Category Archives: Transportation

97% of vehicles and trains run on oil which peaked in world-wide production in 2005 — the tractors to plant and harvest, the trucks to deliver food all depend on combustion engines that burn oil

Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks

Preface. If trucks, tractors, ships, locomotives, and airplanes can’t run on electricity or the electric grid stay up without natural gas to balance wind & solar (see When Trucks Stop Running), if cement and steel and other products requiring the … Continue reading

Posted in Airplanes, Automobiles, Far Out, Nuclear Power Energy | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Oil consumption of containerships

Preface.  Since 90% of international goods move by ships, I was curious about how much fuel they burned.  It’s a lot: The very large container ship CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin above, which can carry 18,000 20-foot containers, carries approximately 4.5 … Continue reading

Posted in Electrification, Ships and Barges | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Life before Cars: When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets

Preface.  The past is future after fossil fuels, but minus the horses for a while, since before cars they required about a sixth of U.S. farmland for their feed.  My grandfather, Francis J. Pettijohn, used to fondly reminisce about how … Continue reading

Posted in Automobiles, Transportation What To Do | Tagged | 1 Comment

MIT: Why the electric-car revolution may take a lot longer than expected

Preface. This study from MIT explains why price parity of electric and gasoline vehicles is likely to take a lot longer than 5 years, and perhaps never if cars continue to depend on lithium-ion batteries. Deeper cost declines beyond 2030 … Continue reading

Posted in Automobiles, Lithium-ion | Tagged | 5 Comments

Why self-driving cars may not be in your future

Preface. Below are excerpts from several articles about why a completely automated vehicle is unlikely.  Heaven forbid they are invented. Researchers have found that people will drive 76% more miles, stop using bicycles and mass transit, waste a considerable amount … Continue reading

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Airplanes are energy gluttons. Finite oil should be used for ships, locomotives, & trucks

Preface. As oil declines and the energy crisis worsens, airplanes ought to be the first to go since they are 600 times less energy efficient than large cargo ships (30,000 / 50), 50 to 120 times less efficient than trains, … Continue reading

Posted in Airplanes, Transportation What To Do | 4 Comments

How Much Oil is in an Electric Vehicle? by Nicholas LePan

LePan shows how plastics, made from fossil fuels, make up so much of a car, plus lighten the weight so the car can go further on gasoline. Since fossil fuels are finite, many assume we’ll just make them out of … Continue reading

Posted in Automobiles | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Why technology can’t solve all of our problems

I have many posts about energy contraptions that have had hundreds of thousands of breakthrough stories in the media, yet here we are, without powerful enough batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and so on to replace fossil fuels despite the exciting … Continue reading

Posted in Critical Thinking, Transportation | 2 Comments

Automated vehicles: more driving, energy wasted, & congestion

  Preface. My main post on this is: “Why self-driving cars may not be in your future“. Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future … Continue reading

Posted in Automobiles, Efficiency | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Quartermaster Meigs was essential to winning the Civil War

Preface. This is a book review of Robert O’Harrow’s 2016 book “The Quartermaster.Montgomery C. Meigs. Lincolns general, master builder of the Union army”. I can’t believe I never heard of him, but he is as much responsible for the North … Continue reading

Posted in Railroads, Ships and Barges, War Books | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment