Longer Lives Of Big Infrastructure

"Is the country relying too much on decaying infrastructure, the capital investments of generations long gone?"

"Maybe, but there is a good reason why big old things - pipes and bridges, nuclear reactors and even spaceships - stick around. In many ways, they are like your grandmother's dining room set: big, bulky and hard to remove. And in a lot of ways, it makes more sense to keep the old stuff than replace it with something from Ikea."

"Indeed, old equipment is in routine use. Nuclear reactors that were built in Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" era, with a life expectancy of 40 years, have recently had their licenses extended to 60 years. And one member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is already talking about adding 20 years on to that."

"Generally, the bigger an object, the longer it survives, because it has economic value, and has usually become intricately connected to things around it."