The Great Infrastructure Project

Hello World, I'm Tomasino.

This is Solar Punk Promps,

a series for writers where we discuss Solar Punk,

a movement that imagines a world where technology is used

for the good of the planet.

In this series,

we spend each episode exploring a single story prompt,

adding some commentary, some inspirations,

and some considerations.

Most importantly,

we consider how that story might help us to build a better

and more sustainable civilization.

If this is your first time here,

I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first,

where we talk about what Solar Punk is,

why you should care, and why this series came into being.

Today's prompt is The Great Infrastructure Project.

There's a small rural town,

next to whom a great infrastructural project was built.

It was a dam, or a huge solar or wind power plant,

or a gravitational battery, or something of the sort.

Over time,

the corporations and the government forgot about them,

and in order to avoid a catastrophe,

they need to work with unusual,

driven activists who came from all over to help them.

This is a living reality for many small communities around

the globe.

The village of Zhennan Shen in southern Zhejiang, China,

was an idyllic historic location which had fallen into

disrepair due to depopulation from 20 years of migration.

It was chosen for a program called Adaptive Reuse,

because of its beauty and close local location to Lee Shoe

City.

Local government brought in sponsors and worked with the

historical Heritage Group to update and renovate all of the

original houses regardless of their condition.

Space was rented out from locals,

a downtown set of homes were converted to a boutique hotel,

cafes, library, exhibition hall,

restaurants fed by the local farms, public parks,

and more were designed and built in a cooperative mode

called Historic Village plus Crowd Innovation.

Employment rates increased as did tourism.

Farms were given a steadier income,

especially during the off season.

Designers even competed in house renovation competitions

for public prestige.

This village may not be built atop a hydro plant,

but it shares the experience set forth in our prompt.

This type of infrastructure maintenance.

and the revitalization was made possible by a combination

of internal and external communities working together.

In their case,

the goal was the restoration of their infrastructure,

but that won't always be the case.

Your story may be about a town's need for the safe

deconstruction of infrastructure.

The World Wildlife Fund has this to say about Most

categories of infrastructure aren't inherently good or bad.

It's all about context.

The right dam in the right place can provide benefits with

minimal negative impacts to the environment.

But the wrong dam in the wrong place can do considerable

and far -reaching damage.

For infrastructure to be beneficial,

planners must consider the long -term impacts, risks,

and trade -offs.

They must take biodiversity and climate change into

account,

develop a plan for long -term governance and management,

and engage local communities at the earliest possible

stages of planning.

It should come as no surprise that many infrastructure

projects today do not achieve all of these goals.

Without long -term governance and management accounted for

at the beginning of the project,

many projects are left to age, crumble,

or fall as burdens to local communities whose survival

depends on them.

I stated in an article from the Earth Law Center in 2017,

due to the high cost of maintenance and safety,

many of the world's dams get more dangerous as they age.

The Mosul Dam in Iraq and the Kariba Dam in Zambia rank

among the world's most dangerous.

Should the Mosul Dam fail,

it could result in the death of 500 ,000

people and deprive millions more of power and water.

The 58 -year -old Kariba Dam.

could result in 3 .5 million dead,

leave 40% of South Africa without power,

cause untold damage to the surrounding wildlife,

plus the destruction of another nearby dam,

the Kahora Bassa.

According to a paper published by the International

Institute for Environment and Development,

disconnecting from government energy services to develop

independent energy sources, such as micro wind or biogas,

can help build resilience for vulnerable groups.

The paper has a special focus on Vietnam,

where fishermen face particular challenges when the

electricity goes out.

Lack of refrigeration and transportation options can cause

great difficulties and losses getting their products to

distant markets.

The country's power grid as a whole is vulnerable to

disruption and failure from extreme weather and flood

events.

This means that vulnerable populations are dependent on a

system that's prone to collapse.

In Gorakhpur, India and in the Philippines,

local committees provide an opportunity for community

participation in infrastructure design.

After being left out of the conversations for so long and

suffering the brunt of their consequences,

these communities are eager to exert some control over

their lives.

So what does that look like?

