Reviewing Lloyd's post and previous comments, there must be a variety of 'correct' answers for different locations.
Underground electricity and other wires (cable, fibre-optics) may not be a solution in seriously flood-prone areas; overhead very high voltage electricity on steel transmission towers is probably not currently economically feasible with underground ducts, but reinforcing the towers and wires against wind and ice should be an obvious temporary solution. In England, a high-voltage transmission line has been placed in a disused railway tunnel rather than over the Pennine mountains.
Understreet conduits containing 'everything' might be OK in some areas, but not in low-lying and flood-prone areas. Just don't mix fossil gas with electricity in the same enclosed space...
No-one so far mentioned above-ground conduits. Not pretty, but there are examples in Inuvik, NWT where the normally buried utilities are elevated at the back of the buildings, which are also elevated, originally to prevent thawing the permafrost. Check Google Earth and Streetview for examples.
Cost has been mentioned several times as a reason for not doing 'better'. The true cost of (for example) undergrounding electrical cables should also include the advantage or 'non-cost' of not having to replace downed cables and the losses incurred by the utility's customers, and the environmental and aesthetic 'non-cost' of a more attractive environment (check the absence of overhead wires in Inuvik - the wires may be in the utilidor).
It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is changing; do not rebuild, or build, in flood-prone areas!
With your examples of large cities, did you ever entertain the thought(s) that perhaps the problem IS the cities? That a better sense and implementation of lower density might be a better solution?
After all, the arc right now in almost everything is de-centralization. That spreads risks out across fewer people over larger areas. What's worse - millions losing power or a few thousands (for one example)?
Have cities become too large to top-down manage well (I'm looking at Chicago, for a whole host of reasons, as a singular example)? I'm also looking at the "moral hazard" that seems to have been adopted of "it doesn't matter, the Feds will bail us out on bad decisions"?
While I agree that we do need to build more efficient and resilient housing I question whether trying to hyper control our interior environments is a sensible or healthy way to go. While we certainly have the technology and skills to do so in theory it is technically complicated and expensive to properly build airtight structures. It also requires significant, highly diligent and expensive maintenance to avoid creating and or aggravating a myriad of health problems in the short and long term related to indoor pollution. There are a host of relatively simple, inexpensive alternatives for building efficient, comfortable, healthy homes that don’t require their residents to be NASA trained space capsule maintenance experts to ensure they don’t suffocate, poison themselves or contract a deadly fungal infection if their HVAC system is not hyper diligently maintained. Starting by reducing the size of our houses would provide a huge and clear win on so many levels (heating and cooling costs, construction costs, appropriate land use, infrastructure cost, pollution, etc.). Educating our children based on a philosophy that incorporates at its core the idea of striving for sufficiency rather than more when it comes to material goods and focuses our desire for more on education and community wouldn’t hurt either.
I.think you exaggerate the complexity needed for resilient houses. The International Energy Conservation Code is updated every three years. The 2015 code, if enforced, would provide highly efficient house capable of operating for a while without power. The 2021 code is even a little better.
Our house in Maine was built close to Passive House standards. Several years ago, we lost power for six days in late October/early November. In spite of below freezing temperatures, with no heat the house never got colder than mid 60s F. Well insulated, airtight houses don't need any maintenance other than filter changes for heat pumps and ventilation systems.
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t want to exaggerate the issues I see with tightly sealed houses but I don’t think they should be dismissed. I expect that people who proactively buy or build a passive solar house will be reasonably aware of them and be prepared to deal with them. I am not so sure about the average purchaser of a mass produced house. I have worked on and off in/beside the construction industry for 40 plus years and I saw a transition to more tightly sealed houses unfold. I saw lots of air quality/mold issue’s along the way that were directly attributable to poorly designed/maintained HVAC systems. NnDoing things, like building smaller, that provide large upfront benefits and ongoing efficiencies with less risk seems to me to be a better place to direct limited resources. Cheers.
That photo of the toppled electricity lines is really striking. No city can claim to be resilient if it's primary infrastructure is floating in the air with no protection and subject to the whims of whatever forces happen to cross its path. I don't think any politician has been elected in the last 100 years on a platform of 'we're going to invest heavily in infrastructure that you already take for granted' but my goodness burying those electrical lines has to be near the top of the priority list for any city hoping to withstand what the 21st century is going to throw at it.
And can you tell us of the cost to put utilities underground?
