310 . DASA 2019-2 AYRES: I think it's fair to say that when you look at these things in detail, you can usually find an alternative way of solving the probJem, If it's a valve for a pipeline, you might have to close down one pipeline but there are other pipelines. If there are no pipelines available there are barges and unitrains and ships. There are other ways of solving almost any electrical problem by avoiding the particular device. But it's usually more expensive, and in that case it is critical. EISENBUD: Bob, let me give you one example, though, at the present time. “Uf you want to build a power plant, you can't do it in less than about 5-1/2 years because the delivery time on turbines is close to six years, This is ina normal, healthy economy. Just think about what would happen if a large number of power plants needed to have their turbines replaced, AYRES: It's more likely that other things, such as transformers, would go first, EISENBUD: This may be, but you are going to need turbines. You are going to need them in large numbers. AYRES: Turbines are extremely hard, you know. That's one thing that would be very hard tu descray unless you had a direct hit. EISENBUD: DUNHAM: Of course, this again is part of the unknown, You've got a much smaller population there. TAYLOR: I think there's an important question. Where is it one is trying to head? We've gone through societal retrogression, and it seems to me it's worth trying to be a little bit quantitative in asking hew far we have dropped back. Have we, fur example, dropped toa point where the productivity very quickly can be brought to the same scale as it is in the United Kingdom or in France or in India or in Mexico or whatever, because there are factors of ten or twenty involved there, and if you just look at numbers like that, there aren't factors of ten or twenty immediately visible. In other words, there's a temptation to say the drop has been to a standard of productivity which is still considerably higher than all of the underdeveloped countries in the world today, AYRES: That's in fact the indicatior when you look at it. not be so. but the reasons have to be rather subtle ones, It may