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The really humbling thing about visiting things like the Hoover Dam is realizing that things like this are impossible today. If they started that dam today, th
by noonespecial 7y ago
The really humbling thing about visiting things like the Hoover Dam is realizing that things like this are impossible today.
If they started that dam today, they'd spend 20 years and twice the money the dam actually cost just on lawsuits and papers and have nothing to show for it decades later.
- potiuper 7y agoThe Bridge and Marble Canyon Dams were also impossible in their day due to so called environmentalists and in order to replace the power that would have been provided by them, the worse coal-fired Navajo Generating Station option was completed near Page, Arizona in 1976 for the the Central Arizona Project.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago96 people died building the Hoover Dam [1]. It was built 'on time and on budget' to a great extent at the expense of lives. That's a lot of deaths. For comparison, only 147 total coalition deaths as a result of combat with the enemy [2] in the 1991 Gulf war, involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers, the liberation of Kuwait and the overrunning of most of Iraq. And that's saying nothing of the comp, overtime and other externalized issues. Of course, the failure of rail is pretty bad and we need to learn, but we can't hold the Hoover Dam up as 'the example'. [1] https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/essays/fatal.html https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/essays/fatal.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
- eanzenberg 7y agoUnderrated comment. People yearn for the "good old days" when shit got done, fast and cheap! Let's just forget all the progress in safety and reduced deaths since then..
- Leader2light 7y agoHonestly, who cares about 10000 deaths(friends and family aside). Cost of doing business. The human race will soon be shedding lives by the billions as we collapse.
- kenneth 7y agoI never quite understood the idea that any amount of loss of life is unacceptable in projects such a these. I think we put far too high a value on human life, and fail to measure distinct numbers relative to their greater effects. If we built this project at the cost of 100 lives, but got it done on time and on budget, and as a result we save 500+ traffic fatalities, and 500+ early deaths as a result of pollution, while improving the quality of life of all of California… I would call it a resounding success. And yet, most people would just focus on the 100 lives paid upfront and call it an unmitigated disaster.
- vkou 7y ago> I never quite understood the idea that any amount of loss of life is unacceptable in projects such a these. I think we put far too high a value on human life, and fail to measure distinct numbers relative to their greater effects. What dollar value should we put on your life? $10,000? $200,000? $2,000,000? Should we encourage your boss telling you to do something stupidly dangerous, because the project's behind, and he doesn't want to pay your team overtime? 1000 people died building the Trans-Canada railway. In the early 20th century, 70 people died building a minor tunnel, used to construct a tiny hydro power plant in the greater Vancouver area. Any pre-WWII infrastructure project was built atop a literal graveyard.
- hwillis 7y agohttps://cms.dot.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/2016%20Revised%20Value%20of%20a%20Statistical%20Life%20Guidance.pdf https://cms.dot.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/2016%20Revised%...
- vkou 7y agoI doubt that the dollar delta between doing work safely, and doing work cheaply is going to exceed those cited values.
- legohead 7y agoIf I didn't have life insurance I'd accept $200k for my life.
- randyrand 7y agoIs killing people required to build things quickly? I think you might conflating issues. How many people die on Chinese infastructure projects?
- vernie 7y agoA bunch.
- AlotOfReading 7y agoThe 3 Gorges dam claimed over 100 lives before it was completed. I wasn't able to find fatality info for other large chinese dams, but I'd imagine they're not significantly better.
- ukoki 7y agoIs 100 lives that bad? This [1] source says 250,000 workers were estimated to be working on it in 2003 so we could estimate 5 million worker-years for construction. That's an annual death-rate of 0.002%. By comparison this [2] source says the average death rate for 30-34 year old males in the US is about 0.2%, or 100x more likely. 1. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/13/china.threegorges/ http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/13/china.t... 2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age...
- aeternus 7y agoSafe, cheap, and fast. Pick any two.
- thrower123 7y agoIt's really not a lot of deaths, to produce something of lasting value. More people die in car accidents every day.
- craftyguy 7y agoFalse equivalence fallacy.
- dymk 7y agoIf each death results in a $10M lawsuit (which is a far underestimate), only 60 or so people could have died during the construction of the Hoover Dam. But as another comment points out, 96 people died.
- noobermin 7y agoI somehow doubt the reason this isn't getting funded is deaths of workers.
- masonic 7y agoLife was cheap during the Depression. I doubt that Six Companies even compensated survivors six figures for workplace deaths. Ironically, the son of the first construction worker to die on the job was the last to die on the job.
- masonic 7y agoIt's not impossible, but there are more cost-effective methods than pure poured concrete used nowadays, like Three Gorges.