Kerry Scott, a social scientist says,

The primary purpose of infrastructure and our built

environment is serving the needs of communities,

delivering better social outcomes and improving the quality

of people's lives.

He later adds,

Integrating social outcomes at the start is a must if we

want to leave a social legacy.

Our prompt today deals with a legacy infrastructure

project.

One which clearly didn't take into account the present

situation.

It must either be maintained or decommissioned safely.

It may require conversion to some new method or function.

That may require technical skills they don't have,

hence the need for outside help.

But do these outsiders have an understanding of this place,

this environment?

Do they know the needs of this community?

One of our opportunities for tension and drama may lay

between the community itself and the newcomers trying to

fix the project.

There may also be tension between these groups and the

government or corporation originally responsible for the

installation.

This two -way or three -way intersection of communities can

be very solar punk,

but can also easily fall into the style of other genres if

we aren't careful.

If, for instance,

the corporation responsible for the project is made to seem

as an antagonist and the local community must.

throw off their oppressor in order to self -govern.

That's just another form of cyberpunk.

The struggle there is about technology being used for

oppression,

rather than it being used to find a sustainable civilization.

Be wary of blending genres in these stories as well.

The atmosphere and aesthetic of solarpunk can easily be

deluded by other genres until it's unrecognizable.

A cyberpunk -solarpunk hybrid will just look like

cyberpunk.

As a writer,

you may want to use that style of relationship between the

communities, but be wary of how you frame it.

Is the community still your protagonist?

Are they achieving the goals through solarpunk ideals?

There is drama inherent to the infrastructure as well.

Adding a time limit on action immediately increases

tension.

So maybe the infrastructure project has an imminent failure

coming.

The outsiders and the community must work together to save

it from disaster,

even though they don't trust each other fully.

The point here is to show some hands -on work with social

stakes greater than just us versus them.

We can also zoom in on the specific dynamics of the

incoming activists and engineers a bit more.

Are they strictly a professional bunch?

Do they set up a separate camp with their own rules,

schedule, and daily order?

Or is it a hodgepodge assortment of skilled people without

a prior relationship, who move into whatever is unoccupied?

Perhaps they have to stay on board with the locals in their

own home.

Or maybe the outsiders are a sect of their own,

determined to save the locals even if they don't want it.

These decisions will affect how your communities must

interact, especially if there is a higher need at stake.

Naturally antagonistic relationships could be forced into

reluctant collaboration due to circumstance.

Such a story would be more difficult to align to the solar

punk aesthetic, but if well done,

could act as a moral lesson and strengthen the ideals.

Finally,

we should consider what daily life looks like in this small

town.

Is life oriented around the great infrastructure project,

or is it just a backdrop?

Perhaps the boom of construction jobs is over,

the children left elsewhere,

it's one of the dying cities where people want to be left

alone.

Have they been asking for help,

but no one's answered so far?

Are they already self -reliant and happy,

or are they working to get there?

This could be a community on the verge of a solar punk

renaissance,

or it could be one that's already well established.

One of the most difficult aspects of speculative fiction is

imagining how everyday life might change due to some un

-punctualization.

related technological advancement.

We're going to discuss this more in further episodes,

but for now try to consider the great infrastructure this

town is dealing with and what it does.

Is it a power generator or does it make goods,

provide a service, or ease a difficult task?

Then take that purpose and scale it up in your mind.

If it was a power generator, now it makes unlimited power.

If it eased a difficult task,

now that task's time is reduced to zero.

Finally,

try to think about how that change would affect the

unintentional everyday things.

For instance,

when the airplane was invented and fast travel between

continents became a reality,

nobody ever envisioned a future where you could pop off to

London for a stag party weekend.

What is the equivalent mundane change in your world?

Have an interesting idea?

Share it with me.

This podcast publishes on Mastodon,

a federated social network.

Our address is in the show's notes.

Come join us and let's start a conversation.

Until then,

I'll talk to you soon on the next SolarPunk front.

Music in this recording is New Unity Donning by Bathroom

a brighter perspective.

a brighter perspective.