Tag Archives: infrastructure

Super heavy trucks ruin roads

Preface. I’m writing a book now which concludes that only biomass and biofuels can replace diesel and other fossil fuels.  But 3 billion people are expected to arrive by 2050, consuming a good chunk of the biomass, plus it will … Continue reading

Posted in Roads, Trucks | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Sewage Treatment

Preface. Before sewage treatment, cities were hell-holes of foul smells from rotting human waste, industrial effluent, and garbage.  Few people lived beyond 50 because of the many waterborne diseases.  In fact, sewage and water treatment systems are the main reason … Continue reading

Posted in Sewage treatment | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Saudi oil infrastructure at risk from drone attacks

Preface. This NYT article was published 4 months ago, and its warning just came true. Quite prescient! Drones make it pretty easy to anonymously attack the thousands of miles of pipelines across the Arabian peninsula, oil tankers, pumping stations, and … Continue reading

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Threats to America’s drinking and sewage treatment infrastructure

[ Here are a few of the points made in this 170 page document about improving the nation’s water system security (excerpts follow): There are many potential threats to water infrastructure, including terrorism, failure of aging infrastructure, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, … Continue reading

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Will the Navy go out with a whimper instead of a bang?

Preface. This house hearing is about the continuing decline of the Navy There are fewer and fewer ships. The remaining ships are overused, some past their normal lifespan, and under-maintained. As the U.S. descends into fascist plutocracy enabled by the … Continue reading

Posted in Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Transportation Infrastructure | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Water resources infrastructure deteriorating

[ Water infrastructure has inter-dependencies with other essential infrastructure, if dams or levees fail, agriculture and electric power suffer, towns and homes flooded. If ports along the ocean and inland water ways aren’t maintained and waterways dredged, the by far … Continue reading

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Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent

Preface. This is a very long post with summaries of two GAO reports on interdependencies of energy, water, and climate change from 2014 and 2012. While cheap and plentiful oil remains, these problems can be fixed, hiding the true depth … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Energy Infrastructure, Energy Production, GAO Government Accountability Office, Interdependencies | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent

Why is Detroit falling apart so fast?

Using Google street view history, www.goobingdetroit.com records the decay of homes in Detroit. Above shows homes September 2009, September 2011, and September 2013 I’ve been fascinated with the decline of Detroit since a guy in my dormitory told me back … Continue reading

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U.S. Senate hearing on our aging water infrastructure

[ Even though conventional oil production has been on a plateau since 2005, there is no sense of alarm or urgency to try to fix infrastructure before oil is rationed and not enough exists to replace or repair it. Some … Continue reading

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Corrosion eats $552 billion of infrastructure a year (6% of GDP)

Preface. United States infrastructure was built when the EROI of oil was very high and minerals and metals were cheap due to high ore concentrations. This study was done in 2002, since then, things have gotten much worse (see ASCE … Continue reading

Posted in Bridges, Oil & Gas, Rail, Transportation Infrastructure | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments