JPods – jpods.com

Life requires energy. Oil is finite. Life powered by cheap oil is terminal; the crisis of 2008 is likely to replay by 2030.

US Peak Oil was in 1970.
Since 1974 every US president has warned that foreign oil addiction is a direct threat to national security.
US Peak Fracking was in 2025.
The Dallas Fed and EIA both forecast an end to affordable oil by about 2030.
- EIA report June 10, 2025, this updated their April warning of US Peak Fracking in 2027 and “Production to fall rapidly from 2030 through 2050“
- Dallas Federal Reserve survey of oil companies cited comment: “Shale core exhaustion and inventory concerns are mainstream and well-documented issues. Shale will likely tip over in five years, and U.S. production will be down 20 to 30 percent quickly. When it does—this feels like watching the steam roller scene in Austin Powers. Oil prices in the late 2020s will be something to behold.”

Oil wars began in Iraq in 1990. Oil dollars funded the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on the US.

In 1998, a West Point education and infantry experience forced a realization that oil wars would be perpetual until America became energy self-reliant. To contribute, I patented solar-powered transport networks to change economic lifeblood from oil to ingenuity:

Grade-separated networks of self-driving cars: “A method of controlling a transportation System for moving people, freight, and any combination whereof using a distributed network of intelligent devices without requiring the aid of a human driver”
Solar-powered mobility networks: “The method… providing… Solar and wind power generators integrated into the physical Structure of Said transportation System….”

Federal highways: Oil wars, traffic jams, $37 trillion in federal debt, Climate Change, and unwalkable cities all have a single Root Cause, Federal highways.

I was surprised that this Root Cause is unconstitutional. The Boston Tea Party was a demonstration against the general government’s mercantile transportation monopoly that triggered a war. To prevent rebuilding that path to war, the Constitutional Convention voted 8 states to 3 to forbid federal highways. There are 21 Presidential veto messages enforcing the Preamble, post Roads, No Preference, and Amendments 9 and 10 of the Constitution.

Rebuilding the path to currect oil wars started with Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916.

Link to the full JPods story. Below is a summary of JPods technology and our contribution to living within a solar budget.

Let’s Fix Traffic

Join the effort to build sustainable cities:

Sign-up for a monthly newletter.
Design networks for your community. JPods will provide funding for viable networks with you as a Co-Founder.
Get US policy makers must allow innovation to make your cities safer and consume less energy. Link to 5×5 Standard Rights of Way Agreement
10X greater capacity
10X less land use
3,000X greater safety
Other 10X benefits

Cleaner, Faster, Safer, Affordable™

On-demand mobility regardless of age, ability, or wealth:

No riding with strangers preempt security costs.
Non-stop from origin to destination cuts energy costs 95%.
No waiting saves time wasted waiting to be picked up.
Grade-separation (freeway) preempts accidents, congestion, repetitive start-stops.
Self-driving pods removes driver errors.
Solar collectors over the guideway assure energy self-reliance.

Station Behaviors

Have you ever wasted time waiting for a bus, train, or taxi? In JPOds networks vehicles wait for you. As you approach the station your phone app talks with the network to assure a vehicle is waiting for you.

You do not need to know which color/number of train or bus. You do not need to worry about which side of the platform to get on. You simply get into the vehicle, and the pod knows how to navigate to your destination.

JPods Solar-powered Mobility Networks

In 1910 Thomas Edison noted that “Sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. Perhaps they are the same, Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy… Do we use them? Oh, no! We burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property…. There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen….”

JPods solar-powered mobility networks will change economic lifeblood from oil to ingenuity by solar-powering urban mobility within a solar budget.

CLEANER

Solar-collectors mounted over JPods rails gather 25,000 vehicle-miles of power per mile of rail per day. The distributed nature of transportation networks can power urban mobility within a solar budget. No emissions, no pollution, no resource depletion, just sunshine.

FASTER

Congestion costs Americans, you, a work-week per year, $121 billion. Imagine getting to and from work, 24×7 without congestion or a car payment. JPods overhead rails preempt the causes of congestion and average greater speed than cars, trains or buses. Congestion Statistics

SAFER

Since being built as a solution to the 1973 Oil Embargo, Morgantown’s PRT has delivered 110 million injury-free, oil-free passenger-miles. In that same period approximately 1.6 million Americans were killed on the DOT highway monopoly. DOT cannot stop highway deaths, but they can end their monopoly that stifles deployment of safer networks.

AFFORDABLE

Moving a ton to move a person is less than 1% of known efficiency. If the 140,000 miles of freight railroads average 476 ton-mile per gallon, why do we move a person at 34 mpg? JPods average 260 passenger-miles per gallon, saving families a car payment per month.