Select Page

CleanTech-2021

One minute summary:

My name is Bill James (612.414.4211, bill.james@jpods.com). As a small child I cleaned my grandfather’s pig barn with a half-barrel suspended from an overhead guideway. A tiny child could move tons. As an Infantry officer I similarly used helicopters to pinpoint delivery of supplies. Suspended payloads are Better Physics™. They radically reduce the Parasitic Mass™ of the vehicle (mass that is not payload).

Start with Why? (link to Simon Sinek video)

To create a common frame of reference, ask:

  • Why do we have traffic jams?
  • Why have eight US Presidents issued unanswered calls to action to end foreign oil addiction? We imported 6 million barrels a day in May 2021.
  • Why have world leaders issued unanswered calls for Climate Action since Kyoto?
  • Why perpetual oil-wars since 1991?

In 1998, in a discussion with West Point classmates who studied Nuclear Engineering together, the answer came to us. We lacked the self-discipline to be energy self-reliant. So we set about to invent the technologies to make American energy self-reliant. Combining the barn-cleaner physics with grade-separation, Lean Thinking, and robotics cuts energy consumption by 95%. Using the structure of the guideway to deployed solar collectors enabled collecting enough energy to power the networks. So I patented the Physical Internet® (6,810,817):

  • 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….”

I would later learn that the first network of grade-separated self-driving cars, Morgantown’s PRT, opened in 1972. This differs from my patent by using a central computer instead of a more rugged distributed collaborative robot approach. The Wuppertal suspended train has been running since 1901. Technology is not the barrier to solving urban traffic. We have had the answer for half a century.

As with the century of rotary telephones under an unconstitutional Federal monopoly, government regulations have mandated the 25 mpg transportation efficiency of the Model-T for a century. Congressional study, PB-244854, “Automated Guideway Transit” documents ​regulations blocked urban mobility innovation for “four to six decades except minor cosmetic changes”. The study was published in 1975 to identify solutions to the hardships of the 1973 Oil Embargo. It identified Morgantown’s PRT as the solution.

Think of how much easier it is to drive your car on a freeway than city streets. JPods guideways are freeways for self-driving cars. Grade-separation preempts the complexities self-driving cars face at grade. Simple cuts costs.

Action required to answer WHY, to end oil-wars and the Root Cause of Climate Change:

  • Exactly the same as was required to transition from rotary telephones to the Internet, breaking a century of unconstitutional monopoly. 
  • Ending violations of the “post Roads” and “No Preference” clauses of the Constitution since The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916.

Dr. Franklin proposed the Federal government be given a power to tax and build highways and canals in the Constitutional Convention on Sept 14, 1787. James Madison recommended it be raised to a power to create corporations needed to accomplish the general governments objectives. Then George Mason reminded the delegates of the Boston Tea Party, a protest against the general government’s transportation monopoly that triggered a war. As Madison noted, “He was afraid of monopolies of every sort”. The Convention voted 8 states to 3 to forbid Federal taxing for “internal improvements” (Federalist #45) beyond what was required to deliver letters in defense of free speech, “post Roads”, and “No Preference“, Article 1, Sections 8 and 9.

President Madison issued the first of 21 Presidential veto messages enforcing the “post Roads” restriction. Ignoring the Constitution, with the 16th, 17th, and 18th Amendments consolidated powers not authorized to tax and build an ecomomy based on burning oil to move two tons to move a person and burning coal for electricity. The world adopting the Federal monopolies after World War II is the Root Cause of Climate Change and oil-wars.

Climate Change is unconstitutional. It sacrifices the Liberty of Posterity to government oil and coal burning monopolies and a Tyranny of the Majority addicted to foreign oil.

Two paradoxes point to how to retool for a sustainable future:

  1. The Stockdale Paradox (Jim Collins, Good to Great): Unwavering faith we will prevail while facing the most brutal facts of our current reality.
    • More of what is failing will fail.
    • Burning oil to move two tons to move a person with the 25 mpg efficiency of the Model-T gradually created the Federal highway monopoly since The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916. 
    • Since 1916 46% of 400+ ton-mpg freight railroads have been replaced by 25 mpg roads.
    • Mass Transit has not solved urban congestion in any city in the world.
    • Mass Transit, queuing and transfers, amplified the COVID pandemic by at least 6 times (MIT and London Tube studies).
    • Traffic costs Americans $1.7 trillion per year with at least 50% of these costs can be converted into value:
    • Milgram Problem of how people behave in institutions must be overcome. In an institutional setting 65% of people ignore their morals and will electrocute someone if told to be an authority. Who eats lunch and who is lunch illustrates the violent nature of life. We grant governments sovereignty, a monopoly of violence, to suppress wars and crimes by coercing compliance with laws.
    • Life requires energy. Cheap oil is finite. Life powered by cheap oil is terminal. We will soon face Oil Famine as President Obama noted in 2010, “For decades we have known that the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered….”
    • A majority cares only about lower costs to themselves. Fortunately, solar-powered mobility networks are 10X lower cost that the governments oil-powered monopolies. Once regulatory barriers are broken, a majority will embrace solving Climate Change because it is cheaper for them.
  2. The Lifeboat Paradox: If you are self-disciplined to own and be skilled in the use of a lifeboat, you are unlikely to need one.
    • America is facing Civilization Killers because government monopolies fail to exercise the self-discipline to be energy self-reliant. 
    • Thomas Edison, 1910 and the creation of life note we can live within a solar budget:​

“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….”

