From Guest Blogger Stephan Williams: Infrastructure Zombies

Daniel Yergin, in his book “The Quest”, writes that a critical shift from carbon-based to non-carbon-based fuels has begun, along with a parallel movement towards higher levels of efficiency in industrial processes and energy movement. It seems we are shifting from a mentality of exuberant excess towards one of resource and energy conservation in light of our evolving understanding of ecosystems and health impacts, with a healthy push from markets to hedge against rising fuel costs. Will these critical shifts take place in time, before the oceans fill with toxins, before a gas mask and SPF 2000 will be required for your evening walk? How quickly can we optimize efficiencies? What are the major forces countervailing against this progress and how do we get to where many intelligent and passionate thinkers say we need to be in order to survive?

The biggest threats to this progress, to my mind, are infrastructure zombies. These are individuals, companies and governments that have over-invested in infrastructure that perpetuates our global addiction to fossil fuels and inefficient processes, and deride any alternative to the status quo, usually in the name of profits or politics. These entities are enemy number one to current and future generations.

The Industrial Revolution brought a cornucopia of goods to the common person and led to the globally interwoven industrial structures that keep the world running today. But this revolution was implicitly built on the notion that fuel was infinite and its by-products were harmless. 200 years later we know that neither is true and yet we continue to operate according to the old paradigm. Why? Because the infrastructure upon which our industries operate is cheaper to patch up than it is to switch out. And cheaper is paramount to those short-sighted enough to think that money now is everything, and tomorrow will sort itself out. There are deep problems with a system that has the potential to drive its followers blissfully over a cliff.

And so we have these infrastructure zombies, slavishly ambling after the trail of trillion dollar bills, dragging the world along, kicking and gasping behind them. We need to force these kingmakers to take into account the whole life-cycle of the process options they choose from. Take a recent example: Exelon, the largest caretaker and profiteer of North America’s nuclear power fleet, with their access to the inner sanctums of the White House, worked hard to block EPA regulations that would protect wildlife from the intake valves at nuclear plants. They succeeded. The take-away here is that the people who provide us with power think that it’s more important to keep their product cheap and gamble on destroying an ecosystem than it is to responsibly deal with the impact of their production.

The key is realistic life-cycle analysis. Today, most companies have an incomplete overview of the life-cycle cost of a business decision. They look at net present values that come up short and depreciation tables that imply that after a certain amount of time their hands are washed of the investment. We need to change that, with education, hard conversations and political leverage. With a government as twisted and broken as the United States’, that won’t be easy. But it’s critical, so at least we have that.