Need for sound infrastructure management (G C T Mathibe, John Shanahan)

Review by Bruno Comby, Nuclear Engineer Founder – President of Environmentalists for Nuclear – International Houilles, France, website: www.ecolo.org Review by John Shanahan, Civil Engineer Past President of Environmentalists for Nuclear - USA Denver, Colorado, USA, website: www.efn-usa.org January 16, 2019 Stratek Technology Leadership Programme, Pretoria, South Africa Thesis by Gaogakwe Carol Tshepiso Mathibe RISKS OF AGING INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE VALUE OF ASSET MANAGEMENT The topic of this thesis is one of the most pressing issues for the modern world: keeping infrastructure in good condition during useful life and properly decommissioning it at end of life. Gaogakwe Carol Tshepiso Mathibe has done excellent work analyzing all steps and making recommendations.

Key elements are: 1) Strong financial system to lend money for initial licensing, design and construction.

2) Selection of successful technologies.

3) Generate enough revenue for operations, maintenance, repair, decommissioning and profit without subsidies.

4) Sound technical and operational management.

5) Sound government policies.

A few countries have managed infrastructure well i.e., Switzerland and France. Some have not done well enough i.e. the United States. Other countries are far from being able to manage infrastructure well, i.e parts of Latin America and Africa.

To have long term stable and prosperous modern economies the key elements for infrastructure management must be working well all the time not changing frequently with political elections.

France is an example of a large country that has taken care of all aspects of their nuclear power program, particularly planning for uniform optimization of existing nuclear

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plants, for continuous operation in the future, for developing future nuclear technologies, for used fuel processing and proper nuclear waste storage.

Switzerland is an example of a small country that has taken care of all aspects that they can handle without needing help from foreign industries. This applies particularly to operation, maintenance and repair of nuclear power stations. Their infrastructure management in other sectors: electrical distribution grid, railroads, highways, airports, water supply, waste water treatment and air and water pollution control are outstanding.

The United States is an example of a large country that has done somethings unevenly well and dragged political leadership for half a century on key political decisions and development of future technologies. Since the early 1970s, the U.S. has allowed extreme environmentalist and anti-nuclear and anti-fossil fuel groups to slow down infrastructure development making it much more expensive.

Germany is an example of a country that can do everything very well but has allowed special interest groups to incomprehensibly force major changes from one energy extreme, nuclear, to the other, wind and solar, in national planning. Its infrastructure maintenance program for bridges, etc. is as challenged as that in the United States.

Russia is an example of a country that made bad decisions in nuclear power in the 1970s and 80s, but since then has been focusing on a very strong nuclear power program for the future. It does not allow anti-nuclear special interest groups to interfere with their nuclear program.

South Korea is an example of a country that has steadily developed a strong and stable economy and thriving nuclear power industry, including providing support for nuclear power in other countries. Their infrastructure management is consistently strong. North Korea is the complete opposite, hardly any infrastructure for its people, just state.

China is the world’s largest country by population and most likely soon also by economy and students in trades schools and universities. It is making fast progress in many sectors to modernize and have the strongest broad-based economy in the world. It will also be facing huge infrastructure management problems in the future as all the new buildings, transportation systems, bridges, power plants age. Like Russia, China does not allow anti-nuclear and extreme environmentalist groups to interfere. In the United States, extreme environmentalist law suits are dragged all the way to the Supreme Court. This harms infrastructure management and seriously weakens the country’s economy.

Not-to-be-named countries in South America are examples of failed infrastructure management. Copper is regularly torn out of electrical facilities and iron manhole covers are stolen from city streets and national highways. This makes for extremely hazardous driving and electrical service. The infrastructure is in chaos. Thieves earn money from illegal sale of scrap copper and iron. The United States contributes to construction of Interstate highway standard bridges on minor spur country roads leading to minor 2

Christian religious sites built on top of ancient pagan religious sites, all for political benefits, not for sound infrastructure management.

Russia and China contribute to purposeful infrastructure projects in Africa and South America including dams, highways, railroads and pipelines. These serve water supply, electric generation and movement of resources to ports for export.

The United States squanders a lot of its foreign aid money on less important infrastructure projects overseas just like it squanders sound planning for energy development and infrastructure management at home.

Here are two examples of very well-run infrastructure management programs: French nuclear program –

This is Nuclear Power Station Penly in France. It has an excellent infrastructure plan for the long-term future. The site is licensed from the beginning in the 1970s for four units.

There will always be two units operating and two units being built or decommissioned.

The operating units will be identical for optimization of number of personnel and operations, safety and spare parts management. The two operating units are on the right and the sites for two replacement nuclear plants with preliminary foundations on the left. No country in the world has this level of infrastructure management.

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Swiss tunnel construction and maintenance Swiss street, highway, tunnel and bridge construction and maintenance is the envy of the world. Nearly all tunnels, bridges and highways are in top condition. The photo below shows the attention they have given to building the new Gotthard rail tunnel.

Swiss engineering projects have workmen speaking up to 15 different languages. They have excellent project management, keep them closer to schedule and budget than in the United States. The new Gottard high speed rail tunnel has a route length of 57.09 km (35.5 mi), and is the world's longest railway and deepest traffic tunnel.

This Stratek Technology Leadership Programme thesis by Gaogakwe Carol Tshepiso Mathibe titled RISKS OF AGING INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE VALUE OF ASSET MANAGEMENT very responsibly analyzes infrastructure management practice and use of asset management system for South Africa. If properly implemented, this Stratek Technology Leadership Programme thesis could put South Africa ahead of the chaotic infrastructure management approach of short-sighted politicians in the United States.

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