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Catalyst

Corps of Engineers

Transportation has always been the catalyst for changing energy systems;

  • Paddle a raft, build a waterwheel.
  • Sail a boat, build a windmill.
  • Ride a horse, harness a horse to a plow.
  • Railroads in the 1860s were the catalyst for changing the energy system from biofuels to fossil fuels. In current dollas, oil cost near over $50 a barrel in 1860. After vast deforestation, railroads tuned their engines to burn coal and oil. Railroads used their reduced cost of transport to haul coal and oil to new markets. (Dallas Federal Reserve: Crude Awakening, May 2008).

 

1,000 year-old windmills in Iran.  Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind by Lyall Watson

There is a huge payback in allowing alternatives to oil/coal-fired transportation infrastructure. The costs of monopoly protected modes of transportation are:

  • 140 time less efficient that the 476 ton-mile per gallon efficiency of freight rail.
  • At least 10 times less efficient than solar-powered mobility networks.
  • Thousands of times less safe than Personal Rapid Transit networks as proven by Theme Parks and Morgantown’s PRT network.

By 2020 US oil consumption can be cut in half. By 2030 America can be 80% powered within a solar budget. We can accomplish what Thomas Edison noted was practical in 1910:

“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….”

As soon as the Federal monopoly is broken that protects oil-powered highways and mass transit from competition, the success in breaking the Federal communicaitons monopoly will be repeated. After liberty was restored in communications in 1982 the near century of rotary telephones was displaced by the Internet (created in 1969) and cell networks (1946). After liberty is restored in transportation the costs of pollution, congestion, and accident will be converted into value. America does not have an energy problem; we have a socialism problem of government control of the means of production in power and transportation infrastructure.

The Net Energy of solar is 6x better that oil at powering transportation:

Government officials protecting their transportation monopolies deny that enough solar energy can be stored to power transportation. We agree with Edison, “power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces”. Storing energy, like cutting transportation costs by 90% requires only to think more naturally and simply. Nature’s low work solution for storing and distributing energy is hydrocarbons, food, wood, oil, and natural gas. We simply mimic nature within a closed loop system to cut cost:

The financial collapse of 2008 will repeat by 2020 if America does not radically transition off its dependence on oil by 2020 based on:

Patents:

3 new Provisional Patents for building the Physical Internet®. These address current problems facing FEMA, insurance companies, power companies, and railroads.

These build on my US patent 6,810,817 for solar-powered transport networks and enterprise software I wrote:

        • Networks of robot vehicles without the requirement of a centralized computer control or human drivers: “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”
        • Use of the guideway structures with alternative option to use solar energy to power the networks: “The method… providing… Solar and other power generators integrated into the physical Structure of Said transportation System….”
        • 90 second summary
        • Documentary on the future of transportation
  1. Automated Guideways Facilitating 3-Tiered Cargo Shipments
      • The purpose of this invention is to reduce costs of shipping cargo on highways by integrating the just-in-time capabilities of Automated Guideway Transit networks with machine learning, railroad efficiency for long-haul, and Local Use Vehicles for last-mile deliveries.
  2. Energy Self-reliant of Automated Guideway Transit Networks

      • The purpose of this invention is to implement energy self-reliant Automated Guideway Transit (AGT) networks to sustainably and durably move people and cargo. This invention uses the distributed nature of AGT networks to gather, store, distribute, and apply distributed renewable energy to power mobility needs.

  3. Temporary Implementations of Automated Guideway Transit Networks
These will implement what Thomas Edison noted as practical:
    • 1910: “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….”
    • 1931: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait  ’til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
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