Energy from the Earth - new media

Perspectiveeffective results.R&D in Road Developmenttriggers for a large-scale disaster.Long-Term Maintenance for RoadsInnovation - Indubitably R&D works bolstering Continuing from above and given that hugeinnovation holds the key to ensuring durable and investments go into building the assets, without areliable infrastructure available at socially acceptable strategized approach towards long-term maintenancecosts, with low maintenance and quick rehabilitation the investments are bound to be in vain.potential. Thus stems the necessity of exploring use ofEffective inspection, condition monitoring andlocally available materials (namely waste copper slag,maintenance - A comprehensive asset-managementindustrialslag, plastic waste, pond ash etc.) that mostsystem in line with Bridge-Management-System (that,often are classified as unacceptable, or at best,though in different forms is already being practiced bymarginal. Application of nanotechnology, to measure,different authorities) would possibly be the primordialmodel and manipulate matters (e.g. use of theplatform for ensuring that capacity-building for this beaggregate-free technology that is based on applicationrightly oriented.of several environment friendly enzymes for improvingthe engineering properties of soils so as to minimize or Consistency - As hinted above, uniformity howeveralmost eliminate the use of aggregates) at a nano-scale would have to be inculcated to ensure that add-ons,can potentially engender such confidence of using wherever and whenever applicable, be inducted intoalternate materials in addressing the social and the system. Although service levels, performancetechnological demands most equitably.indicators etc, the building blocks for appropriatemaintenance needs are already in place yet theMechanisation - A conservative approach toapplication of their adoption in projects lacksmechanisation primarily owes to factors like low/underconsistency. In fact, such uniformity is of utmostutilisation, cost sensitivity depending upon the volumeimportance from safety perspective as it is often seenof work involved, and also concerns over health andthat usages of rumble strips, delineators, markings andsafety. An integrated R&D would lend acceleratedother safety instruments vary from one to anotheropportunities in terms of augmenting mechanisationsegment of the same highway.more inclusively in the entire life-cycle of construction,monitoring and maintenance.Consistency in inspections also demands morestringent compliance. Inspections have to be backedAsset Maintenance and Disaster Prevention -up by records of such inspection-summary andUpkeep of assets intrinsically forms the major challengechecklists whose proforma are universally accepted into the nation, even more than constructing them.projects irrespective of their settings and magnitude.Pursuant to reducing recurrent maintenance needsCompliances with the obligations towards(and the associated costs) the focus for R&D wouldmaintenance shall have to be accorded only when ahave to be on concepts promulgating use of alternatescrutiny finds that these are being religiously adheredapproaches, say Integral Bridges allowing constructionto.without any bearings or joints between spans. Naturaldisasters, very often, add to the many other pitfalls thatexists as-on-date in ensuring that the assets do continueto perform (and exist) till the end of their design-life.Constructing Green RoadsEmbracing new ways of constructing and maintainingAppreciating that rural connectivity would road infrastructure, consistent with green roadquintessentially require constructing road assets in practices, would be tantamount to leveraging newparts of the country wherein the preparedness towards technologies imbibed into the system besides preparingdisaster prevention is even less than that for the urban the country to take a leadership role in environmentalcounterparts, R&D activities will have to account for stewardship.such designs, those that duly address the merits andStreamlining the application of a wide array of existingdemerits of alternative usages, synchronising them withActs (say wildlife Act, Water Act, Forest Conservationapt guidelines and also the concomitant maintenanceAct, Biodiversity Act etc.) and thus the very EIAaspects that more often than not turnout to be theprocedure is pivotal to such green road initiatives, and19Indo-Canadian Business October - December 2011