Re-Envisioning Transformational Efforts in Engineering education

Reflecting to Re-Envision @ NSF EEC 2022 PI’s Meeting

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What can I say?

This year's NSF EEC PI meeting was so energizing to me it made me resurrect the informal blog on my webpage just to be able to talk about it!

For me, the highlight was the interactive keynote by President Lesia Crumpton-Young of Texas Southern University. Her talk was titled, "Reflecting to Re-Envision", and she really challenged us to think about how we can make engineering *better* in every facet. Look, you're not going to understand her energy if you've never heard her speak, and I'm not going to do justice, so let me just share a few of the ideas that stood out to me...

It's time to rethink higher education... "What if our goal was to create social impact and not preserving the status quo?"
President Young 9/23/2022 quoting Brian Rosenberg in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/23/2021

Reflecting to re-envision requires that we: i) abandon ego-centric decisions; ii) prevent proliferation of improper ideas; iii) sharpen critical thinking; and, iv) cultivate enlightened decision makers.
My paraphrase of President Young's "Reflecting to Re-Envision" theme

At Texas Southern, our mission statement is now two words: "Transform Lives"... That's it.
President Lesia Crumpton-Young, 9/23/2022

Because, as engineers, we are problem-driven, we so often focus on the problems or deficits in our current experience. This is fair enough--the places where we are most dissatisfied are often where the most important opportunities are found. However, this makes us vulnerable to operating with a deficit mindset, and we can unwittingly promulgate a deficit mindset to other areas. When this deficit mindset meets with other cultural, institutional, or social factors and intersects with pre-conceived judgments about faculty, students, staff, or administrators in a range of people groups, the deficit mindset can result in suppressing and not supporting the excellent ideas of others.

Sometimes it is just good to be reminded to share or explore even a small idea.

It is also good to remember that you hold some unspoken assumptions that, if unexplored, could end up placing a wet blanket on the fires of innovation and collaboration.

President Young shared with us a number of questions, but I'd like to repeat one of them to you: How will you innovate, transform, or disrupt your thinking, your department, your institution, or your community? Where will you infuse innovation or challenge the traditional thinking, populations, stereotypes, and performance myths that dominate your context?

How will you intend to transform lives?

Introducing Protocol Driven Resilience

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I've been working with my PhD student, Domenico Amodeo, on understanding how infrastructure systems exhibit resilience. Briefly, when I first became involved in infrastructure resilience research, I was mostly focused on metrics and measurement of system level of service. This was in line with most researchers in infrastructure resilience. A conversation with Woody Epstein changed my mind considerably on this topic. Instead of focusing on metrics, we should focus on improvisation.

I'd been thinking along these lines already since I'd been reading a little bit in fault tolerant computing. I was wondering how infrastructure could exhibit similar flexibility if systems such as inland waterways and drinking water systems must be constructed as physical networks with considerable path dependency built in. Domenico began thinking about this with more insight from economics, management science, and the decision sciences, and he has begun formulating the ideas we describe in our invited commentary in IEAM (and other research under review) called protocol-driven resilience. Roughly, protocols are the informal and formal ways information flows through human networks in the infrastructure system. In normal operations, these networks have a given topology. However, in disrupted operations, these networks self-reorganize. This self-reorganization is largely what we believe provides the system with a resilient response.

We're just at the beginnings of understanding these patterns, but we look forward to sharing more with you about the protocol-driven resilience.

Hurricanes and the National Flood Insurance Program: Some Unorganized Thoughts #TWIST 29 Sep 2017

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This week, I wanted to put together some thoughts on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) gathered from across the web. Actually, this is the only story I've wanted to write about, but I haven't sat down for my #TWIST note in about a month.

