Energy Biz - September/October 2008 - (Page 33) Even though energy technologies can be incredibly complicated, their overarching goal is simple: A nuclear power plant is merely a complicated machine for producing electricity, and a natural gas pipeline is an engineering feat designed to distribute fuel. This makes energy systems highly precise and efficient, but it also means that such systems have little flexibility and room for error. Complexity and tight coupling are compounded by a third problem: speed of interaction. To achieve their efficiency, large-scale technologies have more time-dependent processes, and in many cases operate automatically. Given the speed at which system components interact, however, malfunctions usually occur faster than any combination of problem solvers can anticipate or overcome them. A fourth factor, human fallibility, exacerbates each of these tendencies. Proponents of large-scale energy technologies are often encouraged to think that they can control the best in nature and the worst in themselves, and they continue to think so until carried beyond the limits of their own intelligence or stamina. Regulators and businesspeople can ultimately glean at least two lessons. First, there is no such thing as safe conventional energy technologies, much in the same way there is no such thing as an energy system that is completely benign to the natural environment. Energy accidents have become a more common theme as cultures embrace electrification, industrialization, economic growth, and higher standards of living, and to a certain degree will remain an inevitable feature of our modernized environment. Second, we need to do better. Energy accidents exact a significant toll on human health and welfare, the natural environment, and society. Such accidents are now part of our daily routines, a somewhat intractable feature of our energyintensive lifestyles. They are an often-ignored negative externality associated with energy conversion and use. This conclusion may seem quite banal to some, given how fully energy technologies are integrated into modern society. Yet energy systems continue to fail despite drastic improvements in design, construction, operation, and maintenance, as well as the best of intentions among policy makers and operators. Benjamin K. Sovacool is a research fellow in the Energy Governance Program at the Center on Asia and Globalization at the National University of Singapore. www.energycentral.com E n E rgyB i z 33 http://www.icefreehybrid.com http://www.icefreehybrid.com http://www.energycentral.com
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