We can change the lifeblood of our economy from oil to ingenuity. It is that way in communications. It was that way with transportation. Open rights of way to innovation. Ingenuity will flourish or fail based on the value created minus the cost to compete.
Changing America's Economic Lifeblood from Oil to Ingenuity
Bill James | JPods
| We can change the lifeblood of our economy from oil to ingenuity. It is that way in communications. It was that way with transportation. Open rights of way to innovation. Ingenuity will flourish or fail based on the value created minus the cost to compete. |
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| Bill James, JPods |
|
Cheap Oil
is Gone Forever
Based upon
the presumption that secure access to cheap oil will always be
available, America's economy, our jobs, shifted over the last 70
years from self-reliance into dependence. The myth of cheap secure
oil is gone forever.
Politics, decreasing supply and/or
expanding demand will erratically push oil prices more and more
unstable.
Demand is
overtaking supply as the populations and economies of China and
India grow and modernize. Storms or politics could disrupt supplies
any time. Worse, Peak Oil is most likely in 2011; 54 of the 65
largest oil-producing countries have peaked and oil production is
now in decline. The tripling of oil prices between 2000 and 2006 is
a strong indicator that demand is pushing against supply and/or oil
has peaked and availability will soon begin a relentless decline.
Production follows discovery; discovery of new oil peaked in 1961
and has relentlessly declining ever since.
Regardless of
cause, increase demand or supply shortage, the age of cheap oil is
gone forever and our economy is coasting on the last momentum of the
cheap oil era:
We have 2
years, maybe 3, to accept that cheap oil is gone. It is time to
channel the current momentum in our economy from dependence on cheap
oil to innovation and invent a better future.
There is
plenty of room to adjust. For example about 4 billion of the 8
billion miles Americans drive every day are highly repetitive. Yet
we use energy and create congestion moving a ton to move a person.
There are alternatives to rush hours. An example, PRT saves
90%-95% of the energy used by cars and trains, eliminates the
congestion and saves 27 cents and 1 pound of CO2 per passenger mile.
If we act while there is momentum in our current economy, ingenuity
can preempt waste. Harvesting profits can fund the shift.
Up-Side-Down Pyramid
 An
Up-Side-Down Pyramid model of the economy illustrates how each of us
scrambles to find a niche and make a living. We live by adding more
value than we consume. Allowing individual ingenuity to profit from
changing circumstance and encouraging everyone to leverage their
talents to reinforce innovation creates a dynamic economy. As
schooling fish churn (synchronized motion), as each individual
adjusts to societal pressure changes. The entire school shifts as
if guided by a single mind. A free economy transforms as
individuals adjust to new values and react to costs.
The same
model indicates that if our economy is rigid, if individuals are
delayed in acting, churn stops. The entire economy becomes
brittle. When impacted by change, the entire structure collapses.
The 10 worst famines of the 20th
Century happened when social structure collapsed leaving people
without trust or transport; most resulted from government policies (click
here for details).
Nature
of an Economy
The economy
is a confederation of upside-down pyramids.
Natural
resources
- Life
depends on nature; clean air, clean water, sun light, earth,
ecological building blocks from which we fabricate our living, our
social and economic structures.
Individuals
- The
economy is a confederation of working individuals who profit by
adding more value than the cost to compete.
- Each
individual is an upside-down pyramid:
- The base,
resources consumed to compete.
- Our
outstretched arms are the value we add. How far they extend depends
on our will and ability to trust, transact, and transport that added
value.
- Power is
the will and ability to act applied to achieving an objective (Clausewitz).
At a fundamental level, self-interest supplies the components of
"will and ability". Individual self-interests, jobs, power the
economy.
Industries and Communities
-
Self-interest dictates cooperation and collaboration. My interests
are best served by focusing my time and resources through my
strongest talents. I rely on the talents of others to grow food,
mine mineral, have babies, manufacture goods, protect us and other
needs and wants of our physical and social nature.
-
Individuals form alliances, communities, industries, and nations so
they can specialize to amplifying individual value added while
driving down the cost to compete.
- As with
individuals, the profit of these structural institutions is the
value they create minus the resources consumed to compete for their
existence.
- These
institutions are powered by their members; held together by
abilities to trust, transact, and transport.
Churn
The economy
is constantly churning, adapting. Individuals and institutions
scramble to sustain their base, exploit their talents and build
relationships that amplify their efforts and resources. Driven by
the will and ability to win we Transact, Transport and Trust,
knitting our economy into being:
Trust:
Risking that someone else will deliver value more than
harm is essential; giving terms in a contract, investing in stock.
Trust expands slowly with good experience, evaporates with bad. Strong
self-confidence, self-reliance and shared objectives expand trust.
Transact:
Specialization requires trading resources with others to cover
all needs and wants.
Transport: Resources must flow to need. Just as your body needs
a circulation system to stream resources to need and waste to disposal,
the life of a complex economy depends on transport.
Changing the Life Blood of our Economy
We are
experienced with Churn. Microcomputers and the Internet did not
just happen. First, individuals like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs,
defined and pursued opportunity. With expanding clarity of the
opportunity more and more individuals pooled resources and ingenuity
combining talents into companies and industries. Another thread of
ingenuity, networks, leverage this value and again, talents combined
and opportunities were pursued. Looking from the outside this
commercialization must have looked a school of fish churning to take
advantage of each opportunity, individuals moving nearly in unison.