In fact, I'm not sure there has been any story worth looking into except hurricane impacts on communities and infrastructure when we're talking about infrastructure and infrastructure resilience. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are crucial because, if nothing else, they demonstrate to us that community resilience has everything to do with the communities' and local government leaders' capacity to respond in the moment and adapt to future possibilities. While it is important to build infrastructure that can withstand a variety of challenges, there are two things we must consider when planning for resilience. First, infrastructure is almost impossible to adapt after it is built. One can harden existing infrastructure, but infrastructure is almost, by definition, completely un-adaptive. Second, the radically de-centralized way in which infrastructure is owned and built--especially in the United States (and I include buildings in infrastructure, which many researchers do not)--makes it nearly impossible to forecast the types of loads that individual systems will be called on to respond to.

Well, I don't want to go too far into that direction. However, I did want to share some stories about the NFIP because we are going to need to call on this program more frequently and deeply in the future. What are the major issues? Is the program vulnerable? Are folks who rely on the program vulnerable? What kind of losses will it be called on to insure in the future? Hopefully, a few of the articles/resources below can shed some light on the state of the NFIP as we enter into new climate realities.

Irma, Harvey, Jose, Katia: The Costliest Year Ever? Bloomberg asks whether Harvey et al will be among the costliest disasters ever. A snapshot from their article demonstrates that, globally, American hurricanes are responsible for five of the top 10 most costly events--in terms of insured losses. Where will this year's hurricane season rank?
The 10 most costly global disasters in terms of insured losses (in Billions). Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-costliest-insured-losses/
Hurricane Sandy Victims: Here’s What ‘Aid’ Irma and Harvey Homeowners Should Expect. While it is critical to re-authorize NFIP and help to ensure that families receive the aid they need, it is unclear whether NFIP in its current form can deliver that assistance. Writing in Fortune Magazine describing the efforts of a group called Stop FEMA Now to promote awareness about some of the major shortcomings (as they see it) of NFIP, Kirsten Korosec writes:

Stop FEMA Now is a non-profit organization that launched after flood insurance premiums spiked as a result of the Biggert-Waters Act of 2012, inaccurate or incomplete FEMA flood maps, and what it describes as questionable insurance risk and premium calculations by actuaries, according to the group.

The NAIC has published a very interesting report that shows that, in the average year, NFIP is self-supporting. While in most years it pays out fewer claims that it receives in premiums, catastrophes are well beyond their capability to pay and NFIP must rely on borrowing. Consider Figure 1 from their report:
Difference between NFIP premiums and claims per year. Source: <http://www.naic.org/documents/cipr_study_1704_flood_risk.pdf>

Do you see what they say in those two paragraphs after the figure?! First, note that NFIP must have its borrowing authority reauthorized by Congress before Sep. 30 (it has been extended to Dec. 8), and that it is already $25 billion in debt. Second, note that the NFIP has not priced its policies at "market rates," making NFIP unable to cover losses from major catastrophes. Even with these artificially low rates, vulnerable parties do not purchase the insurance!
Finally, J. Robert Hunter writes in the Hill about the fact that NFIP originally contained long-range planning in the legislation. Nonetheless, communities are not enforcing the land-use provisions contained in the law:

When I ran the NFIP in the 1970s, I saw a far-sighted idea that Congress put into action. Congress brilliantly embedded long-range planning into the program: in exchange for subsidies for flood insurance on then existing homes and businesses, communities would enact and enforce land use measures to steer construction away from high-risk areas and elevate all structures above the 100-year flood level. Only pre-1970s structures would be subsidized.

Clearly, from the snippets I've placed here for you, NFIP is in trouble. This is the story. How much longer can we afford to ignore the state of NFIP as a major tool for supporting community resilience?

Will electric cars transform the grid? #TWIST 15 August 2017

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The Economist issue for 12-18 August 2017 has the electrification of personal transformation on its cover. Several articles take an interesting perspective on this profound and imminent shift.

This past week, I have been noticing so many interesting articles on the possible transition from the internal combustion automobile to the all-electric vehicle. Again, as I posted here last week, Europe is committing to eliminating gasoline powered cars for public health reasons, and American and Chinese automakers are in good position to profit from the shift. This week's issue of the Economist, titled "Roadkill," discusses the imminent shift from internal combustion to electric powered automobiles on a massive scale. I want to take this week's #TWIST post to point your attention to these short articles, "Roadkill," "Electrifying everything," and "Putting to sea."

