Aging

The Essentials Newsletter, Forty – fourth Edition

No, this is not a newsletter about my aches and pains as I get used to being an AARP-card recipient. It is instead a discussion about how we think of infrastructure and its age. For those of you who’ve read this newsletter, you may have realized that I have a bit of twitchiness (some may say more than a bit) about terms and phrases that get thrown out so often they lose their meaning. One of those phrases that makes me twitch every time I read it or hear it is “aging infrastructure.”

First, let’s define/contextualize both, shall we?

Brittanica describes aging as: Aging takes place in a cell, an organ, or the total organism with the passage of time. It is a process that goes on over the entire adult life span of any living thing. Gerontology, the study of the aging process, is devoted to the understanding and control of all factors contributing to the finitude of individual life. It is not concerned exclusively with debility, which looms so large in human experience, but deals with a much wider range of phenomena.

I liked this definition of infrastructure from Wikipedia: Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, airports, public transit systems, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet connectivity and broadband access). In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment.

I looked for definitions of “aging infrastructure” together and found one in the U.S. Code (where all laws are compiled) under the Water Resources Development Act.

(1) Aging infrastructure. The term "aging infrastructure" means a water resources development project of the Corps of Engineers, or any other water resources, water storage, or irrigation project of another Federal agency, that is greater than 75 years old.

Some of us might be surprised that 75 years old is the number they chose as the “floor” in which such projects are considered aging, but others might remember that many dams and hydropower projects – much less buildings – are a lot older than that and still functioning well.

Within these definitions about aging infrastructure, there is an implicit assumption that “aging” is inherently bad. The undercurrent is that, with age, comes more risk of infrastructure failure. Similarly, with people and animals, “aging” often denotes decline, whether mental or physical. For people, we know that genetics can factor into how quickly we age and how disease may factor into our aging process. We also know that healthy diets, exercise, and effective ways of managing stress can promote health and/or extend our lives, with or without genetic predispositions to disease.

I would argue that it’s hard to unwind our understanding of aging in the context of our own experiences with living beings -- and there are parallels, such as ongoing “maintenance” promoting health in both living beings and inanimate infrastructure, as I just noted. Sticking with those parallels for a while longer:

• Like with people, animals, and plants, not all infrastructure ages at the same rate. In the case of inanimate infrastructure, it depends on how often it is used, how well it was made, how well it is maintained over time, and how much the elements (wind, water, salt, sun) can degrade it.

• If a wooden utility pole wasn’t sealed properly, for example, the assumption would be that it would corrode and degrade more quickly than a pole that was sealed properly.  If those two poles were located close together and subject to the same weather conditions, that would be a good assumption, but if the well-sealed pole was located in a tropical environment and the faultily sealed pole was located in a drier, mild environment, they might both degrade in a similar manner.

With these parallels in mind, I’ll try to get to the heart of the matter. We want infrastructure to function, despite its age. If utilities get a shoddy electric distribution transformer made in a far-off country, they can’t use it, no matter if it’s weeks old. Contrastingly, a well-made and maintained distribution transformer could last as long as 40 years and function well. Which is why electric utilities and other critical infrastructure (CI) sectors typically have processes for purchasing equipment, testing it, installing it, and evaluating the way it functions, over time. These processes fall under the procurement and asset management functions at CI entities.

So why the obsession with “aging infrastructure?” Some of the obsession is motivated by self-interest and some by legitimate concern. Warning, this is where I give my opinion. Educated as it is.

Self-interested obsession:

• You work for a company that makes equipment that competes with the equipment already installed at a utility/CI sector entity. Wouldn’t you want to imply that the original equipment is “aging?”

• You work for a competitor or disruptor to an infrastructure provider. It might help your business if you imply that they have “aging” (read: shoddy) infrastructure.

• You are an environmentalist who opposes, let’s say, a hydropower dam’s existence. Wouldn’t you want to imply that the infrastructure is already “aging,” making it easier to dismantle?

• You are a utility that can more easily justify upgrades by “claiming” infrastructure is aging, even when it’s been well-maintained and is functioning well.

• You are a sensor company or other digitally-based company that wants to sell a product that could improve a certain infrastructure’s capabilities.

• Etc.

Legitimate concern:

• Some infrastructure has, indeed, come to the end of its useful life or is beyond its useful life. Better support for replacing such infrastructure is often needed from customers and regulators. Couching such infrastructure as “aging” can help in communicating a legitimate need. We all know about significant needs in the water sector, for example.

• Some infrastructure isn’t so much “aging” from the perspective of not functioning, but was built with materials that are now known to be problematic to human health, such as lead pipes delivering water, per the previous example.

• In certain CI sectors, we want existing infrastructure to operate differently, even when it is still operating very well and/or as it was originally intended. This reminds me of classic cars. Classic cars are very old, exquisitely maintained vehicles that still operate as intended – they can transport people from one place to another via the roadway, usually operating at the proscribed speed limit. But they aren’t equipped with any modern safety equipment – over the shoulder seatbelts, airbags, automatic locks, etc. They also don’t have modern navigation, multi-media, bucket seats, air conditioning, cruise control…and the list goes on. You get my point, they function well (and as originally intended), but not optimally.

Improving our CI infrastructure to function more optimally and flexibly can in some cases be done by upgrading the infrastructure rather than outright replacing it. In the case of classic cars, they cannot be retrofitted to perform like a fully modern vehicle, but in the case of electric distribution grids, for example, a lot can be done to enhance their performance by adding sensors, advanced metering infrastructure, and the like.

The challenge of adding that new technology is that its “aging” also has to be monitored, and the power electronics and telecommunications infrastructure that comprises this technology ages at a different rate than traditional poles, wires and transformers. But enhancing functioning, well-maintained, if older, infrastructure seems to be a better approach than the alternative, especially as challenges with permitting and siting continue.

So, can we come up with another way to discuss older infrastructure that’s been well-maintained, is still in good shape and is functioning as intended? Classic infrastructure, maybe. Or fit infrastructure…what do you think?