Undermining Infrastructure: Avoiding the Scarcity Trap

我们目前的基础设施无法实现政府规划的适应性强、低碳的未来。现有库存没有充分利用资源和材料；人们对进出系统的物质流动知之甚少；而对稀缺材料（如稀有金属）的日益依赖所造成的更大脆弱性被忽视了。低碳基础设施的规划没有考虑到支持它所需材料的可用性。善意地采取措施改变材料的性质（含碳/能量、强度等），可能对基础设施中稀缺资源的投入、库存和产出产生不可预测的影响。不幸的政策决定已经出台，将使我们陷入代价高昂的解决方案。如果不加以处理，这将给发展可持续基础设施带来巨大障碍。我们需要充分了解实现适应性低碳基础设施的材料障碍，并提出克服这些障碍的方法和系统。我们将通过增加关于材料特性和脆弱性的额外信息层，加强工业生态学中使用的既定存量和流量（S&F）方法。我们将扩展S&F，以包括质量（根据材料特性和使用年限）和脆弱性（根据稀缺性、地缘政治和可替代性）的度量。这将使S&F从仅仅关注材料的数量转变为捕获质量和可用性。这将反过来使我们能够分析系统中使用的材料属性的变化如何引入与材料供应，废物管理或库存变化相关的漏洞。更令人兴奋的是，它将使我们能够设计出更具弹性的解决方案，“设计出”材料供应中的关键点；它将为二氧化碳政策制定提供信息，以鼓励物有所值的减排；它将为分析复杂的互联基础设施系统提供一个强大的新框架。这一方法将在三个案例研究中进行测试，以完善最初的方法，并证明其适用于本提案中所述的挑战。案例研究将包括：-一些简单的，概念验证的物理基础设施系统（如桥梁）-系统的更详细信息；例如发电站；一个系统的系统；与许多不同的基础设施系统相互作用的地方（例如社区或城市）。将对个案研究进行分析，以查明现有存量，评估“替代”基础设施的脆弱性，并查明替代办法的新建议和解决办法。我们认识到，在这个项目中，系统和流程的边界可能很难定义。然而，我们认为，证明这种方法比绝对地界定边界更为重要。这一演示将帮助我们了解政策制定者和决策者如何使用这种方法，并为未来更详细的研究提供信息。已经进行了一些单一部门的库存和流量研究，并确定了特定材料供应的明显脆弱性（例如DEFRA对商业资源风险的审查），但这些还没有“结合在一起”，以产生基础设施脆弱性和适应性的全貌。该提案是冒险的，因为所需的复杂方法的发展，而基于众所周知的方法（S&F， LCA等）的组合，将具有挑战性，并且需要三个不同学科的知识清晰度：材料科学，工业生态学和环境工程。我们的目标是创造一种新的、低碳的、适应性的设计范式，以超高效地利用有价值的材料。这将导致资源利用的阶梯式变化，减少未来基础设施的脆弱性，减少二氧化碳排放并实现适应性。

Our current infrastructure cannot deliver the adaptable, low-carbon future planned by the Government. Existing stock does not make best use of resources and materials; flows of material in and out of the system are poorly understood; and greater vulnerability caused by increased reliance on scarce materials (e.g. rare metals) is ignored. Low carbon infrastructure is being planned without taking into account the availability of materials required to support it. Measures taken to change the properties (embodied carbon/energy, strength etc) of materials, taken in good faith, can have unpredictable effects on input, stock and output of scarce resources in infrastructure. Unfortunate policy decisions are already being taken that will lock us into costly solutions. Left untreated, this will throw up huge obstacles to developing a sustainable infrastructure. We need to fully understand the material barriers to achieving adaptable low carbon infrastructure and propose approaches and systems to overcome these barriers.We will enhance the established stocks and flows (S&F) methodology used in industrial ecology by adding layers of extra information on material properties and vulnerability. We will extend S&F to include measures of quality (in terms of material properties and age) and vulnerability (in terms of scarcity, geo-politics and substitutability). This will transform S&F from being concerned only with quantities of materials, to capturing quality and availability as well. This will in turn allow us to analyse how changes in the properties of the materials used in a system may introduce vulnerabilities, associated with materials supply, waste management or stock changes. More excitingly, it will allow us to design more resilient solutions 'designing out' pinch-points in materials supply; it will inform CO2 policy making to encourage best value for money emission reduction; and it will provide a robust new framework for analysis of complex interconnected infrastructure systems.This methodology will be tested on three case studies to refine the initial approach and demonstrate its applicability to the challenge described in this proposal. The case studies will include: - Some simple, proof-of-concept physical infrastructure systems (such as a bridge) - More detailed of a system; for example a power station; and - a system of systems; a place that interacts with a number of different infrastructure systems (for example a neighbourhood or city).The case studies will be analysed to identify existing stocks, assess the vulnerability of 'replacement' infrastructures and identify new proposals and solutions for alternative approaches. We recognise that the boundaries of the systems and flows may be difficult to define in this project. However, we consider that it would be more important to demonstrate the approach than to define the boundaries absolutely. This demonstration will help us to understand how this approach could be used by policy makers and decision makers and inform more detailed studies in the future. Some single sector stocks and flows studies have been performed, and the apparent vulnerability of particular material supplies has been established (e.g. DEFRA A review of resource risks to business) but these have not been 'joined together' to produce a full picture of the vulnerability and adaptability of infrastructure. The proposal is adventurous in that the development of the complex methodology required, while based on a combination of well-understood approaches (S&F, LCA etc), will be challenging and require intellectual clarity from three contrasting disciplines: materials science, industrial ecology and environmental engineering. Our aim is to produce a new, low carbon, adaptive design paradigm for hyper-efficient use of valuable materials. This will lead to a step change in resource use, reduce the vulnerability of future infrastructure, reduce CO2 emissions and enable adaptability.