So, American Airlines is going to downsize itself as a result of fuel costs. Makes sense. We can expect to see others do that, too. Lotta small carriers will vanish. Fair number of small towns will revert to Trailways delivery. Or the Wells Fargo Wagon.
The ripple effect will mean that things that are shipped by air -- like vacationers -- will cost more, either directly (tickets) or indirectly (prices at the store). Since these things usually have to be moved anyway, we can expect an increase in use of other forms, with a preference for ones that aren't as sensitive to the cost of fuel. I would suppose they all are, but I've had the suspicion for a while that you can move a ton of cargo more efficiently via rail than via truck - ie, with less expenditure of fuel. Of course, the rail requires substantial infrastructure that the truck doesn't, and the truck's a lot more flexible - it can go here today, and a brand new there tomorrow. Possibly we'll see the return of those other forms of transportation that usually only show up in the pages of Popular Mechanics, such as: dirigibles. Nuclear -powered ships. SuperBus. Okay, likely not the last one. But I'll bet a lot of speculative papers, theses and such, are going to get another look by the bespectacled minions of the Secretary of Transportation. (Who is: who? Oh, boy....) Of course, this sort of research has been going on in the background in academia for quite some time, but now our government's going to Spring Into Action.
Right.
I tell you, if it wasn't such a pain, this would be damn interesting stuff.
2 comments:
I think we should re-establish the rail systems, therefore creating jobs.
Two positives.
Absolutely true. But expand your thoughts. How can we do it better than it was done before? How can we leverage rail in a way that before wasn't a consideration, because it was rail or nothing? How can we get moving quickly, prototyping in real-time, accepting that we'll trade money (and waste) for knowledge and experience?
Its a cliche, and then some, to say that we need a Manhattan Project, but to my mind thats exactly whats needed.
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