Perspectives On Amsterdam 's Energy System

“Today 's failure is a dramatic reminder of the importance of the uninterrupted flow of power to the health, safety, and well being of our citizens and the defense of our country.

The main objective of this book is to educate us on how we can make our cities more resilient to this ever growing threat. The book starts by giving us(the readers) a vision for a resilient city, but what the authors were really trying to convey is that they are trying to reduce oil dependency, which will save this resource. They say reduction of oil dependency is a necessity, they state that it will reduce impacts on the environment, and will reduce impact on human health which will lead to reduced impacts on human health and will lead to greater economic gain because they will depend on other sources of income rather than just oil. This will make the cities more economically stable because they can get their money elsewhere if the cities would stop depending on oil to bring in the cash flow.

Although rebuilding the levees,drainage system and infrastructure were essential for the protection of the people, the rebuilding of communities is just as important. It’s more than just these events such as Hurricane Katrina that cities need to focus on to becoming more resilient.47 In July 2006, the Rockerfeller Foundation, Greater New Orleans Foundation and the Bush- Clinton Fund announced the Unified New Orleans plan (UNOP) process that would build upon previous efforts and constructively more towards an overall recovery plan for the city and of its citizens. 48 As Christopher Kennedy notes, “infrastructure primarily mean transportation systems, which determine land use in cities, and other physical assets such as water pipes , sewers

It has recently come to light that Glasgow and the West of Scotland have been using a great deal of our earth’s precious finite resources. To combat this we must take advantage of our valuable surroundings and look for long term replacements such as solar, wind and tidal power as well as geothermal and hydroelectric sources. In the interest of our planets wellbeing and our country’s economy, the engineers at SECC have created the following report. Our aim is to help you realise the potential of these alternative sources and push for them to replace the power plants burning through our finite resources.

The city’s top three energy goals include increasing overall city energy efficiency by 5%, city building energy efficiency by 10%, and the renewable energy usage by 20 megawatts (City of Chicago, 2015a). Further, since 71% of carbon emissions come from the energy used by buildings in the city (City of Chicago, 2015a), it is unsurprising that government has taken notice. As stated by the City of Chicago (2015a), a goal has been set to increase renewable energy use 25% by the year 2026. Reductions in carbon emissions are not only beneficial in terms of energy efficiency, but they also reduce harm to the environment that can lead to climate change (City of Chicago, 2015a). It is also important to note that increasing energy efficiency can include building new, costly infrastructure that will pay off long-term, or can be as easy as replacing all street lights with energy efficient bulbs. In fact, updating street light energy efficiency is such a simple and cost-effective energy usage reduction tactic, it used in many of the cities we have studied this semester, such as Portland (Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, 2011). It is evident that the City of Chicago (2015a) believes that no sustainable effort is insignificant.

Critical infrastructures are interdependent on other infrastructures and if one fails the other will also (Kamien, 2012). For example, transportation is an infrastructure that has a significant linkage between resources and facilities. The Department of Homeland Security states “The nation's transportation system quickly, safely, and securely moves people and goods through the country and overseas.” How is transportation critical? A highway/bridge can provide emergency transportation access to a hospital. Should the bridge collapse, resources are not being reached to the hospital. The protection of our critical infrastructures is a shared responsibility of state, local, and federal governments. However, not all infrastructures are critical.

with no turn on communicated from the electric company, due to so many power outages, and the weather being so detrimental, the community is starting to panic. Some people have had their roofs cave in, others cannot start their vehicles. Hospitals in the area are treating many victims for hypothermia and some deaths related to the cold. People are running out of wood for their fireplaces and most people did not have any emergency packs created for possible disasters like this.

In part one of the project I focused on two potential risks, power outage and work stoppage. As a contractor constructing a facility as massive as the Empire State Building, I would need to be aware of many other risks in order to prevent them from becoming events. Anytime an event occurs, it requires resources to be realigned in order to fix the problem and get the project back on track. This results in a slip in the schedule and unnecessary funds being expended. If I am able to appropriately determine potential risks and build an effective Risk Management Plan, I can minimize the

A colossal and history making massive blackout occurred in August 14, 2003 across the region of US and Canada affecting around 50 million people who lost access to power and were deprived of basic amenities. They were forced to sleep on the road. Millions and millions of people were caught by surprise when the electrical grid suddenly crashed. It shut down a hundred power plants. It took 29 hours for the power to turn back on for the major cities. But the brief outage caused an estimated $6.4 billion economic losses.

New York faces a various number of infrastructure issues, regardless of the neighborhood status quo. Many city roads, subways, bridges, water mains, sewer systems, school buildings, and other public buildings are over 50 years old. More than 200 of New York City’s public

The burden of emergency management has grown great deal in the last few decades. We have seen an increase in natural disasters, a new threat of terrorism on our front door and an increase in manmade disasters. All of these have tested emergency management in a number of cities and towns across the nation. It is not always disasters that present problems for emergency managers. We have to look beyond our traditional view of emergency management of helping us during times of disasters and view what issues they consider may affect their emergency response. Issues that emergency management see that are moving into the critical area are issues of urbanization and hazard exposure, the rising costs of disaster recovery, and low priority of emergency management.

According to the case study written by Jurek, Bras, Guldberg, D’Arcy, Oh, and Biller, energy costs were steadily rising and were predicted to continue this trend going into the future. At the same time, utility companies were beginning to implement Smart Grid technologies to increase the efficiency of energy distribution. One resulting program to emerge from

Nearly every community has some sort of community risk, threat, and assessment plan that takes into account one of the six potential risks that are of concern to homeland security. Though each of these plans will likely differ from one another, many communities will have the same types of information in their plans. This essay will look at the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Guide (THIRA), the Community Risk Reduction Planning Guide, as well as FEMA’s National Preparedness plan. Any combination of these guides are a good starting point for every community in America. At top of every communities list as well as the nation is the protection of the critical infrastructure. Loss of infrastructure regardless of how big or small the community is could have very crippling effects on that community.

Global climate changes and depletion of fossil energy resources on the planet forced the civilized world to pay more attention to the efficient use of traditional energy resources and increase the proportion of renewable ones. One can definitely say that Germany is the most progressive country in that sense. Constant growth in prices for gas and other energy sources, as well as Germany 's dependence on exporting countries, gave rise to a new round of debates about the German energy policy. The discussion primary topics concern mixed energy supply stability as well as promotion of inner energy production through the use of coal and alternative energy sources. This paper is focused on Germany’s wind

For several years now the European Union, the largest regional trading block in the world, has been trying to liberalize its energy market, replacing the markets of its 27 member states with a single continent wide market for electricity and gas. The first phase of liberalization went into effect in June 2007. When fully implemented, the ability of energy producers to sell