Category: Policy

Infrastructure Resilience Workshops

Infrastructure Resilience Workshops

Infrastructure Resilience Workshops

09/09/19

“How can we coordinate workshops to practice resilience?”

With the advent of climate change, infrastructure operators are going to think about how they can practice and implement resilience. One way to accomplish this is to hold Infrastructure Resilience Workshops, where multiple governing parties can come together and decide how to quantify and implement their resilience goals. To illustrate, a utility and a hospital may come together to discuss what assets will be prioritized and how to keep patients safe in the case of a blackout.

How Risk Analysis Can Be Used to Determine an Area’s Proneness to Wildfires

How Risk Analysis Can Be Used to Determine an Area’s Proneness to Wildfires

How Risk Analysis Can Be Used to Determine an Area’s Proneness to Wildfires

09/08/19

“How can we use risk analysis techniques to assess an area’s proneness to wildfires?”

With the ascent of climate change, the natural environment is becoming more unstable. In dry areas with sufficient vegetation, this means that wildfires are becoming more common. As such, people will need to understand what areas of liable to become aflame. This can be accomplished using risk analysis techniques which take into account the dryness, lack of rainfall, and temperatures of a particular area to produce a risk assessment. This is How Risk Analysis Can Be Used to Determine an Area’s Proneness to Wildfires.

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Why International Cooperation will be the Basis of Fighting Climate Change

Why International Cooperation will be the Basis of Fighting Climate Change

Why International Cooperation will be the Basis of Fighting Climate Change

09/06/19

“Why can the world only fight climate change if it works together?”

Out of all of the threats to the world, one stands out in particular, climate change. The very systems that support the industrialized world is causing its demise through this very phenomena. And since these systems span international boundaries, multi-governmental institutions will need to be created and work in tandem to reduce carbon emissions. This is Why International Cooperation will be the Basis of Fighting Climate Change.

Infrastructure Lock-in

Infrastructure Lock-in

Infrastructure Lock-in

09/05/19

“What are the consequences of large-scale investment in outdated infrastructure technologies?”

Institutions are constantly faced with difficult infrastructure decisions. Should they invest in experimental technologies such as renewable energy and distributed battery systems or opt for more traditional oil pipelines? Well, whatever approach is taken, the infrastructure and supply chain created will exist for multiple generations to come and will create heavy inertia to shift. A fine illustration of this is the difficulty of shifting the United States to mass transit due to its car and road dependent paradigm. This Infrastructure Lock-in must be dealt with when making policy decisions. 

Strategic Petroleum Reserves

Strategic Petroleum Reserves

Strategic Petroleum Reserves

09/04/19

“How do nations handle reserves for fuels in case of a national crisis?”

Petroleum drives a substantial portion of the global economy, whether it be for moving cars or making plastics. But if a national crisis breaks out, petroleum supplies can be disrupted, leaving devastating consequences for a nation. For this reason, countries have Strategic Petroleum Reserves which allows them to have access to fuel supplies in case an emergency comes up. 

Hurricane Resilience

Hurricane Resilience

Hurricane Resilience

09/02/19

“How can we make our infrastructure more resilient against hurricanes?”

With the advent of climate change, hurricanes are becoming more and more powerful. Just by witnessing the devastating aftermath from storms such as Katrina and Marina one can see that infrastructure in storm-prone areas needs to be redeveloped around Hurricane Resilience. Hurricane resilience can take many forms, such as hardening structures against wind to making streets more permeable to an influx of water.

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

08/30/19

“How can we assess risk?”

If phenomenon has a possibility of occurring with malignant effects it is classified as a risk. The origin of the risk, its spread, and its malignant effects can all be assessed. However, these all can be brought together under a complete Risk Assessment, which gives a holistic and quantitative overview of the entire picture.

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Consequence Assessment

Consequence Assessment

Consequence Assessment

08/29/19

“How can we assess the consequences of a risk?”

Risks are something that come in every engineering system, whether it be the probability that a dam overflows or a forest fire breaks out. However, how can we assess what will be the effects of the mishap on the surrounding community? Well, we can perform a Consequence Assessment to quantify or categorize how harmful things will be.

Exposure Assessment

Exposure Assessment

Exposure Assessment

08/28/19

“How can we quantify the probability of exposure to a risk?”

Risks can be found everywhere. Whether it be the probability of a fire breaking out in Northern California or the containment vessel in a nuclear reactor breaking down, everything that has uncertainty and a possible malignant outcome has a risk. And these effects might be passed on to individuals, such as a forest fire producing noxious smoke or radiation escaping from control rods. To estimate the probability that this might spread, an Exposure Assessment needs to be carried out. 

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