In Roadkill, the editors of the Economist lead with "The internal combustion engine had a good run. But the end is in sight for the machine that changed the world." For many of us, especially here in the USA, the end is most certainly not in sight. Only 1% of new car sales were all-electric vehicles, and hybrid vehicles certainly still lag far behind the sales of all-gas. However, the lead describes important changes in battery technology and cost, and perhaps more importantly, describes the ability of many automakers to produce electric vehicles on the same production lines as gas powered vehicles. Perhaps the only thing left to address is the profitability of electric vehicles. As of now, producers still lose money on each electric vehicle produced, while gas powered vehicles are still, generally, profitable. Nonetheless, we must reckon with this eventuality sooner rather than later, because the shift away from gasoline will bring with it immense social and geopolitical challenges as the labor markets change in response to reductions in production labor needs at the same time as traditional oil producing economies absorb the shocks.
In Electrifying Everything, the briefing indicates "If the timing of [electric vehicles'] take-off has proved uncertain, the belief that electric vehicles are going to be a big business very soon is ever more widely held." Electric vehicles now have comparable ranges between charges to cars' fillup range, and electric vehicles today can be made on the same production lines. Oil producers such as OPEC include large numbers of electric vehicles in their forecasts, and governments such as France, UK, and Sweden, are taking aim at the internal combustion engine for public health reasons.
The shift to all-electric, or even majority electric, cars will require a tremendous infrastructure shift. Our current power systems infrastructure is not capable of supporting hundreds of millions of electric cars without massive increases in storage, shifting from fueling to charging stations, and massive increases in the use of natural gas peak generators. At the same time, countries concerned about public health will want to ensure that troublesome emissions are not shifted to the electric power generators. In Putting to Sea, the Economist includes an interesting possibility for meeting this increased electricity demand cleanly by using naval nuclear stations. While this idea is mostly speculative, in my opinion, it is indicative of the imminent challenges we have in shifting most of our energy storage for transportation from petrol and diesel to natural gas or other electricity generation fuel.

What do you think? In what ways do you envision infrastructure shifting to accommodate massive increases in electric cars?

New NIST Infrastructure Community Resilience Publication Describes Further Development of its Conceptual Framework #TWIST 8 August 2017

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Recently, NIST has published a new report titled "Further Development of a Conceptual Framework for Assessing Resilience at the Community Scale." I am happy to say that I was a co-author on this report with Alexis Kwasinski, Joseph Trainor, Cynthia Chen, and Francis Lavelle. It is my pleasure to share with you the abstract below:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is sponsoring the Community Resilience Assessment Methodology (CRAM) project. The CRAM project team is working in parallel with several other NIST initiatives, including: the Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems (https://www.nist.gov/el/resilience/community-resilience- planning-guides), the Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning (http://resilience.colostate.edu/), and the Community Resilience Panel for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems (https://www.crpanel.org/). The objective of the CRAM project is to develop a foundation for assessing resilience at the community scale. For the purposes of this project, community resilience is defined as “the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and to withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions” (PPD-21 2013), and a community is defined as “a place designated by geographical boundaries that functions under the jurisdiction of a governance structure, such as a town, city, or county” (NIST 2015). This report continues the develop the concept of community dimensions and services and expands the concept to the dimensions of sustenance, housing and shelter, relationships, and education.

#TWIST 28 July 2017, Fossil fuel lawsuits in California, Rails stop investing in coal, Cars will be all-electric by 2035

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This Week in Infrastructure Systems:

Two Counties Sue Fossil Fuel Companies for Funds to Address Climate Change [San Diego Union Tribune][WBUR]

Imperial Beach, CA, joined suit with San Mateo and Marin Counties, CA, to sue fossil fuel companies for funds to help pay for the damages caused by climate change. This is a very bold, if not outlandish, strategy, but the communities believe they have no other recourse. If the lawsuit is viewed by some to be frivolous, it is viewed by others as a very reasonable course of action in the face of environmental changes that will cause irreversible damage to the structure of coastal communities. It will be very interesting to watch to determine whether the courts agree that the fossil fuel companies share any responsibility in causing sea-level rise. Even more interesting, if that very unlikely scenario comes to pass, would be what the courts require those companies to do about it.

