SunSentinel Mention

February 19, 2021

Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP

President, Chen Moore and Associates

Last week: If you are like me, you looked at the weather across the country the past week and said, thank goodness I’m in Florida. What you really should have said is thank goodness we have the infrastructure that we do in Florida. With the failure of the unregulated Texan electrical grid, I think more of us should have appreciated the robustness of the Floridian grid and post-storm activities that we’ve had. Even at that, the operators of the nine electric grids saved the day, implementing rolling blackouts that were unpopular but stopped a catastrophic failure.

Looking ahead: Mars rover Perseverance landed last week, but its quest to find life on another planet is one of the greatest things that we can hope to find in the coming weeks. SpaceX, Blue Origin and an assortment of other companies have gotten the credit recently for excellence in space flight, but for the Mars rover, NASA deserves all the credit. We’ve all looked to the sky and thought “what if.” Thank NASA for answering with what is possible. Even Elon Musk owes them that.

SunSentinel Mention

February 19, 2021

Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP

President, Chen Moore and Associates

Last week: If you are like me, you looked at the weather across the country the past week and said, thank goodness I’m in Florida. What you really should have said is thank goodness we have the infrastructure that we do in Florida. With the failure of the unregulated Texan electrical grid, I think more of us should have appreciated the robustness of the Floridian grid and post-storm activities that we’ve had. Even at that, the operators of the nine electric grids saved the day, implementing rolling blackouts that were unpopular but stopped a catastrophic failure.

Looking ahead: Mars rover Perseverance landed last week, but its quest to find life on another planet is one of the greatest things that we can hope to find in the coming weeks. SpaceX, Blue Origin and an assortment of other companies have gotten the credit recently for excellence in space flight, but for the Mars rover, NASA deserves all the credit. We’ve all looked to the sky and thought “what if.” Thank NASA for answering with what is possible. Even Elon Musk owes them that.

SunSentinel Mention

February 12, 2021

Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP

President, Chen Moore and Associates

Last week: Last week, the water supply of Oldsmar, Florida, population 15,000, was briefly in jeopardy when a hacker used a remote access program shared by plant workers to briefly increase the amount of lye — sodium hydroxide in the water — by a factor of 100. This wasn’t immediately dangerous (the chemical reaction would have taken over a day) and there are many safety checks in the system to catch water that isn’t of correct quality, but this is another incidence of underfunded infrastructure systems that are vulnerable to age and intrusion. Let’s properly fund these programs before someone gets hurt.

Looking ahead: As budget negotiations build in Tallahassee, trying to close the $6 billion gap between the governor’s first proposal and the legislature’s opening discussions, it will be interesting to see how the differences get addressed. Will Florida, which voted for Trump, get its share of Biden stimulus, which could be $8-$15 billion? Will Florida tap some easy revenue sources, like internet sales tax or finally settling the gambling compact with the Seminole Tribe? Will Florida cut its way to an even budget? All of these options are on the table as we try to keep our economy rolling while preparing for potential future down years.