Life requires energy.

• Since 1974 every US President issued unanswered calls to action to end foreign oil addiction because of the threat to national security.
• For half a century I watched US Oil production peak and decline into perpetual oil wars in 1900.
• Path to war are hard to see looking from the present. When looking back at history, they are clear. Supported by a West Point education and infantry experience, I have watched this path to war unfold.

Action: Cities adopt 5x5FreeMarket.com provides a framework for to allow innovations.

Affordable oil is ending in  3-5 years according to EIA and Dallas Fed:

• EIA report June 10, 2025: this updated their April warning of US Peak Fracking 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.”
• US Peak Oil was in 1970.  US Peak Fracking was in 2025.

Mission: JPods’ mission is to change economic lifeblood from oil to ingenuity—to power walkable cities within a solar budget.

Background:

• Traffic costs Americans $2.76 trillion/year, with 95% of those costs wasted burning energy to move 2 tons to move a person.
• On-demand service of bikes and automobiles is the right answer; highways are the wrong network.
• JPods provide the middle-mile mobility regardless of age, ability, or wealth. Last-mile is provided by bikes, walking, etc….
• JPods cargo capacity increases proximity, improving walkability. Link to walkscore.com
• Next time you get in an elevator and push the button, you are riding in a vertical JPods. JPods are a network of Horizontal Elevators™.
• Oil wars began in 1990.
• In 1998, a West Point education and infantry experience forced a realization that oil wars since 1990 would be perpetual until America became energy self-reliant. To contribute, I patented solar-powered transport networks to approach the 188 times greater efficiencies of freight railroads over highways:
  • 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….”

Background:

As a small child, I used this barn cleaner. A child too short to use a wheelbarrow could move tons without the ground clutter. As an infantry officer, cargo nets with helicopters consumed vastly more energy and, similar to the barn cleaner, avoided ground clutter.

With JPods we added robots and solar collectors. US Patent 6,180,817:

Creating the technology was the easy part. The hard part was to get governments to allow innovation. The 28-year civics less is that we create governments for the very important purpose of minimizing violence from war and crime. By the Consent of the Governed, we grant governments a monopoly on the use of violence. Our taxes fund armies (my education) and police to coerce compliance with law.

The problem with innovation: Innovation is a compliance failure. Innovation is disruptive. So when the Federal government controlled:

• Communication between July 1918 and 1982 America had a nearly a centur of rotary telephones. Yet innovation was clearly available:
• Federal highways: Oil wars, traffic jams, $37 trillion in federal debt, Climate Change, and unwalkable cities all have a single Root Cause, Federal highways. Link to the no-cost, online version of the book.

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 the current oil wars started with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916.

What amazed me in this study is that freight railroads average 470 ton-mpg and since 1916, federal highways replaced 45% of freight railroads with 25 mpg roads, a 188 times decrease in efficiency. In 1960, President Eisenhower recognized that Interstates were a mistake.

When free markets are restored, we will see urban transport costs decrease as efficiencies approach railroad efficiencies.