Impact of Climate Change on National Infrastructure

Regardless as to whether Climate Change, aka Global Warming, is the result of human activities and environmental exploitation or not, there will be immense impact on the national infrastructure of our various countries. In the developing world this is probably going to be worse than in the developed world, e.g. in Europe or North America or the Antipodeans. However, while in the developing world it will impact directly in the people,

Whichever it is or may be, e.g. whether, as I believe, and I am not alone there, I know that for a fact, it be the result of a natural phenomenon of the Earth, that is to say a cycle She gores through every now and then, or the result of human influence (which to some degree it probably is as well), the results on Climate Change, be it the drought conditions of the years before last one in Britain or the rains and floods of 2007, will all, in one way or the other, impact on our national infrastructure, in one way or another.

The summer of 2007 – I know, what summer? - in Britain with the high amount of rainfall which equalled a monsoon, nigh on, and power stations, water treatment plants and similar being inundated with flood water, has shown us what can happen, I believe.

In some areas power stations were affected, and people were without power for a considerable time and in addition to this several water treatment plants, including a local one here, had floodwater get in and people were told not to drink the water.

It did make no difference to me personally, as I like to be prepared (no good only writing about it, is there), as I run all my water for drinking (and cooking, etc.) through a filters, with active charcoal, etc.

If the power fails due to floods or storms often businesses and government departments end up, not to mention even the general public, up a creek without a paddle, so to speak, and in the dark, literally.

Fritz Schumacher in his book “Small is Beautiful”, that was written in the 1960's, I believe, had the right idea when he advocated small, local, electrical power generating stations, for individual villages, individual town and city neighborhoods, often walled wards, and such. Everyone, though, then belittle such ideas, bar those that were avid readers of his book(s) and followers of his ideas, and power stations became bigger and bigger rather and further and further the cables had to be stretched to reach the consumer. This transmission distance also causes great loss of power. In fact most of the energy generated by the stations is actually lost in transit.

It was claimed that it was more economical to have the large power generating plants. Really? Has anyone ever bothered to calculate the loss that actually occurs in regards to power of such long distances? That is why the cables carry so many kilovolts, that is thousands of volts, in many cases 36KV, e.g 36,000 volts. So, when it reaches local areas it has first to be brought down to current that can be used in our homes and in industry, in some cases that is over 400 volts (industry often) and 230 volts for consumption in our homes and elsewhere. For this it is actually transformed down in so-called substations. Not only is this stupid, it is a criminal waste of energy. To just generate the proper current required at a local level would be far cheaper and better for the environment and all of us. Please excuse me if some of the voltages are not 100% accurate but I am not electrical engineer and the current sums escape me. The 18KV and 36KV lines are probably completely outdated and we probably are running about 100,000 volts through them nowadays.

The giggle is, however, that now, all of a sudden, the British government is talking of small local generating plants, now that we are faced with the fact that, if floods and other whether phenomena should cripple one of those huge power generating stations, thousands of homes and business will be in the dark.

Their real worries, obviously, are not the average citizen in his or her home but the effect this is going to have on business and the infrastructure, including the monitoring systems with which government keeps an eye on us, the citizens. Now, suddenly, they advocate small power plants and lots of them. So, it would appear that Fritz Schumacher was right after all. Not that we did not know that already. The govt needed to be faced by real problems first though.

When Fritz Schumacher suggested local power plants and other such localized services, and later ever since this author and in the latter case for basically the self-same reason that the government is now suggestion, we were being laughed at. Schumacher spoke from experience, from seeing that impact the failure of the large power plants and water treatment woks had on the people, especially when they were destroyed or damaged as an act of war.

Now suddenly though, after a little flooding getting into the works and affecting some power station the world is beginning to wake up. About time too. The good thing is that, if they get their finger out now and are not just talking about it and do it for real then, at least, but only if we act NOW, do we still have time before it is too late.

The other advantage of small local power generating stations is that (1) they can be fed with local materials, including locally cut wood, and (2) that also in the event of a terrorist attack (or war even) only a small section will be cut off and if auxiliary systems are in place too then such problems will be very short lived.

So far, I know, we have talked, only, about electrical power generating plants.

Let us now look at water treatment works. They are, in the main, local already.

Here systems simply must be put in place so as flooding cannot get near the freshwater tanks and the chlorinating tanks and such like.

The simplest system here, probably, would be some kind of proper storm drains around such plants or, better still, to set up such water treatment works in such localities and in such a way, so as for flood water to have no chance getting near it. Even, I would suggest, going as far as building on stilts – please do not laugh, for I am serious here.

Our ancient ones settle in floodplains but how did they build their homes? They set them on stilts. And we are so stupid as to stick them slap bang on the ground. We must be mad, literally completely mad. What will it take before we wake up to the fact that we cannot, unless we work in very ancient way, settle and live in the floodplains.

The drought conditions of the years prior to the last ones, should they reoccur, are something different and the effects to the infrastructure will be different. The greatest impact could be forest and heathland fires, which could also threaten to engulf homes, businesses and infrastructure plants such as power, sewage and water treatment. In addition to this there is the fact that we could be running out of water, yet again.

And why do we seem to be running short of water in conditions pf drought in Britain? First and foremost because we use too much water and especially we waste too much of it. On top that that our water reservoirs are a joke. They are too large in surface area and too shallow; in such a way that they are, as a colleague from the USA once commented about them “that are not reservoirs – that are evaporation pans”, and, I am afraid to say, he is right there. When we have open reservoirs that have hectares and hectares of surface area but are only something like twelve meter or so deep then we are having a problem. We lose most of the water in evaporation.

The further loss of water is created by storm water that is allowed to simply run away into the drains and then into the rivers – where often this water causes floods. We must find a way to gather and store such water. If not then we will be facing a bleak future should those droughts that we had in the years past become a more common feature.

It is time that we all, government and other agencies, took a very close look at the possibilities that there are as to savings that could be water as regards to water, and the protections from floods for power stations, and other important buildings and plants, and then action was taken in order to protect our infrastructure and our people from problems.

© Michael Smith (Veshengro), March 2008