Category Archives: Transportation What To Do

Unpave concrete & asphalt to save energy and money

Posted on November 22, 2023 by

Preface. The U.S. has 4.1 million miles of roads (1.9 million paved, 2.2 million gravel). About 3 million miles of roads have less than 2,000 vehicles a day, less than 15% of all traffic. The paved portion of these low-volume … Continue reading →

Posted in Concrete, Roads, Transportation, Transportation What To Do | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

How to fix our inland waterway system

Posted on January 25, 2022 by

Preface.  As you can see in Table 1 below, water transport is far more energy efficient than land transport, especially once we’re back to muscle power after fossil fuels are gone. Kilojoules of energy used to carry one ton of … Continue reading →

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Electrify ships with batteries?

Posted on December 17, 2020 by

Preface. You’d need 100,000 metric tons of batteries taking 40% of cargo space to go from Asia to Europe in 31 days on an 18,000 TEU container ship, and it is hard to imagine how or how long it would … Continue reading →

Posted in Ships and Barges, Transportation What To Do | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Life before Cars: When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets

Posted on May 31, 2020 by

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

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

Posted on January 2, 2020 by

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

Anyone who whines about airplanes should have to take the Oregon Trail

Posted on June 20, 2017 by

Source: Book cover of “Oregon Or Bust: True Short Stories from the Descendants of Oregon Trail Pioneers, Prospectors, Trappers, and Settlers in the Great Northwest Hardcover” by Gentry Ward Cutsforth (2012), XLibris. Preface. Also listen to the Louis CK rant … Continue reading →

Posted in Airplanes, Lithium-ion, Transportation What To Do | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Do taxes cover the cost to maintain your street?

Posted on February 15, 2017 by

From: http://mapstoryblog.thenittygritty.org/costofstreets/  Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street? Believe it or not, almost everywhere in the country, people are not paying for the cost of the street right in front of their own properties. I made a … Continue reading →

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

Reduce vehicle fuel consumption to increase energy security

Posted on November 6, 2015 by

[This is a really interesting House session that discusses U.S. energy policy, the need for consumers to be educated about why they should buy more fuel efficient cars, and push-back from the auto industry (see the full 140 pages for … Continue reading →

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David L. Greene, ORNL: Raise cafe standards and gas tax

Posted on November 4, 2015 by

Excerpt from: U.S. House. February 9, 2005. Improving the nation’s energy security: can cars and trucks be made more fuel efficient? Committee on science, House of Representatives, Serial No. 109-3. 140 pages. DAVID L. GREENE, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, CENTER … Continue reading →

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Better truck fuel efficiency to delay the end of the oil age

Posted on April 26, 2015 by

NAS. 2010. Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles (National Academy of Sciences Study) This free, 251 page document is one of the best I’ve seen on the myriad ways trucks could double their … Continue reading →

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