Member-only story
Reliable = Long Lasting
Why do we still have mail? Coal firing plants? Land lines? Diesel trains? Cattle farming? Gas powered cars?
At some point, there was a huge effort in R&D to get these technologies to be reliable and predictable. It wasn’t just a technical effort. Yes, technical breakthroughs were needed (ammonia fertilizer for agriculture, steel milling for railways, asphalt production for roads) but the biggest push was by visionaries who wanted to create an easier future and were willing to go through the insurmountable pressure of overcoming stasis.
Even our polluting dystopia is a wonderland compared to a century ago. Everything was difficult. However, it was the political will, organization of labour, and a changes in culture that allowed for focused work to develop the systems and practices for mass infrastructure improvements (oh, and luck).
A few years ago, in Ontario, we had the start of a movement. The government was offering a feed in tariff that would allow for homeowners and businesses to invest in renewable energy generation. The idea was to stabilize prices so that you could see a very clear ROI for investing in renewables. There was a glimmer of hope that this could spark a huge private investment in power generation, reducing the need to add capacity to the system for peak consumption periods.
