Rickerism

Ever since Tom Evslin posted his comments Energy Vision, I have not been able to focus on anything else. Thoughts and questions have been buzzing about inside my head, exasperated further by my two-hour daily commute.

Here are the basic numbers on our oil:

• The world consumes 84.5 million barrels of oil per day (Mb/day)
• The United States consumes 20.8 Mb/day, or 25% of the world consumption
• We import 5.6 Mb/day from OPEC, or 27% of our consumption
• We consume 9.2 Mb/day (44%) for gasoline, which is only used for passenger cars
• We consume 2.5 Mb/day for trucking and 0.2 Mb/day for rail

The breakdown of total US energy consumption is:

• 41% petroleum
• 23% natural gas
• 23% coal
• 14% other

With 69% of petroleum energy used for transportation, that means passenger cars account for 18% of total US energy consumption.

I spent some time analyzing freight traffic. The current numbers on freight traffic are as follows:

I wondered, what would be the impact if we shifted half of the long distance truck freight to rail? I calculate that it would decrease oil consumption by 1.07 Mb/day. That is a 5% decrease in our consumption, or 19% of our OPEC imports. Such a plan is a huge amount of investment, but only moves the ball 20 yards. We want to go the whole 100 yards for a touchdown.

Significant impact in our energy policy can only be achieved by addressing gasoline consumption, which only means personal automobiles. We are not going to change things by tweaking fuel efficiency 5 miles per gallon or even 20 . We have to change the automobile culture entirely. We have to change the way we go to work and school and shop. We have to completely change the design of our cities and our neighborhoods. Sound impossible? It’s not. I know it is possible because we did it in the 19th Century with trains and in the 20th Century with cars.

The modern design of our transportation system and, subsequently, our cities came from the vision of just three men.

• Henry Ford envisioned every American with an automobile and then made it possible. He saw the freedom of the open road and cross-country family vacation road trips.
• Thomas McDonald headed President Franklin Roosevelt’s committee to define an national highway system. That plan laid out all the routes that became the interstate highway system.
• Norman Bel Geddes created Futurama, a display of superhighways at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

One cannot underestimate the impact of the 1939 World’s Fair exhibit on the collective American conscience. Americans conquered the world from 1941 to 1945, and when they came back the built a new American. Our fathers and grandfathers completely transformed our cities, our neighborhoods and our countryside. They built the vision that Bel Geddes laid out for them.

Photo of Bel Geddes’ Futurama exhibit in 1939

Our foreign policy and foreign wars are dictated by our energy policy. Our energy policy is dictated by our automobile usage. Our automobile usage is dictated by the design of our cities. We do not need money for alternative fuels and windmills. What we need is a new vision of the American city, a vision to replace the one created by Bel Geddes. Change the way American’s think about their cities and you can change the transportation infrastructure. Change the infrastructure and we can achieve energy independence.

References:

• US Energy Information Administration
• US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• Federal Highway Administration
• Futurama exhibit