water in our taps to the electricity in our lights, infrastructure is responsible for so much within a city. Infrastructure does not just provide us with our basic needs, it includes our public transit, our schools and even our hospitals. It is the foundation of any great metropolis- including Toronto. The issue with the infrastructure in Toronto, and the rest of Ontario, is that it has not been significantly developed since the 1950’s. In simpler words, in 2015 we, the Ontario people, are living off the infrastructure build by our grandparents. Over the past 50 years, Ontario seems to have lost the connection between infrastructure and development of community,
Palmieri, Nancy. “Off the Grid or on, Solar and Wind Power Gain.” USA Today 12 April 2006. Print.
Electricity and electrical components are a major part of our lives today. Our lives pretty much come to a halt if there is a power outage or if our electrical devices stop working, sometimes we even start panicking because we are so dependent on these components that we cannot afford to lose them and their importance and use only increases as time passes. We all use these electrical devices and also electricity itself but most of us do not think about the math and physics that works behind all of these things.
time, electricity costs are much more stable and are expected to decrease over the next several
Though it might seem that the world’s energy supply is secure as of the present, this issue is something that is beginning to worry even the richest states. “Countries as far apart as South Africa and Tajikistan are plagued by power cuts and there have been riots in several nations because of disruptions to electricity” and “rich states [are] no longer strangers to periodic blackouts” (ElBaradei). If we look again at the breakdown of U.S. electricity generation by energy source, it is evident that nuclear power is the next most substantial chunk of energy generation, with other renewables weighing in far behind that. I believe this begs the question, why do we not expand nuclear power to encompa...