And, you thought the infrastructure-spending portion of the Obama Administration's Stimulus Plan was a waste of time and money. CG/LA Infrastructure LLC means to dispel that idea. One way to do so is to identify the top 100 infrastructure projects now in the works, and publish the list, which they've now done.
The Top 100 US Strategic Infrastructure Projects is available as a free download. Readers interested in this topic might want to register for the the North America Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum to be held September 22 - 24, 2009 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.
"These projects will form the backbone for a new, competitive US economy and breathe life into the Obama government's vision going forward," according to Norman F. Anderson, President and CEO of CG/LA. Led by both the Obama Administration's commitment to improving the nation's faltering infrastructure stock and by a regional drive towards carbon-neutral energy and productive infrastructure, the North American Leadership Forum will host not only the top projects in the US, but also the leading projects in Canada and Mexico. "The US economy is in trouble, and these projects define a powerfully competitive, critical path forward," says Anderson.
The Top 100 projects were identified as possessing three specific criteria: (1) strong probability of going forward in the next 12 months; (2) critical as building blocks for US competitiveness; and (3) strong relevance to the Obama government's 'connect the dots' infrastructure priorities.
The organization separated projects into three classes:
Smart Grid projects will provide an upgraded power distribution system. It is best understood as the operating system for the new economy, and is what Warren Buffet calls "the single most important investment in the US economy." Fourteen of the 100 projects are tied to the Smart Grid, either directly or through the projects that the Grid enables, including: 6 transmission projects ($25.1 billion), lead by the Midwest's Green Power Express project; and 8 renewable energy projects ($15.3 billion), including wind, solar and energy efficiency, the largest of which is T. Boone Picken's Pampa project.
New Infrastructure will provide "building blocks" for finance and physical capacity creation to drive a globally competitive US economy. These projects are largely "carbon-neutral" and will include 6 high-speed passenger rail projects ($109.4 billion, the largest spend by far on our list), lead by the San Francisco/Los Angeles and Midwest Rail Initiative; and 18 urban mass transit projects ($44.4 billion) including Michigan's Regional Rail Link and Northern Virginia's Dulles Access Corridor project. The visionary $10 billion electric freight rail initiative would also fall into this category.
Traditional Infrastructure projects will rebuild what we normally think of as infrastructure; the physical structures created 50 years ago that have allowed our economy to be competitive and have created opportunities for Americans over the last half-century. These projects were selected based on their ability to renew that competitiveness, including: 17 project in surface transportation ($58.3 billion); 7 projects in ports & logistics ($5 billion); 4 projects in traditional electricity generation ($21.4 billion); 9 projects in natural gas, including pipelines, LNG terminals and exploration ($55.1 billion); and 14 projects in the 'forgotten' infrastructure of water/wastewater ($19 billion).
It is said that roughly 2 million new jobs would be created each year from 2010 through 2014, directly and indirectly, through the development of these 100 strategic infrastructure projects.
