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The maddening thing about these pipelines is that fixed infrastructure should have such high payoff for moving petroleum compared to roads or, when possible, tr
by tbihl 6y ago
The maddening thing about these pipelines is that fixed infrastructure should have such high payoff for moving petroleum compared to roads or, when possible, trains. As long as politicians show such an unwavering commitment to neglecting old infrastructure in favor of building more, however, we would be crazy to support any more of it being built. But outside the NRC, I don't know of any US agency with sufficiently thorough cradle-to-grave scrutiny (which even they are denied by politicians, considering the disposal debacle that is Yucca Mountain).
- bpodgursky 6y agoA lot of the time, the right solution IS to build new infrastructure to replace the old. You can only patch a bridge so long. New nuclear reactors are simply safer than old ones, no matter how much money you pump into maintenance. You're setting up a catch-22 here where increasingly decrepit infrastructure continues to fail despite being a money pit, but nobody has the agency to simply start over with a better design.
- tbihl 6y agoMaybe I've misunderstood the issue, but I thought the new pipelines were for expanding capacity and service areas. It's also possible I wasn't very clear. When I rail against the new, it's not against replacement (e.g. complete overhaul of a road instead of patching potholes.) I get upset when my low density metro creates seemingly endless new highway lane miles at the same time that potholes in core areas reach ages and heights consistent with average toddlers.
- sitkack 6y agoI think you overlooked the cradle-to-grave, whole system optimization aspect of the focus on the NRC. We don't apply the same systems thinking to the rest of our civilization. I think the parent is advocating for more systematic long term thinking.