CSX Corporation Will Stop Investing in Coal Transportation [Huffington Post]

While the Trump Administration has publicly addressed the need to revitalize the coal industry, others within the coal industry and its subsidiaries have questioned the likelihood of success of any revitalization strategy. This past week, the CEO of CSX Corp, one of the largest rail transporters of coal, has stated that fossil fuels are a declining industry when taking a long-term view. This is interesting because the US is a global leader in freight rail infrastructure, and coal is a significant freight rail customer. The freight rail sector has been adjusting to this new reality for years, as it was being reported as far back as 2012 that fundamental changes in the electricity generation sector are shifting the demand for coal rail shipping. As a nation, we need to reconcile--sooner rather than later--with the reality that even fossil fuel business has acknowledged for years. Fossil fuels are declining, and the market is shifting towards renewables.

Electric Cars to Account for All New European Vehicle Sales by 2035 [The Guardian]

When will the general public reconcile with the inevitable decline in fossil fuels? When there are no internal combustion (IC) cars sold on the market. I was listening to the radio this week and heard that Volvo will only sell electric or hybrid models by 2019(!!). That is next model year! In case that didn't hit you yet, 2018 models are on the floors right now in US dealers across makes. Next year this time, Volvo models will be either electric or hybrid, period. Why would this make any sense? Well, if one of your largest markets is planning to be all electric by 2035, then it may help you to get ahead. ING's aggressive projections have been made on the basis of battery technology advances, projections in charging infrastructure, air quality and health concerns, and cost of ownership projections. While not all projections agree with the year 2035, they do all share the conclusion that Europe will be 100% electric before 2050. Even more remarkable, given the current political climate in the United States, is that economists and banks agree that Asian and (ahem!) American carmakers are at an advantage compared with European carmakers because Asian/American batteries and electric motor technologies are more mature:

However, ING warned that with battery-powered vehicles accounting for 100% of registrations in 2035 across the continent, European carmakers would lose out to their rivals in the US and Asia who already lead on battery production.

Here's hoping that our political and social moods will soon match the economic, technological, and scientific trends. Or more optimistically, here's hoping that our political and social moods will accelerate the economic, technological, and scientific trends. While we certainly need to deal with justice, equity, and community cohesion concerns that are introduced with globalization and technological advances, let us remember that in 1900, the dominant mode of transportation left urban streets filled with horse manure, in 1950 passenger transportation made our population collectively subject to IQ decline due to lead exposure, and in 2000, our penchant for large IC cars left us vulnerable to oil price vulnerabiltiy--even with massive advances in fuel efficiency. So, yes, let's hope these trends accelerate while improving quality of life.

#TWIST, 21 July 2017, Managing Uncertainty for Infrastructure Systems

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For this week's TWIST (This week in infrastructure systems) post, I want to do things just a bit differently and focus on a topic that is crucial for any infrastructure system: uncertainty framing.

Of course, it is very difficult to agree on how to define uncertainty, and once it's defined, it can be difficult to select robust tools for managing the types of uncertainties we see in infrastructure systems. Since infrastructures are characterized by long life cycles, large geographic and demographic scope, and substantial interconnections within and between lifeline systems, one wonders how any problems are selected for analysis. The web of intricacies faced by analysts and policy makers can be intractable, and the ways that the unknowns influence the likelihoods of the possible consequences makes every choice high-stakes. Some professionals call these problems "wicked," and prefer to "muddle-through" them, take a garbage can approach, or just admit that optimal solutions are probably not possible and accept the best feasible option--to our knowledge--at the time. Others call these "deep uncertainties" and even wonder whether resilience analysis is more appropriate than risk analysis for infrastructure systems.

