The Electric Future
Issue 2: Transportation
The ability to be mobile is one of the necessities of modern man, and indeed has been a trait of mankind since the dawn of our ascension to consciousness and perhaps even earlier with our earlier cousins like Neanderthals and Erectus. However our ability to move today is usually costly, both in dollar and to our environment in which we live. If we continue to use cars the way we are now, and the entire world gets access to cars in mass production we are going to end up never having the chance to stop the runaway train that is our carbon emissions. Instead of using fossil fuels for everything, as established in Issue 1, we could instead use nuclear power. Now how does this relate to your car? Surly I don't mean having small nuclear reactors in the vehicles we drive! You're right, humans are much too prone to accidents that leave them in four different county lines or wrapped around trees while going 90 down I-40 in the middle of Arkansas.
Instead of either situation, why not give both up? Fossil fuels and accidents I mean, not transportation. If we used electricity to power our vehicles that is supplied directly through the roads, we would need neither gas nor would we need to pay as much for our transportation needs. Additionally on highways what if you could go 90 miles per hour legally? What if you could go 180? 360? Imagine how long the trip would be if you could get on an onramp and the car then travelled along at 360 miles per hour, and did not need to refuel or be driven by you. Instead it was jacked into the electric highway system, and sent cruising along near half the speed of sound, without risk of life or limb. Then, when you exited, control was returned to you and additionally your batteries were completely charged, able to go 180 miles without recharging again - which could be done by just driving the car. Doesn't this sound interesting? You might be thinking it would be impossible, that no computer could handle such a load, that no power could ever be transferred from a road to a car, and that there is no way such a technology every existed. Or, like me, you already know about Nikola Tesla.
Tesla, one of the greatest minds to have ever graced the planet, already had ways to transfer power across the room, and recently this technology has come back. There are a few ways of actually transmitting power wirelessly and it has already begun to catch on. In addition, no single computer could handle the load of every highway in the United States, let alone the world. That is why it would not be just one computer, but instead every 5 miles a computer would be on duty, networked, and decentralized into at least five physical machines - no more powerful or expensive than the latest computers for bargain prices today. Of course, by the time this happens in a few years, assuming you give me your support and we take over the world, technology will be light-years ahead. But yes, with today's technology it could be done. Cars would of course need to evolve some, being able to receive the power, and the roads would need to be upgraded, which is one of my major ideal programs, where transcontinental highways and inter-country highways all meet specifications for safety and power delivery.
Even trucks could use this system, making their loads faster and better - however this is covered by the Electric Rail system, which would replace diesel engine trains, which are already better for the environment than trucks mind you - and could be built to not only go on rails, but their payloads could go from the track to the road on the back of a semi without the complex offloading procedures. This is safer and better for the environment than having an army of trucks - and it's nicer to the roads. Such an effort will require educated workforces, and thus workforce management would generate a whole population of people who are highly skilled. This has an economic effect of better transit of goods and materials, a sociological effect of a highly educated and trained workforce, an ecological effect of a cleaner planet, and a monetary and moral effect from the lack of accidents on the major highway systems. Saves lives, saves money, generates income, educates, and provides. What more could you want after roadways and railways?
Air travel of course - and these big planes like to suck down those hydrocarbons faster than milkshakes at a Mickey-D's. Considering they can use a swimming pool of fuel for one flight it is astounding that we let these things in the sky - not even the turbo-prop engine aircraft of the past were quite so bad, and they were not used as often to begin with. It is time to do away with this un-needed waste of fuel and go to better methods of powering aircraft. Jets will always be around, but they don't need to be used for every form of travel. In fact, with the faster roadways and the electric highway system they may become used only for intercontinental travel or business flights. However a better, safer, and much more interesting form of transportation could be by dirigibles. Massive airships powered by nothing but the sun, carrying as many people as an ocean liner across the sky - however unlike the ill fated and most famous of the past, the Hindenburg, they would use helium to maintain their ballast, rather than the much more volatile hydrogen. Another mode of travel that could be improved is the shipping industry, as on sunny days and good weather they could run off of electric, while on bad days or bad weather they could use manufactured bio-diesel that is more efficient than their current fuel.
With such transportation all needs can be met and expanded upon until every country has the infrastructure of electrical grids that supply power, and also the groundwork for better transportation and cleaner consumption. Overall this would drastically cut emissions in combination with the power and electricity generation switch from coal, oil, and gas to wind and nuclear.
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