Availability - do we really need a 24 hour health service?

The ICE has been trying to stimulate debate about the availability of infrastructure: for example, to what extent is it more resilient or cost effective to allow trains not to run or close a main road in cases of extreme weather? During the 2007 floods, most of Gloucestershire lost power (some people were not reconnected for 12 days). Most people believe this is not acceptable, but the answer may not lie solely in making the national grid so robust it can cope with high winds and powerful water currents, but also by beefing up secondary sources of power (whether generators or solar panels) and accepting that no system works 100% of the time.

After all, there is no railway signal box in the country that relies on only one source of power: most have some combination of having two cables in from different power sources, an 8 or 12 hour battery, a small transformer to get low voltage supply off the 25kV traction power lines and a plug at the back where you can turn up and plug in a generator. And business continuity matters too: suppliers to Network Rail must demonstrate that they have a business continuity plan in place.

Sustainable Infrastructure 1: Understanding the Problem

This is the first in a series of posts inspired by the book “Sustainable Infrastructure: Principles into Practice”, written by Charles Ainger and Richard Fenner from the Centre for Sustainable Development at the Cambridge University Engineering Department. My fourth year MEng project involved conducting research to develop improved ceramic water filters for use in developing countries working with the Centre for Sustainable Development, so I feel a personal connection with the authors as well as the subject matter.

The question I want to address is this: how do we get the step change in the infrastructure we need to  build and maintain to avoid locking ourselves into high-carbon, environmentally damaging solutions for the next 50 years?