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By Mitchell Hoeft, APWA-MN Director of Vendor/Contractors 

Over the last 10 years we have seen breakthroughs in construction methods involving energy efficient buildings; however, there has been limited dedication to other areas of civil infrastructure construction.

I recently read an article in Science Daily that dives into what some believe is the future of infrastructure construction in our society. The concept of “Power Roads” utilizes the goal that each piece of infrastructure should generate more energy in its lifetime than the amount it took to build it. The plan is to achieve this by not only implementing energy renewal products into these new structures, but also by providing a more sustainable approach during the construction phase.

As public engineers, we need to continue to look for ways to grow as a society and this article provides some good ideas for doing that. The first bridge project of this type is anticipated to start construction in Norway beginning in the spring 2016.

• Read the article: Power Roads: Soon our roads, bridges will be paying back the energy used to build them

Photo Credit: SolarThermalMagazine.com