In lively and engaging language this book describes our dependence on freight transport and
its vulnerability to diminishing supplies and high prices of oil. Ships trucks and trains are
the backbone of civilization hauling the goods that fulfill our every need and desire. Their
powerful highly-efficient diesel combustion engines are exquisitely fine-tuned to burn
petroleum-based diesel fuel. These engines and the fuels that fire them have been among the
most transformative yet disruptive technologies on the planet. Although this transportation
revolution has allowed many of us to fill our homes with global goods even a past emperor would
envy our era of abundance and the freight transport system in particular is predicated on
the affordability and high energy density of a single fuel oil. This book explores
alternatives to this finite resource including other liquid fuels truck and locomotive
batteries and utility-scale energy storage technology and various forms of renewable
electricity to support electrified transport. Transportation also must adapt to other
challenges: Threats from climate change financial busts supply-chain failure and
transportation infrastructure decay. Robert Hirsch who wrote the Peaking of World Oil
Production report for the U.S. Department of Energy in 2005 said that planning for peak world
production must start at least 10 if not 20 years ahead of time. What little planning exists
focuses mainly on how to accommodate 30 percent more economic growth while averting climate
change ignoring the possibility that we are at or near the end of growth.Taken for granted
the modern transportation system will not endure forever. The time is now to take a realistic
and critical look at the choices ahead and how the future of transportation may unfold.