My subdevelopment was mandated to do so in the 70s. However, the problem isn't in OUR area but the demarc where the utilities come into it. We live in a rural, heavily forested area of central NH. Imagine the cost if it was implemented all over?
Houston alone has more people than my entire State here in the US. There isn't enough $$ to do such AND supply affordable services.
To Adrian’s credit, Grok, no one is suggesting that utility lines should be buried underground in a heavily forested area like yours because you have trees that disperse most of that wind energy; Houston does not. It doesn’t make any sense to repeatedly replace susceptible infrastructure in a risk-prone area when you can do a one-and-done underground that avoids all future calamities.
I live in a large, sparsely populated heavily forested county, and 90 percent of our utilities are underground. And yes we have severe weather. For example in 09, we were hit by a week long windstorm with winds over 100mph and mature trees snapped like toothpicks. As soon as it was safe for the crew, and new transformers were able to (our roads were a complete mess with trees and some roads were washed out) they had our power on in a couple of days.
Of course the local utilities have been working at it since the 70s. Unlike most areas though, it is a public utility, so I don't know if it would have happened if it was a private utility( for those that remember, Senator Jackson and Magnuson, they made sure there was some federal money) But, the local cable company went behind the utility when the ditch was opened, and dropped cable so, even most of the television cable system is underground.
All this to say it can be done, but the eye has to be on the long game, something most politicians are too short sighted to see and too feckless to carry-through.
It would cost a fortune if done all over - but that's why I only mentioned cities. Normally the way it is done is by building service trenches - so as the street gets dug up for wastewater pipe replacement (because those tend to be the biggest underground infrastructure) you build an underground services corridor for electrical wires, telecoms, gas or district heating. It's a multi-decade undertaking that is kickstarted by government, managed by an independent authority (the city or geological society) and paid for in part by the companies who use the service trenches. In the end the companies save millions and millions, not just because their infrastructure is more resilient to storms but also because the incidental damage to a lot of infrastructure from homeowners, construction crews, falling trees, etc goes down dramatically and all of those expensive repair crews - which ultimately the customer pays for are needed much less. They started reconciling underground infrastructure and underground mapping in the Netherlands about a decade ago and it has saved a fortune already. This video from Groningen touches on some of the advantages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsMUw-gIQc&t=114s - there is no question it is a massive investment but it really does pay off if you want affordable services.
I'm well aware of the process - and the politics of it as well.
Question for you - in a city of Houston, have you done the math on what it would cost to push everything underground? And once that cost is computed, will people put up with that cost once apportioned to each family/business.
Remember, even if companies are cutting the checks, that's only a pass-through as WE are the ones who pay for it - via higher rates or by additional services charges. And we get it from the other direction as well in higher taxes.
Unfortunately, there are other ways by which the TCO is hidden to end users. Imagine the hue and cry if every person knew what their part of it was going to cost them?
REmember, the Netherlands is a rather small country but with high density. Try scaling that up to the size of the US - I'm betting that the cost per foot of complete install would dwarf that example.
A couple of years ago, we had a couple of "once in a hundred year" storms roll through here - the underground utilities were washed out and shorted out. The cost of those TWO incidents were enormous and we were without for far longer than if those utilities were above ground.
Couldn't agree more which is why I promote Geodesic domes.
However, I am also intrigued by buildings that are round (like the capital records building), as in they seem (at least to me) to also be resistant to adverse conditions, i.e. weather. A circle is structural sound and stable, and above all in the case of high winds, they do not act as a wind catcher resisting the wind, they are shaped in such a way that the wind will slip around them (I know there are technical terms for this but I don't know them) just as what happens to geodesic domes.
The advantage of the circle building is it's easier to build upwards (again I refer to the capital records building). So, what am I missing? Why are there not more buildings build this way? Or is it just a density issue i.e. you can stack more people and more buildings in a given area with a square than you can in a circle? Geodesic dome companies say you can have more area in a given space with a dome than you can with a square. If that is true with domes, why not with the circular building ( I know there is math involved but my brain shuts down when I see numbers).
I'll wait for the answer as I expect to be told why I am wrong (which by the way is the norm). I thank you in advance for educating me.
Lloyd - this is all so timely and well presented - many thanks! Longtime fangirl of Dr. Susan Roaf. I appreciate your sharing these article links and the podcast, and your own thoughts. It's all excellent fodder as I prepare for teaching grad students this upcoming semester.
The Texas grid is notorious after the state’s political leadership repeatedly refused efforts that would increase their connections to the national grid and declined offers of federal aid that would have given the federal government greater authority over the state network.