However you choose to sort all that out, this issue is of critical importance to infrastructure enthusiasts today. In the US, we face a crisis of governance, in which the public trusts neither government nor experts, the center no longer holds--making it impossible to provide legislative/political stability for public engagement over the scientific debates, and our most important issues are fraught with uncertainties that make it impossible to provide an unequivocally recommended course of action. Of course, infrastructure is impossible without both strong governance and strong science (or trans-science, if you prefer). With that in mind, two articles stood out from Water Resources Research this week:

Rival Framings: A Framework for Discovering how Problem Formulation Uncertainties Shape Risk Management Tradeoffs in Water Resources Systems. In this paper, Quinn et al. explore how rival problem (read: uncertainty) framing could lead to unintended consequences as a result of inherent bias in the selected formulation. Of course, this is unavoidable for even modest problems in critical infrastructure systems, and so they provide some guidance for carefully exploring the possible consequences that can be foreseen under alternative problem formulations.
Towards best practice framing of uncertainty in scientific publications: a review of Water Resources Research abstracts. In this paper, Guillaume et al. describe how awareness of uncertainty is addressed within WRR abstracts/papers. They develop an uncertainty framing taxonomy that is responsive to five core questions: "Is the conclusion ready to be used?"; "What limitations are there on how the conclusion can be used?"; "How certain is the author that the conclusion is true?"; "How thoroughly has the issue been examined?"; and, "Is the conclusion consistent with the reader’s prior knowledge?". Of course, as the authors acknowledge, the study of uncertainty framing is inter-disciplinary, and achieving an uncertainty framing that is responsive to these questions is an art in itself.

Uncertainty, to me, is both fearsome and beautiful. I hope these two articles, or some of the other links shared, provide some useful thoughts for managing uncertainty in your own study or management of infrastructure systems.

Private Involvement in Public Water

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Should we encourage more private involvement in public water systems? Is it just a wealth transfer to corporations, or an innovative approach to finance and management of public infrastructure? Folks are all across the map on this and what it boils down to is answering the question, "Can, and should, infrastructure be democratically owned and operated?". That question is really two questions in one, and both questions have been answered differently across the United States over the last 200 years, at least.

For now, if we extend the discussion to all infrastructure systems, everything starts out as privately owned in the US. Roads, bridges, water, canals, aqueducts, communications--everything! These private lifeline networks facilitate local economic and social activities, achieving technological momentum, and requiring harmonization of standards and access within and between these localities. These localities then become connected across regional boundaries, and once this happens the economies of scale require a transition from predominantly private ownership to public ownership. Many of these systems however, such as oil/gas, communications, and electric power systems, do not make the full transition to public ownership. Instead, public involvement takes the form of regulation and oversight (e.g., public utility commissions, antitrust laws, etc.) while the infrastructure remains in private hands. Public investment in these private systems intensifies if that are substantial disparities in access that can not be solved within these regulated markets (e.g., rural electrification). So the first point that I want to make is that critical infrastructure ownership and investment trends are dynamic!

Second, for whatever reason water went from being almost exclusively privately owned everywhere, to being mostly publicly owned. The quality of service was good initially, then declined until public ownership in the large cities which restored the reliability and quality of service. In fact, while many industrialists promote private ownership as the impetus for innovation, advances in materials science, pumping technologies, and population growth required much greater levels of public investment and ownership in water systems. Now, as federal, state, and municipal budgets are strained at the same time as renewal, rehabilitation, and public health concerns converge, some public water systems are comparing the risks of continued public ownership and management against the risks of private water involvement (or at least external ownership/involvement; see here for an example). Water is one of the few lifeline infrastructures that is dominated by public ownership (if we look at this on a population served basis; see this and this), so it is unique in that regard. There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of ownership, and I am not going to settle this debate today. It is interesting, though, to revisit this debate periodically to hear what folks are saying.

