The Human and Economic costs of legacy power distribution
The Human and Environmental toll of this year’s Hurricane season cannot be measured only in cost to rebuild; many lives destroyed, entire communities lost. Moody’s places the cost of Harvey’s impact in Southern Texas at $75 Billion, and we can reflect on the cost of Katrina at over $160 Billion. Puerto Rico which is facing an 11-year economic recession is already facing over $74 Billion in government debt, with a population less than South Texas, are still facing some estimates of over $100 Billion in reconstruction costs.
Let’s talk about more than just reconstruction.
Most economists would acknowledge that the underlining cost of energy production in an economic system is the basis for cultural and human production. Anytime the cost of energy exceeds that of competitive systems, the higher energy prices lead to economic failures, hence Puerto Rico’s 11-year economic recession. Quoting Peter Voser of the World Economic Forum “Energy” the Oxygen of the Economy”
Underground Utility Infrastructure vs. Above Ground Infrastructure
Power-line distribution has maintained above ground distribution due to the costs of underground power transmission systems, today with AC transmission technologies underground systems are two to four times the initial costs versus above ground systems. Also because AC produces inductive electromagnetic fields, the presence of which have known side effects on organic life, keeping the power lines high overhead has an advantage.
Port St. Lucie Florida following the hurricanes of 2004, was devastated. Yet when the community started to rebuild they chose to push their critical infrastructure underground. The move to underground utilities was an expensive decision, one followed by some similar communities, across the state, Sarasota Key, downtown Fort Lauderdale, and many others. The results, however, were remarkable. During the 2017 hurricane season, these critical infrastructures remained intact, and in the case of St. Lucie in full service during each of the storms they endured.
The Human and Environmental impact of increasingly powerful natural disasters
The 2017 Storm season has left not only North America and the Islands in the Atlantic in shambles in their wakes, matching Typhoons in the Southern hemisphere in similar condition. It is time to discuss hardening our infrastructure and the communities we live.
We have the technology; we have the resources, the question is do we have the will to accept changes in how we build and pay for such a significant shift.
With the increasing availability of renewable power systems, the DC power technology’s have become technologically and economically viable. Today you could run your entire house on DC power, the cost of inverters has become so inexpensive that the pure energy savings alone would pay for such a switch.
In the early days of the creation of Power as a Utility, some of the first actual power distribution systems utilized Direct Current “DC” a “Format” of power distribution. Whereas Thomas Edison led the way, this resulted in competition in the form of Alternating Current “AC” led by Westinghouse Electric. Over a short span of time, the AC format of power distribution won out over DC due to constraints in the technology of the time. See “War of the Currents” www.energy.gov
Today, technology called High Voltage DC, “HVDC” and Ultra High Voltage DC, “UHVDC” systems are growing throughout the globe as the technology and costs have far surpassed the aging distribution of AC power in our Utility Grids.
Utility Power Distribution — HVDC systems are now both economical and environmentally sound. The costs of moving to underground and hardened infrastructure with DC power distribution is ripe. As communities such as Houston, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, all face many tens of billions in costs for rebuilding, we should be discussing how to migrate into a storm-hardened infrastructure, designed for the future.
Economics of a Community
In the framework of what I have been referring to called the “MicroCity” we not only take advantage of the emergence of integrated “Smart City” technologies, the MicroCity is also a Community, where the economics of working together are bound to the success of the overall community’s ability to grow and learn.
More about the MicroCity in my next article, for now, let’s open a discussion of how to encourage thoughtful reconstruction for sustainable cultural and economic reasons.