"...would have given the federal government greater authority over the state network."
And that's the point - authority. I have railed for YEARS about accepting "free money" from higher levels of govt. Sure, they need to know that the money is being spent for the purposes for which it is given and I'm good with that concept. It's in the implementation and the total amount of control that is then exerted for decades afterwards.
Even something as simple as the bandstand in my hamlet is a great example. Federal monies (the infamous "grants") were supplied to the run up to 1976 for its construction. 50 years later, if we were to tear it down because the needs of the village had changed for that land, we would have to pay back the original grant PLUS accrued interest. That's just one incident. Don't get me started on the grant, that was a 3rd grade class project, for our infamous "sidewalk that went nowhere".
Given the Feds failures in so many areas with much wasted money, I'd be leery of accepting massive amounts of money. Remember, the Feds have spent $4.2 Billion for installing EV charging stations.
And we got 8. Period. OK, let me be generous - make it 16. Now do the math.
I'm not impressed. Now look at the problems the Feds have with building replacement Navy ships, that they can't do space rockets anymore (see ULA and SLA); examples of wasted money.
And all we have to show for it is a $34 Trillion national debt. It's almost as if it's being done on purpose in creating a Cloward-Piven financial event.
My wife reminded me as we went to pick up our grandson from his Title 1 (academic helps aka "micro-summer school" appointment. The road to the school was chewed up, a new foundation laid, pipes inspected, and tar laid down (first coat).
They also tore up the "sidewalk to no where" at an additional cost and are completely redoing that. Add to that the special snowblower to maintain the sidewalk (part of the fine print), we've now paid 4 times the original cost.
For almost a decade, it only went the width of our town cemetary - about a 1/3 of a mile. It literally went no where but this 3rd grade teacher was bound and determined that her class had to learn the civics behind getting and spending other peoples' money for a sidewalk that did nothing.
Reviewing Lloyd's post and previous comments, there must be a variety of 'correct' answers for different locations.
Underground electricity and other wires (cable, fibre-optics) may not be a solution in seriously flood-prone areas; overhead very high voltage electricity on steel transmission towers is probably not currently economically feasible with underground ducts, but reinforcing the towers and wires against wind and ice should be an obvious temporary solution. In England, a high-voltage transmission line has been placed in a disused railway tunnel rather than over the Pennine mountains.
Understreet conduits containing 'everything' might be OK in some areas, but not in low-lying and flood-prone areas. Just don't mix fossil gas with electricity in the same enclosed space...
No-one so far mentioned above-ground conduits. Not pretty, but there are examples in Inuvik, NWT where the normally buried utilities are elevated at the back of the buildings, which are also elevated, originally to prevent thawing the permafrost. Check Google Earth and Streetview for examples.
Cost has been mentioned several times as a reason for not doing 'better'. The true cost of (for example) undergrounding electrical cables should also include the advantage or 'non-cost' of not having to replace downed cables and the losses incurred by the utility's customers, and the environmental and aesthetic 'non-cost' of a more attractive environment (check the absence of overhead wires in Inuvik - the wires may be in the utilidor).
It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is changing; do not rebuild, or build, in flood-prone areas!
Just a quick comment for you, Lloyd.
With your examples of large cities, did you ever entertain the thought(s) that perhaps the problem IS the cities? That a better sense and implementation of lower density might be a better solution?
After all, the arc right now in almost everything is de-centralization. That spreads risks out across fewer people over larger areas. What's worse - millions losing power or a few thousands (for one example)?
Have cities become too large to top-down manage well (I'm looking at Chicago, for a whole host of reasons, as a singular example)? I'm also looking at the "moral hazard" that seems to have been adopted of "it doesn't matter, the Feds will bail us out on bad decisions"?
Joel Kotkin is no right-winger. But I'm betting this is toasting some New Urbanist cookies:
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/TNA77-Kotkin.pdf
While I agree that we do need to build more efficient and resilient housing I question whether trying to hyper control our interior environments is a sensible or healthy way to go. While we certainly have the technology and skills to do so in theory it is technically complicated and expensive to properly build airtight structures. It also requires significant, highly diligent and expensive maintenance to avoid creating and or aggravating a myriad of health problems in the short and long term related to indoor pollution. There are a host of relatively simple, inexpensive alternatives for building efficient, comfortable, healthy homes that don’t require their residents to be NASA trained space capsule maintenance experts to ensure they don’t suffocate, poison themselves or contract a deadly fungal infection if their HVAC system is not hyper diligently maintained. Starting by reducing the size of our houses would provide a huge and clear win on so many levels (heating and cooling costs, construction costs, appropriate land use, infrastructure cost, pollution, etc.). Educating our children based on a philosophy that incorporates at its core the idea of striving for sufficiency rather than more when it comes to material goods and focuses our desire for more on education and community wouldn’t hurt either.