Here are a few pieces that reflect current perspectives in my opinion (click on the bold title to link to the underlying article/resource):

There's a secret war being waged over your drinking water. Huffington Post. Actually, the war is not so secret. States are making private involvement in water systems easier because, while in some cases it can be slightly more expensive, it can be easier for private groups to access the necessary capital to revive, operate, and manage these systems. This article sets the view of two leaders from Corporate Accountability International-who believe water privatization is a way to circumvent democratic processes in water governance-against the view of the executive director of the National Association of Water companies-who argues that private water involvement be considered as an effective alternative to be used to provide efficient water service in the face of increasing investment requirements.
Ownership and Financing of Infrastructure: Historical Perspectives. World Bank Policy Working Papers. While this paper encompasses all infrastructure systems, I think this quote says it all: "The range of choices that has historically been made with respect to the ownership, financing, and operation of different infrastructures has been far too varied to be encompassed by simple distinctions between public and private." In fact, I am using the term private water involvement precisely because there is no clean distinction. Most of the opposition to private water involvement (it is, in fact, mostly opposition) is due to the perception that private corporations would enrich themselves at the expense of ratepayers. However, one might argue this is already true, given that most of the design, construction, and a large part of operations work at publicly owned utilities is already delivered by private companies.
Are We Better Off Privatizing Water? Wall Street Journal. While this article is a bit older, it effectively and succinctly gives the most accurate account of the tensions in this debate--fiscal responsibility vs. affordability. On the one hand, private water involvement is needed because under public ownership [we have had] "artificially low rates the public utilities have charged for years. These rates, kept low for political purposes, don't come close to supporting the long-range capital investment we would expect of any well-run business... With privatized water, there is a new emphasis on fiscal responsibility—and measurable efficiency gains." On the other hand, private water involvement should be opposed because of the Averch-Johnson effect which states that private water utilities face "pressure to deliver high rates of return for shareholders drives them to cut corners when they are operating under contracts, and to drive up costs when they are operating as regulated utilities. ...[Moreover,] elected leaders should absolutely respond to public concern about the affordability of their water service. The provision of water service is a natural monopoly, and the public can exercise choice only at the ballot box through the election of the officials who oversee the service. How government-run utilities decide to allocate costs among different users is a local decision that should be made in an open and democratic manner."

What do you think? Does private involvement in public water constitute a transfer of wealth to corporate stakeholders, or can it be an effective solution to municipal budget problems and water quality challenges?

#TWIST 15 July 2017–Russian cyberwar lab, P3s in transportation, FutureLearn education innovation, and WOTUS controversy

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This week, Russia's cybersecurity test lab, conversation theory powering educational innovation through MOOCs, P3s for transportation investment, and revised economic benefits of the WOTUS rule:

How a Country Became Russia's Test Lab for Cyber War in Wired Magazine. This article presents a very interesting account of how Russia has been perfecting their techniques and tactics by wreaking cyber-havoc on Ukraine's infrastructure systems. Are we ready to protect ourselves? Many are not so sure. This same week, a Black Hat survey was referenced in ASCE's infrastructure SmartBrief that shows that experts are somewhat concerned about our vulnerability to these attacks. Consider this excerpt from the article describing a Ukranian cyber-security researcher's first-hand view of one of these attacks: "Noting the precise time and the date, almost exactly a year since the December 2015 grid attack, Yasinsky felt sure that this was no normal blackout... For the past 14 months, Yasinsky had found himself at the center of an enveloping crisis. A growing roster of Ukrainian companies and government agencies had come to him to analyze a plague of cyberattacks that were hitting them in rapid, remorseless succession. A single group of hackers seemed to be behind all of it. Now he couldn’t suppress the sense that those same phantoms, whose fingerprints he had traced for more than a year, had reached back, out through the internet’s ether, into his home."

