Forward Looking Infrastructure

December 23, 2008

   

We're getting ready to do lots of infrastructure. But exactly what "infrastructure" is has become a loosely defined, elastic territory at the critical juncture of being made firm. And while the shovel ready stuff is needed to create jobs quickly, more important for long term success is the transformative undertakings listed below. Some don't create lots of jobs right away, but they don't require as much capital either, and it makes sense to get them (and their big, long lead times) rolling now.

Here are some good bets for infrastructure that could unleash untold (and as of yet unimagined) waves of innovation and progress by creating abundant energy and transport (as computing and the internet created easy, abundant information):

• Smart Grid
• Urban renewables (to include enhanced geothermal)
• More transmission from the sunny, windy and watery places that can produce industrial scale solar and wind power
• Infrastructure needed to implement the Mileage Fee
  • at Gas Stations
  • the standard inclusion of GPS in vehicles
• the Electric Recharge Grid
• Batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, at production scale
• Electric Rail

Photo: Steve Kelley on flickr