How to Break the Monopoly

Liberty is the source of the “general welfare” as two aspects intertwine in a Darwinian crucible of creative destruction:

  1. Tolerance of disruptive minorities offering choices. There are few miniorities as tiny and disruptive as commerical innovators. It my intent to disrupt the Federal monopoly that mandates foreign oil addiction by changing economic lifeblood from oil to ingenuity.
  2. Tolerance of people acting in their own self-interest to sort those choices in free markets and free speech. 

The current government monopolies block offering and sorting choices.

There are two options to break unconstitutional government transportation monopolies:

  1. Decades Long Option: Allow “Pirates and Patriots” to break laws until common law breaks the government monopolies:
    • Tesla has 3 billion self-driving miles with a 9X better safety record by purposefully violating every law that gets in their way. 
    • Rideshare swarmed cities breaking their taxi monopolies and radically improving service.
    • Scooters are everywhere while ignoring every law that hinders their use.
  2. 70% in 8-year Option:  The 5X5 Standard
    • The communications analogy to this is:
    • The 5X5 Standard
      • Privately funded networks
      • 5 times more efficient than roads and mass transit
      • Pay 5% of gross revenues to use the air space over public ways.
      • Regulated by the same standards as Disney’s monorail, thrill rides, and ski gondolas. This provides a 10,000 times better safety record.
    • The 5X5 Standard as pending in the Massachusetts Legislature. This was partially passed on Jan 6th with $1.3 million allocated for implementing regulations.

This organized approach will encourage capital to invest. JPods obtained a Letter from the Senate Transportation Committee Chairman in Georgia relative to using the 5X5 Standard. We took that to Goldman Sachs and obtained a Letter of Interest relative to building $4-6 billion of networks in the Atlanta airport area:

By securing capital investment in a free market, the pace of change will be great enough to accomplish President Biden’s call for a 50% reduction in GHG by 2030:

Execution, “start small, iterate relentlessly”

JPods approach is to “start small, iterate relentlessly”. Our primary initial niche is networking airport economic communities of terminals to hotels to car rental to parking to convention centers. Networks will grow based on achieving 10X benefits. Red Bull TV documentary on the future of transportation

Team

Bill James: Founder, CEO, Director. BS-West Point, NCAA All-American Wrestler. Wrote WebClerk software recognized by Twin City Business Monthly as the “Best New High Tech Product of the Year”. Two national tours with Apple Computer. Explained JPods to Steve Jobs in 1999. Jobs like the idea of physically delivering digital content but though the Segway would be easier to break the regulatory barriers. Eighteen months later released the iPod. JPods US Patent (6,810,817):

Frank Pao: Director. Founder of Aesthetic Green Power, a solar manufacturing facility in Poughkeepsie, NY. Frank Pao, showing “Future House” to then Secretaries Locke and Chu. Future House was the US entry in the International Net Zero competition held in conjunction with the Beijing Olympics. Future House was the only entry to achieve Net Zero. The collectors over MetLife stadium were also made by Frank.

Charlie Fletcher: CEO and co-founder of the Georgia Mobility Company, BS-West Point, Former Commanding General US Army Transportation Command and for logistics during the invasion and rebuilding of Iraq.

Bill Saylor: Distributed Power. BS–West Point, MS-MIT. Member of the IEEE P1547 standards committee for distributed grid interconnection standards. Designed/installed distributed power projects using natural and fossil sources.

Mike Teske: Compliance. Past President, Vekoma Rides USA (the world’s largest in-house designer and manufacturer of amusement rides). Past Technical Director for opening 5 major theme parks, 110 major attractions.

Mike Cassano: Software. BS, MS University of Minnesota. Developed at Red Hat, BitCoin.

Steven Day: Chief of China Deployment and Pacific Rim. Securing contracts and financing in China.

… and more. 

Recipe

Background on Morgantown

As with The Mother of All Demos demonstrating most aspects of the Internet in 1968, Morgantown’s PRT has delivered 150 million passenger-miles since 1972. 

 

Source: Congressional Study PB-244854, “Automated Guideway Transit”, 1975.

Finding: “institutional failures” within US DOT resulted in urban transportation innovation being blocked for “four to six decades” in urban mobility except for “relatively minor cosmetic changes“. See page 41.

Recommendation: Allow Rights of Way access so networks such as Morgantown’s PRT can be built in US cities to solve traffic problems and the hardships of the 1973 Oil Embargo.

Tricia Nixon opened the first self-driving car network on Oct 24, 1972. She said it was “more fun than Disneyland.” The Federal highway monopoly has blocked further deployments of PRT in America since. That same highway policy caused the bankruptcy/abandonment of nearly half the freight railroads despite 400+ ton-miles per gallon efficiencies.

 

 

 

Clever Uber youtube of the foolishness of moving people in two-ton boxes.

Ad from CSX shows what is known to be practical

Links:

Bill James, 612.414.4211, bill.james@jpods.com

× How can I help you?