Conversation Powers Learning at Massive Scale in IEEE Spectrum. Massively open online courses (MOOCs) have been challenging traditional education infrastructures in uniquely challenging ways. However, are the pedagogically sound? Do they work with the ways that people learn? Are they effective in light of what we know about human development and human learning? MOOCs and other online delivery modes form the backbone of emerging "personalized learning" platforms, and promise the potential of tailoring every aspect of student experience to their individual paces and abilities. The authors of this argue acknowledge that while personalized learning promises great potential (as indicated by substantial investments into R&D), "It can be done, with difficulty, for well-structured and well-established topics, such as algebra and computer programming. But it really can’t be done for subjects that don’t form neat chunks, such as economics or psychology, nor for still-evolving areas, such as cybersecurity." IEEE Spectrum describes how FutureLearn has based their work on Pask's Theory of Conversation, which views human learning as discursive. There are hints of similar ways of thinking in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Etienne Wenger's Communities of Practice. FutureLearn's experiences may provide some insight into developing MOOCs that are not just, as the authors say, "lectures at a distance."
Gas Tax Hikes vs. Public Private Partnerships (P3s) in Forbes. One of my pet peeves is listening to Americans complain about our infrastructure systems, but ultimately rejecting any scheme required to pay for it. This is true with respect to health care, education, science/R&D, and of course, lifelines like electric power/water/sanitation/communications. One of the ways we have considered getting around this political ambivalence as a nation has been considering private involvement in lifeline public infrastructures. One of the classic venues of this debate has been how to pay for transportation infrastructure upgrades: tax increases, tolls, or privatization. While taxes have been the traditional approach, this article provides some food for thought: "There is--public private partnerships for roads, which often take the form of toll roads administered by private companies. Private sector investment in infrastructure is desirable because it takes taxpayers off the hook for construction, operation and maintenance of transportation assets and ensures that those who don’t use them aren’t paying for them."
Trump Slashes WOTUS Economic Benefits in E&E News. Ariel Wittenberg reports that "U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are disputing their own economic analysis of the 2015 Clean Water Rule, now saying most benefits they previously ascribed to the Obama-era regulation can no longer be quantified." The Waters of the United States rule was intended to provide clarity concerning which waters were covered by federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The Obama administration promulgated the rule in 2015, but it has been the subject of controversy and confusion, to say the very least. As the EPA currently acknowledges, "This is important because all Clean Water Act programs—including tribal and state certification programs, pollution permits, and oil spill prevention and planning programs—apply only to 'Waters of the United States.'" The 2015 rule is almost certainly going to be changed, as it has not yet been implemented due to court stays, and the Trump administration has directed the EPA and the Army Corps "to review the existing Clean Water Rule for consistency with [the priorities of economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the Constitutional roles of the States and Congress] and publish for notice and comment a proposed rule rescinding or revising the rule, as appropriate and consistent with the law. Further, the Order directs the agencies to consider interpreting the term "navigable waters," as defined in 33 U.S.C. 1362(7), in a manner consistent with the opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006)."

#TWIST 7 July 2017: Electric power and climate change; The Importance of bridging capital

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This week in infrastructure systems: a family fight over how best to address climate change in the electric power sector, and a discussion of the importance of bridging social capital.

Grist has announced a series of upcoming articles investigating the best path forward to wean the nation's power supply off fossil fuels. As an initial step along the way, they cover a debate between two groups of scientists with some disagreement about the optimal approach. On the one side, a group of researchers from Stanford University and Berkeley University argue that the nation's power grid can reliably transition to 100% wind, water, and solar power between 2050 and 2055. On the other side, a larger group of scientists, reflecting the findings of a number of groups including IPCC, NREL, NOAA, etc., that the nation would need to transition much more slowly and use a more diverse group of generation technologies. This is important because, as the second group cautions, "Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power."
Infrastructure supports strong communities by fostering a diverse number and type of community dimensions or functions. According to NIST, (see NIST GCR 16-001 for more details) this includes community culture and identity, and belonging and relationships. An article by Eric Liu of CityLab titled "The Strange Power of Weak Ties" suggests that we need to learn more about how our various lifeline technologies influence the strength of these community dimensions. While Liu does not directly explore the role of infrastructure in cultivating these dimensions, he does argue that our communities lack bridging capital, the ability to generate trust among unlike groups. Are there ways that our lifeline systems can help to develop bridging social capital?