I.think you exaggerate the complexity needed for resilient houses. The International Energy Conservation Code is updated every three years. The 2015 code, if enforced, would provide highly efficient house capable of operating for a while without power. The 2021 code is even a little better.
Our house in Maine was built close to Passive House standards. Several years ago, we lost power for six days in late October/early November. In spite of below freezing temperatures, with no heat the house never got colder than mid 60s F. Well insulated, airtight houses don't need any maintenance other than filter changes for heat pumps and ventilation systems.
I certainly agree that smaller is better.
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t want to exaggerate the issues I see with tightly sealed houses but I don’t think they should be dismissed. I expect that people who proactively buy or build a passive solar house will be reasonably aware of them and be prepared to deal with them. I am not so sure about the average purchaser of a mass produced house. I have worked on and off in/beside the construction industry for 40 plus years and I saw a transition to more tightly sealed houses unfold. I saw lots of air quality/mold issue’s along the way that were directly attributable to poorly designed/maintained HVAC systems. NnDoing things, like building smaller, that provide large upfront benefits and ongoing efficiencies with less risk seems to me to be a better place to direct limited resources. Cheers.
That photo of the toppled electricity lines is really striking. No city can claim to be resilient if it's primary infrastructure is floating in the air with no protection and subject to the whims of whatever forces happen to cross its path. I don't think any politician has been elected in the last 100 years on a platform of 'we're going to invest heavily in infrastructure that you already take for granted' but my goodness burying those electrical lines has to be near the top of the priority list for any city hoping to withstand what the 21st century is going to throw at it.
And can you tell us of the cost to put utilities underground?
My subdevelopment was mandated to do so in the 70s. However, the problem isn't in OUR area but the demarc where the utilities come into it. We live in a rural, heavily forested area of central NH. Imagine the cost if it was implemented all over?
Houston alone has more people than my entire State here in the US. There isn't enough $$ to do such AND supply affordable services.
To Adrian’s credit, Grok, no one is suggesting that utility lines should be buried underground in a heavily forested area like yours because you have trees that disperse most of that wind energy; Houston does not. It doesn’t make any sense to repeatedly replace susceptible infrastructure in a risk-prone area when you can do a one-and-done underground that avoids all future calamities.
I live in a large, sparsely populated heavily forested county, and 90 percent of our utilities are underground. And yes we have severe weather. For example in 09, we were hit by a week long windstorm with winds over 100mph and mature trees snapped like toothpicks. As soon as it was safe for the crew, and new transformers were able to (our roads were a complete mess with trees and some roads were washed out) they had our power on in a couple of days.
Of course the local utilities have been working at it since the 70s. Unlike most areas though, it is a public utility, so I don't know if it would have happened if it was a private utility( for those that remember, Senator Jackson and Magnuson, they made sure there was some federal money) But, the local cable company went behind the utility when the ditch was opened, and dropped cable so, even most of the television cable system is underground.
All this to say it can be done, but the eye has to be on the long game, something most politicians are too short sighted to see and too feckless to carry-through.
It also is in a place that is susceptible to hurricanes and other large storms; it isn't just the wind but the rain as well.
And that ends up in the "Don't worry, the Feds will bail us out" sickness. That leads to private property in addition to the public utilities.
If people had to assume ALL the risk in living there, they'd move. But they don't have to, so most don't.
It would cost a fortune if done all over - but that's why I only mentioned cities. Normally the way it is done is by building service trenches - so as the street gets dug up for wastewater pipe replacement (because those tend to be the biggest underground infrastructure) you build an underground services corridor for electrical wires, telecoms, gas or district heating. It's a multi-decade undertaking that is kickstarted by government, managed by an independent authority (the city or geological society) and paid for in part by the companies who use the service trenches. In the end the companies save millions and millions, not just because their infrastructure is more resilient to storms but also because the incidental damage to a lot of infrastructure from homeowners, construction crews, falling trees, etc goes down dramatically and all of those expensive repair crews - which ultimately the customer pays for are needed much less. They started reconciling underground infrastructure and underground mapping in the Netherlands about a decade ago and it has saved a fortune already. This video from Groningen touches on some of the advantages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsMUw-gIQc&t=114s - there is no question it is a massive investment but it really does pay off if you want affordable services.
