Infrastructure…systems that shape our world
In order to understand what infrastructure is, engineer Deb Chachra advises us to consider the commute to work. One drives his car on a network of roads, or rides a transportation system that is part of a larger public system, or simply disconnects from the network by turning off his computer. As the evening falls, the lights come on, powered by the electrical grid. He cooks dinner using gas piped from another network, and drinks water from the tap, which is only one point among many on a vast water network that sometimes travels hundreds of kilometers before it reaches him.
As Czachra explains in her invaluable book, “How Infrastructure Works…Within the Systems That Shape Our World,” we live a life of luxury without even realizing it. This is because all the arduous work of collecting fuel and water is taken care of invisibly, and we can cover long distances, on the road or via the Internet, in a very short time. The great gift of infrastructure is that it gives us tools to control our lives, freeing us from daily drudgery. Chashra points out that access to the network has become a political right, to the point that many local governments no longer allow customers to cut off heat and water even when they are unable to pay their bills.
The problem is that when our infrastructure is working normally and as expected, we never think about it. We don't vote on our infrastructure every two years, and we don't honor water and electricity workers as the guardians of our lives like we do first responders. We also neglect the importance of maintaining and caring for them, which sometimes leads to disasters such as bridge collapses, power outages, and floods of dams congested with water. But with climate change threatening many cities and towns across the world, all of this must change, and quickly.
Written in a graceful and engaging style, “How Infrastructure Works” combines the history of engineering and science with funny anecdotes from Czachra about traveling to power plants and cities around the world. Reading it is like taking a walk with a friend who knows the meaning and story of every street corner: sewer pipes buried underground, century-old metal signs left by US Geological Survey workers, or buried electrical cables. But this book is not a manual that explains to the reader how things work, but rather a passionate defense of the political necessity of effective infrastructure.
In this regard, Çağra invites readers to reconsider infrastructure and re-appreciate it as a collective social project that unites us, but which remains at risk of collapsing due to neglect and lack of attention.
Czachra says people often imagine infrastructure in the form of what she calls mega-infrastructures that dazzle the viewer: massive projects like Hoover Dam or Niagara Falls and its hydroelectric plants. She writes about her favorite example, a pumped-storage hydroelectric power station in Wales known as “Electric Mountain.” This station was built inside a hollow mountain, and generates energy when workers open a valve at the bottom of a lake at the top of the mountain. The water is discharged through a vertical pipe, falls on turbines to generate energy, and then flows into a lake at the foot. At night, when the community's energy needs decline, the turbines rotate in reverse, pushing the water back to the top. It is like a giant self-renewing battery, built to look beautiful, as it is hidden under the grassy slopes of a public park. The Electric Mountain is a good example of what power generation could look like in a more sustainable world, a world based on renewable energy. However, moving away from fossil fuels is only one step among a number of steps that must be taken in order to create a more sustainable world, according to Czachara, who moves to highlight the contrast between the “Mountain of Electricity” and Niagara Falls, whose beauty hides a disturbing history. In order to build the reservoir for the power plant there, the US government resorted to the right of expropriation in the name of public interest, seizing a third of the lands it had granted to the Tuscarora people (a tribe of indigenous North American inhabitants) under a treaty. Although infrastructure represents a public good, not everyone benefits from it equally, and it often comes at the expense of marginalized groups. While Americans debate how to renew the country's old and dilapidated water systems, Chachra stresses the necessity of creating new systems of In order to serve the widest possible audience. But she warns that systems that supply water to rich cities cannot be created by destroying or polluting the areas where our “less powerful neighbors” live. It also suggests that future electrical networks will be largely local, able to connect to or disconnect from the larger national grid as needed so that there are no central points of failure. It also called for each local community to have its own miniature version of the “Electricity Mountain,” a copy designed to exploit any renewable energy that suits it, whether wind, solar, hydro, or thermal.
Muhammad Waqif
The book: How infrastructure works… within the systems that shape our world
Author: Deb Chachra
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publication date: October 2023
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