On Maintenance on Existing Infrastructure!

I'm so lucky to have a reader like 'A jacksonian' who is super intelligent and provides wealth of information for free for anyone who is interested. I give you the marvelous, the fabulous, A Jacksonian:

That is something that is not widely understood: maintenance on existing infrastructure is *cheap* in comparison to capital outlay. Basically, if you have the funds to build it, you have the funds to maintain it by a wide margin. This is why so many third-world attempts to bring outside infrastructure to them fails: they cannot afford the cost of maintenance.

Maintenance requires infrastructure - a knowledgebase to ensure knowledge is passed on from generation to generation, technical schools with instructors able to actually teach the materials, those requre community costs either from governments (via taxation or other revenue streams) or via committed private sources. When refineries start to go into disrepair, that means the funding for those things is being neglected and the funding to actually maintain the infrastructure (replacement parts and such) is also being shortchanged.

The Space Shuttle, as an example, was based on computer designs and protocols from the 1970's: to get replacement parts now requires *hobbyists* to find ancient computer parts for refurbishing. If you try to put in newer technology, it is hampered by the old specifications. Thus the annual maintenance cost rises and steeply over time for it, so you will sooner or later need a full replacement of the vehicle. In private industry and the petroworld, that is the marginal cost of expansion, to ensure that newer, more capable facilities are built or brought on-line as older ones slowly fail due to higher maintenace cost.

Iran, by not investing in a single new refinery is not just the current refinery amount behind in economic production, it is *also* behind for all the capability that did NOT come on-line since 1979. The maintenance cost now rises steeply on the old facilities and the shortfalls seen, both internationally and now domestically, point out that the *existing* refineries need to go. They can limp onwards for some years, but their output decreases and their costs skyrocket and they start seeing downtime due to failure of equipment. To get *back* to its equivalent industry levels of the 1970's may not actually be possible at this point, due to increased demand. In any event the 10 year term needs to see the older refineries replaced and newer capacity, above and beyond that of the old refineries, *added*. And those sunk capital costs are very, very high compared to maintenance and scheduled phase-out of older systems. Just like the Space Shuttle is at its end of lifecycle, so are the refineries of Iran.

The US has not kept a good space industry it had in the 1960's and it is gone now. Private means and technology may finally get back to that pre-space age dream of private space access. Iran, however, is in a dicier proposition as their fuel supply and cash cow is now going under and it has trained no competent workforce to *replace it*. The US can get by through its investment in human capital and private industry for space, although it will be dicey... Iran will take 10-15 years to restore its capability via the school systems back to where it *was* in 1979. And how it keeps from going from a Nation with net income to one with Net debt will be a hard thing to handle... luckily the People of Iran have a good work ethic if it has not been ground down due to the tyranny going on there. From what I have seen of the vibrant culture of Iran form ex-pats, that is not the case. And that is the brightest star for Iran after the upcoming time of troubles...now we just have to get *past* those to something better.