Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
erators in Germany and Spain have reported problems integrating increasing amounts of solar and
wind electricity input.
4
Electricity is not a complete transport solution even if we have enough of it. Electric airliners
would be too heavy to fly even with a 40-fold increase in battery efficiency. The US military and
Virgin Airlines have experimented with sophisticated aviation biofuels, but cost projections are as-
tronomical.
For the last couple of decades, energy futurists have touted the “hydrogen economy.” Former
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger liked being photographed driving his hydrogen-
powered Hummer and championed the “hydrogen highway,” a chain of hydrogen-equipped filling
stations to service H2-powered cars. Toyota plans to bring out a hydrogen car next year and prom-
ises to help build support infrastructure in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Yet, as of 2014, Califor-
nia has only nine publicly accessible hydrogen filling stations, compared to nearly ten thousand gas
and diesel stations.
My state has done more than nearly any other to develop renewable energy sources and hydro-
gen (which, like electricity, is not an energy source in the strict sense, but an energy carrier). But
the renewable energy transition is not happening remotely fast enough even here—let alone in the
nation as a whole—to significantly limit climate impacts or forestall the economic consequences of
oil depletion.
If we are in peril of not having enough energy to maintain transport systems at current scale,
then we should urgently shift transport modes so as to maximize per-ton, per-mile fuel efficiency.
Ships are the most energy-efficient haulers, then trains; trucks are much less so, while airplanes are
usually the least energy-efficient means of moving people and freight. From an energy efficiency
perspective, trucking—which moves the majority of US freight from factories, shipping terminals,
and warehouses to stores and homes—is the weakest link in our current transport chain. We could
increase transport efficiency by replacing trucks with trains in many instances, but America's rail
network is incapable of taking on significant new capacity and little is being done to expand it.
Here in Santa Rosa, a city of 170,000, train tracks run through the center of town but there has
been no freight or passenger service for years. The tracks are being refurbished for a diesel-powered
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) passenger train, which will whisk commuters along a
70-mile corridor from Cloverdale in the north to Larkspur in the south. Limited freight service is
also envisioned, using the same tracks, and there is hope for the eventual electrification of SMART,
which begins service in 2016.
Meanwhile the county, with a couple of billion dollars in state and federal funding, has spent the
past three years widening US Highway 101 (which bisects Santa Rosa) to six lanes, and enlarging
Sonoma County Airport. In all, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that my city, county, state,
and nation have bet their futures mostly on cars, trucks, airplanes, highways, and runways—and
therefore, in effect, on oil. It appears to be a losing bet.
Local Dystopia, Local Utopia
The worst-case scenario for our energy and transport future is gloomy indeed: broken supply chains
and a failing economy. Yet since shipping is our most fuel-efficient transport mode, globalization
won't go away anytime soon just because moving product-filled containers from Guangzhou to
Oakland by slow boat has gotten more expensive. High fuel prices will first impact aspects of the