Close up, it was wildly individualistic, yet guided by a systems
engineering framework and wise policy. The system engineering came
from voluntary standards. These guides were not rigid, but
displaceable by new innovations. Policy wisdom came from FCC
efforts to serve a greater good. Communications network rights of
way were given priority over local jurisdictions. Ingenuity
attempting to serve the common good gained dominance over fear of
change,
We can reduce
oil consumption by 3-7% per year. There is at least a 27 cent per
passenger mile profit in changing from moving a ton to move a person
towards moving just the person in highly repetitive travel. There
are many techniques and technologies that can be used to harvest
this profit from the 8 billion miles Americans drive every day.
Ingenuity based "Green Rush" can follow the successful pattern of
computers and information networks.
Transportation Policy Should Mirror Communications Policy
Do you
believe gas prices will fall? Will there never be another oil
embargo like 1973? Does our oil addiction encourage and fund
terrorists? Is oil supply infinite and there is no Peak Oil? Is
there no consequence for polluting? Is Global Warming a myth? Oil
supply does not have to stop to start a depression, there just has
to be not quite enough oil. Fear initiates hoarding, hoarding
amplifies speculation, national self-interests slow exporting to
protect future internal needs, etc….
Despite the
immediate and severe consequences from many threats, the current
transportation policy is brittle. We spend billions on more roads
to make us more addicted to oil, more on buses and trains that
account for only 3% of use. More of what is not working will
continue to not work. The changes the government is directing are
variations on the theme of what is not working. How will bio-fuels
solve congestion?
According to
the GAO Report 07-283, alternative fuels such as hydrogen, bio-fuels
and others will only compensate for 4% of current oil use by 2015.
In 2 to 3 years harsh consequences of Peak Oil will appear. Yet
brittle transportation policy offers no solution. Does the downward
spiral to economic collapse start when gas is $4.75, $5.25, $6.50?
A transportation failure will collapse the entire economy. If it
remains rigid, the best result will be massive unemployment. The
worst will be a shredding of our entire social fabric.
Unlike
communications policy, current transportation policy blocks
ingenuity and adaptation. Only approved technologies can be tried,
only technologies in use are approved. Unlike the wealth, jobs and
profits generated by communications policy, transportation policy is
an infinite loop of ever decreasing ingenuity. Increasing
congestion is a good measure of loop. There are few entrepreneurs
and small businesses. Government subsidized transit authorities and
think tanks are locked in that same loop. RITA's (Research and
Innovative Technology Administration) entire budget is restricted to
current modes of transportation. With ticket costs exceeding price,
subsidized tickets force transit authorities to spend more effort on
their next subsidy than on innovating more value at lower costs for
the customers. They are not questioned about profits or service.
There are no incentives for patents, or getting public transit to
have the speed and convenience of private autos? Projects stagnate,
dragging on for years, adding to costs but not to value. It is no
wonder that public transportation commands a tiny 3% of
transportation market share. It is nothing like the Internet where
everything is tailored to respond faster, better, and be more
valuable service at ever-lower cost to the customer.
Transportation policy has not always been brittle. On April 28,
1869 a crew from the Central Pacific built 10 miles of rail between
sunrise and sunset. Risking private capital, the Transcontinental
Railroads were built from the same motivation that expanded the
Internet. Individual ingenuity and its commercialization were
encouraged. The Wright Brothers, a couple of bicycle mechanics, with
only the money they could scrape together, invented flight. Henry
Ford was one of very many scrambling in an unregulated free market
to build affordable cars. There was churn, entrepreneurs new modes
and personal mobility increased. Companies, jobs and industries
emerged to reinforce ingenuity for a share of the profits.
Empowering
We can change
the lifeblood of our economy from oil to ingenuity. It is that way
in communications. It was that way with transportation. Open
rights of way to innovation. Ingenuity will flourish or fail based
on the value created minus the cost to compete. It will be chaotic
but our economy can adapt and shift, churn as the strength of the
many leverage innovations of a few, creating new jobs, new
companies, new industries.
|
|
 JPods,
a San Jose, CA company wants to deploy solar powered transportation.
Many have seen the odd looking solar race cars; can such vehicles be
practical?
The answer is no and yes. The power source is practical but the vehicles need to be designed into a practical structure. JPods has redesigned transportation into a system that uses the most inexpensive and readily available power source in nearly every town and city, sunshine.
Based on riders per day, the most successful form of public transportation is the elevator. Get in, touch a button, go where you want to go. On-demand personal mobility regardless of age, ability or wealth. JPods are a network of Horizontal-Elevators. Ultra-light computer controlled JPods carry passengers or cargo non-stop from origin to destination.
"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that."-- Thomas Edison (1847-1931) |
Instead
of using energy and creating congestion moving a ton to move a person,
JPods strives to move only the person at a savings of 27 cents and 1.7
pounds of CO2 per passenger mile automated. JPods apply to highly
repetitive travel, about 4 billion of the 8 billion miles Americans
drive every day. 
By
driving down Parasitic Mass (mass not cargo or passengers) travel
becomes so efficient that solar collectors 6 feet wide per running foot
of rail makes the networks energy neutral. The distributed nature of
the transportation networks collects and uses the distributed energy of
sunshine. The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of AltEnergyMag
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