I'm well aware of the process - and the politics of it as well.
Question for you - in a city of Houston, have you done the math on what it would cost to push everything underground? And once that cost is computed, will people put up with that cost once apportioned to each family/business.
Remember, even if companies are cutting the checks, that's only a pass-through as WE are the ones who pay for it - via higher rates or by additional services charges. And we get it from the other direction as well in higher taxes.
Unfortunately, there are other ways by which the TCO is hidden to end users. Imagine the hue and cry if every person knew what their part of it was going to cost them?
REmember, the Netherlands is a rather small country but with high density. Try scaling that up to the size of the US - I'm betting that the cost per foot of complete install would dwarf that example.
A couple of years ago, we had a couple of "once in a hundred year" storms roll through here - the underground utilities were washed out and shorted out. The cost of those TWO incidents were enormous and we were without for far longer than if those utilities were above ground.
Pick your poison.
Couldn't agree more which is why I promote Geodesic domes.
However, I am also intrigued by buildings that are round (like the capital records building), as in they seem (at least to me) to also be resistant to adverse conditions, i.e. weather. A circle is structural sound and stable, and above all in the case of high winds, they do not act as a wind catcher resisting the wind, they are shaped in such a way that the wind will slip around them (I know there are technical terms for this but I don't know them) just as what happens to geodesic domes.
The advantage of the circle building is it's easier to build upwards (again I refer to the capital records building). So, what am I missing? Why are there not more buildings build this way? Or is it just a density issue i.e. you can stack more people and more buildings in a given area with a square than you can in a circle? Geodesic dome companies say you can have more area in a given space with a dome than you can with a square. If that is true with domes, why not with the circular building ( I know there is math involved but my brain shuts down when I see numbers).
I'll wait for the answer as I expect to be told why I am wrong (which by the way is the norm). I thank you in advance for educating me.
Lloyd - this is all so timely and well presented - many thanks! Longtime fangirl of Dr. Susan Roaf. I appreciate your sharing these article links and the podcast, and your own thoughts. It's all excellent fodder as I prepare for teaching grad students this upcoming semester.
Worth reading The London Climate Resilience Review published today: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-07/The_London_Climate_Resillience_Review_July_2024_FA.pdf
The Texas grid is notorious after the state’s political leadership repeatedly refused efforts that would increase their connections to the national grid and declined offers of federal aid that would have given the federal government greater authority over the state network.
"...would have given the federal government greater authority over the state network."
And that's the point - authority. I have railed for YEARS about accepting "free money" from higher levels of govt. Sure, they need to know that the money is being spent for the purposes for which it is given and I'm good with that concept. It's in the implementation and the total amount of control that is then exerted for decades afterwards.
Even something as simple as the bandstand in my hamlet is a great example. Federal monies (the infamous "grants") were supplied to the run up to 1976 for its construction. 50 years later, if we were to tear it down because the needs of the village had changed for that land, we would have to pay back the original grant PLUS accrued interest. That's just one incident. Don't get me started on the grant, that was a 3rd grade class project, for our infamous "sidewalk that went nowhere".
Given the Feds failures in so many areas with much wasted money, I'd be leery of accepting massive amounts of money. Remember, the Feds have spent $4.2 Billion for installing EV charging stations.
And we got 8. Period. OK, let me be generous - make it 16. Now do the math.
I'm not impressed. Now look at the problems the Feds have with building replacement Navy ships, that they can't do space rockets anymore (see ULA and SLA); examples of wasted money.
And all we have to show for it is a $34 Trillion national debt. It's almost as if it's being done on purpose in creating a Cloward-Piven financial event.
My wife reminded me as we went to pick up our grandson from his Title 1 (academic helps aka "micro-summer school" appointment. The road to the school was chewed up, a new foundation laid, pipes inspected, and tar laid down (first coat).
They also tore up the "sidewalk to no where" at an additional cost and are completely redoing that. Add to that the special snowblower to maintain the sidewalk (part of the fine print), we've now paid 4 times the original cost.
For almost a decade, it only went the width of our town cemetary - about a 1/3 of a mile. It literally went no where but this 3rd grade teacher was bound and determined that her class had to learn the civics behind getting and spending other peoples' money for a sidewalk that did nothing.