https://openinframap.org/#10.58/33.9452/-118.3529
I love infrastructure engineering. There's so much going on that allows us to take things for granted. Even the 2021 Texas power grid failure fared relatively well for how close it skirted absolute disaster.
[1] https://practical.engineering/blog/2021/9/16/repairing-under... (I should give Grady more money) People here may remember jwz's post on the topic in 2002, copying the emails from 1989 (note the following link may display something unsavory with the HN referrer, in which case copy-and-paste it): https://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/
https://www.ladwpnews.com/ladwp-completes-construction-of-th...
Someone should make a crawler that specifically looks for GIS data on government pages and auto-adds it if passes sanity checks and is up-to-date.
Creating such a bot might get edits reverted, unless done consistent with their policies: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Automated_edits
I suggest we avoid simplistic responses or carefully worded trap questions from a Defense point of view only, and really engage in a civil manner, about a topic that does have Defense elements, but also real civilian elements, too.
From a military point of view, the scorched earth tactic[3] of destroying infrastructure to disrupt an enemy force is out of favour because it also denies the victor from quickly rebuilding and stabilising a country[4]. Instead of blowing up power stations that could take a decade to rebuild, modern military forces would rather destroy a substation on a military base, such that the military base is rendered temporarily less useful. Due to the minor effect caused, within 12 months, the substation could be rebuilt and the the base repurposed for a new military force established by the victor. Invading military forces are not going to have difficulty identifying critical infrastructure used for military purposes which they should target, particularly because of the prevalence of satellite imagery.
[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG142.html
[2] https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth
[4] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/infrastr...
It would be great when wind power sources could be highlighted like solar sources and when wind & solar are more visible by default. Even solar power parks appear only on larger zoom scale (in my area).
The easy part of the answer to this is: go to openstreetmap.org, sign up for an account, login (top right) and then press the "Edit" button (top left). There is a lot of info[0] on their wiki on how to get started.
There is also information on how to map power lines[1] - I am guessing applying it to your specific example is what might be a bit harder, but it's probably doable.
The overpass-api tool is useful for finding objects, for example the power lines in the area that you mentioned: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1f6N
It's sometimes a bit fiddly, but when I very occasionally (like once a year) find something to correct, I can get it done.
Happy mapping.
[0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Beginners%27_guide [1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Power_lines
Feel free to join them and ask for help!
You might also look here for reference, California has a pretty great energy-related map library: https://caenergy.maps.arcgis.com/home/gallery.html?view=grid...
Go to openstreetmap.org, sign up for an account, login (top right) and then press the "Edit" button.
There will be offer of tutorial, I recommend going though it.
This in editing: select that you want to add point/area, create it and search for power plant in top left. Select it, add more detail if able and save the edit (save button in top right, then enter description of edit in sidebar on the left and press save button).
Edits go live immediately, but data consumers update with some delay depending on their setup (ranges from up to 60 second delay for ones using minutely updates to "no updates").
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See also https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contact_channels - there are active communities using IRC, Discord, Slack, Telegram, mailing lists and other communications tools.
Feel free to join them and ask for help!
You probably just need to tag the building "power: plant" on https://www.openstreetmap.org/.
It turns out that an absurd amount of sensitive/national security information is actually public but it becomes sensitive once it's organized in a way that it becomes "actionable" for attack, compromise, etc. In my particular situation, an acquaintance studying operations+logistics had overlaid communications trunks with transportation hubs and realized many of them were one in the same.
Now that more of this information is available easily and in readily combinable forms should make us re-evaluate all of it and how much gets shared, with who, when, and to what detail.
Btw, this is also a reason you should be skeptical whenever there's a leak and someone claims "none of this data is classified!" While technically true, a piece of non-classified but relatively unknown information might be the missing piece that makes something actionable.
Back in the day it could be (and sometimes was) a secret or protected information.
Here's the OSM wiki entry on how to map power lines: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Power_lines
Feel free to join them and ask for help!
It's not on OSM to do so, of course, but it isn't infeasible.
