Podcast: The Infrastructure Show

The March 11, 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan caused massive loss of life and property destruction on the northern coast and islands. In that same hard-hit vicinity, on the coast, is located the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, which was flooded by the tsunami, and suffered a loss of backup power that led to a major emergency. A month later, on April 11, the Fukushima accident was classified as a Level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale – the same level assigned to the Chernobyl accident in Russia in 1986. The hosts discuss the Fukushima I accident, and its implications for nuclear plant design, with Elmer Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. A frequent consultant to Argonne and Los Alamos National Laboratories, Dr. Lewis is author of the books Nuclear Power Reactor Safety and Fundamentals of Nuclear Reactor Physics

The U.S. wastes a lot of energy, but in fact energy efficiency has been improving significantly in recent decades. However, this progress is not uniform – electric productivity in some states is markedly better than others. The details of this inconsistency, and the reasons for it, are examined in the report Assessing the Electric Productivity Gap and the U.S. Efficiency Opportunity – by the Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, nonprofit organization in Colorado, dedicated to research in many areas relating to energy efficiency. The hosts discuss this report with one of its authors, Mathias Bell

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” is a commonly heard engineer’s truism. Yet many engineers who work in U.S. transportation unfortunately are faced with this dilemma on a regular basis. That is, they’re tasked with planning and managing infrastructure projects without having the detailed transportation data they need to make fully informed decisions. In this podcast, Professor Schofer shares with Tom the results of transportation and travel data studies he’s been involved with as part of a Transportation Research Board committee. The goal is to find ways to collect data on how people travel – whether by car, bus, train, truck, cycle or on foot; where they travel – the routes and localities; when they travel – what days, times of day; how often they travel; and why they travel. The challenge is to collect this information in ways that will be most accurate, but without seeming to intrude on people’s privacy

When a natural hazard, like an earthquake, strikes one country and causes great damage and loss of life, while another country, struck by a similar earthquake, is nearly unscathed, the difference often can be traced to preventive measures. Joining the hosts is Apurva Sanghi, Senior Economist at the World Bank, the team leader for the important book released last November by the World Bank and United Nations, Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: the Economics of Effective Prevention. The natural hazards referred to in the title are earthquakes, droughts, floods and storms. The unnatural disasters are damages and death that follow in their wake, because of human action, or lack of action. The authors examine how governments can spend wisely to achieve effective prevention

Over the past 20 years, “green infrastructure” has evolved into a sophisticated concept that cities and towns across the U.S. are beginning to use. That is, they examine ways to manage water, wastewater, energy and air quality with natural solutions like trees and plants, as well as a variety of man-made green products. Perhaps no city in the U.S. can surpass the City of Philadelphia’s embrace of green infrastructure. Their billion dollar project involves planting 300,000 trees, creating rain gardens and new wetlands, the installation of permeable pavement, green roofs, and more. In fact, their example is becoming a model for enlightened urban water resource management worldwide. The hosts discuss green strategies for storm water management with Glen Abrams, the Manager of the Philadelphia Water Department’s Office of Watersheds Planning and Strategic Policy

The Panama Canal, begun in 1879 by the French and ultimately completed by the United States between 1904 and 1914, is a 48-mile-long ship canal that crosses the country of Panama, allowing ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is a key component of the global logistics system, carrying about 15,000 ships each year – the one-millionth ship transited the Canal in October, 2010. Professor Schofer, just returned from a trip through the Canal, discusses with Tom the history of the canal and the ambitious expansion program currently underway – scheduled to deliver larger locks and deeper channels by 2014

Rail transit connections between airports and city centers have become increasingly common and heavily used around the world in recent decades. A particularly high-profile link is now being constructed in the Washington, D.C. area – a 23-mile extension of the existing Metrorail system, which will connect East Falls Church, VA to Washington Dulles International Airport. It will serve the major employment areas of Tysons Corner, Reston, and Herndon, VA, and will connect into the 106-mile Washington Metro network to provide accessibility across the region. The hosts talk about this important venture with Sam Carnaggio, Project Director for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, who is leading the extension project

In the month of August, 2005 and again in August, 2007, the United States experienced major infrastructure failures – in New Orleans and Minneapolis – that stunned the country with their traumatic loss of life, and drew the attention of the world. The causes of the failures were many: inadequate maintenance and inspection, vulnerable design, construction issues, as well as unexpected changes in loadings that exceeded the margin of safety. How common are structural failures of civil infrastructure? And what can we learn from them? The hosts discuss this important topic with Henry Petroski, a Professor in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University in Durham, NC, where he specializes in failure analysis

Imagine a bus that travels in its own dedicated lane at the speed of a subway train, dramatically faster than conventional buses; a bus that brings high-speed transit to areas of the city where subways don’t run; and the costs of which are far below those of rail rapid transit. Although this sounds “too good to be true”, this is one instance where a too-good-to-be-true idea has proven realistic, workable, and highly beneficial – both abroad and in the U.S. The hosts discuss this topic with Walter Hook, Executive Director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, and co-editor of the book “Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide”

There are about 2.3 million miles of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines in the U.S. This pipeline infrastructure is overseen by the U.S. Department of Transportation, whose sub-department, the Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA), is the main regulatory authority. The agency only has about 100 federal inspectors nationwide. The Pipeline Safety Law provides for Federal authority for regulation of interstate pipeline facilities, and a cooperative Federal/state gas and hazardous liquid pipeline safety program, where certifying state agencies could assume responsibility for intrastate pipelines. The hosts discuss this topic of pipeline safety with Cesar de Leon, former head of the Office of Pipeline Safety (now PHMSA), currently a pipeline safety engineering consultant