Coursera week 2: infrastructure and planning

There were a couple of lectures on infrastructure this week:
  • Kes McCormick defined the principles of infrastructure
  • Lara Hale from Copenhagen Business School talked about sustainable business standards
  • Dr Thomas Lindhqvist from Lund University discussed the use of light in a city
  • ESRC video on cities and climate change
  • A short clip by WWF about the importance of transport in a city
  • A short clip on ICLEI Building Urban Resilience in Boulder, USA
  • The Urban Green part 2 discussing renewable energy
The key points were:
Kes McCormick
  • Infrastructure can be defines as:
    • The physical and organizational structures necessary for society and the economy to function 
  • The main infrastructure issue cities face now is adapting the mobility
    • Cities were built for cars, and decarbonisation is hard to implement with this dependency
  • A successful green city will encourage people to act sustainably, instead of enforcing it upon them.
Lara Hale
  • Sustainable building standards are the bridge between the ideas, and the implementation
  • A performance gap is the difference in performance between the hypothetical model of a building, and the actual performance
  • Sustainable building standards have to balance the quantitative energy efficiency with the qualitative social function of the building
Dr Thomas Lindhqvist
  • The shift from traditional filament to LEDs is not just for energy efficiency, it is also for the reduced maintenance needed for the LEDs
  • Lighting also impacts the quality of life of citizens
    • German school case study
  • The new use of lighting in a city is a strong business opportunity as it is a dynamic system that needs constant updating and analysis
ESRC
  • They surveyed 100 cities around the globe to see what kind of experiments they were doing for climate change
    • Over 600 different projects were being developed across a range of cities
  • Climate change is becoming a big part of cities
    • most research was done into energy efficiency, but some was done for heat wave warning, and reducing the UHI effect
  • Climate change is bringing social justice (Bangalore case study)
    • The sustainable distribution of resources means that all people on the outskirts of the city has access to them where they previously wouldn't
The Urban Green
  • Many experts consider renewable energy disruptive
    • In the sense it disrupts the spiral of business as usual, they are disruptive
  • The big challenge is connecting the transport system to renewables
  • Eco-friendly systems need to be integrated into daily life in order to be successful.

Readings this was a WWF report on low carbon cities. Click here to access it

The main points of the readings were:
  • $350 trillion will be spent on infrastructure over the next 30 years
    • To achieve sustainability, this should be spent on lowering carbon dependency
  • NICs should be the ones focusing their efforts on implementing sustainable infrastructure from which they can develop further
  • There are 3 ways all cities can transform sustainably:
    1. Cities must adopt aggressive energy reduction
    2. Developed nations should work with their developing counterparts to assist with the implementation of low carbon initiatives
    3. Latest technological advancements should be used in the development of the new, sustainable infrastructure
  • Business as usual is outdated, and if this attitude continues, cities will continue to spiral the global climate into decline
    • Without changing our lifestyles, humanity will need the equivalent of 2 planets to maintain us by the 2030s
  • Energy intensity per capita decreases with development as the dependence on secondary industry decreases
Case studies:
  • Electric cars in Oslo
    • Electric vehicles in Norway are powered by hydroelectricity 
    • In 2013, there were over 5,000 electric vehicles in the urban area of Oslo, 
  • Cycling in Copenhagen
    • In 2011, 37% of people commuted to work in the city every day by bike, in comparison with just 27% by car
  • LEDs in German schools
    • The change to dynamic lighting in German schools increased reading speed by 35%, reduced errors by 45%, and reduced hyperactivity by 76%
  • Zero Carbon Economy in Bangalore
  • Transport in Malmo
    • The potential reintroduction of trams, availability of rental bikes, and better parking for bikes.
  • Safe Havens in Boulder
    • Using new technology, small areas are protected in times of flooding
  • Vancouver Convention Centre living roof
  • California electric cars
    • 10% of all cars sold in California must be electric
Week 2 also required a piece of coursework on a project undertaken in your city to reduce climate change. I did mine on the addition of hydrogen fuel to the public transport in London.

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