Location Transport

What would environmentally sustainable transportation look like?

What would environmentally sustainable transportation look like? Seems like Global Warming might be real. Cars and Planes are two sources of Carbon Emissions that might have a technological solution. What would an Ecologically Appropriate Transportation System look like? If, after the Moon Landing in 1969, NASA (or similar gov agency), had spent an equal amount of time, money, and passion to build a clean air transit system; what would it look like?

Public Comments

1. That's a broad question.. Transport as in local, interstate, or global.. They all have their individual solutions....It's a big gulp of options to explain sensibly in one hit.. It really boils down to how much money we have to achieve it... And the options are incredible.. Have fun thinking... it is free.
2. Unicorns and Magic Carpets all over the place. And FYI more than 80% of the carbon being released on our planet comes from algae blooms in the ocean! So, thinking cars and airplanes are a major problem is somewhat ignorant.
3. sustainable?- walking or donkeys. military is making a clean air plane- nuclear decay of a specific element powers it. no fission, but lots of heat.
4. We have it...NYC buses run on propane not gasoline or ethanol, it says "Clean air technology" right on the back of the buses. NYC subway cars produce their own electricity to power the lights and ac/heating system for each train car. We`ve had it for over a decade now. Many NYC taxis are either electric or hybrid now, at least the new ones, once the olders ones are retired the entire fleet will be such. NASA stands for: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Not NESTA or National Environmentally Sustainable Transportation Administration. Space is a frontier, humans have always explored frontiers, look at Lewis and Clark going out West. West of the Mississippi River was a frontier. Look at Columbus, he was exploring a frontier and found America by mistake. NASA and other gov`t agencies are only National agencies, you should start with China or India. They`re still using leaded gasoline and their traffic is 10x`s that of LA and NYC. Youll need some sort of global organization....hmmm....oh wait we have the UN...what have they been doing?
5. There's a lot of ways to have environmentally sustainable transportation. Given our current installed base of gasoline and diesel vehicles, the logical solution would be to synthesize gasoline and diesel from bio-mass waste and utilize the existing distribution networks and existing vehicles. The DoD does this with the Diversified Energy Hydromax gasifier and the Velocys Micro Channel Fischer Tropsche reactor to produce diesel and jet fuel from the waste generated at military installations. This is technology dating back to the 19th century so it doesn't take a NASA Apollo effort to achieve environmental sustainability (Don't get me started on the Apollo killing off 1950's era Project Orion issue). However this does not sell more cars. Just as with tail fins and the concept of model years, the introduction of new vehicle categories such as the Hybrid, Fuel Cell and before that the SUV, Mini-van, and station wagon lineages prompts the public to replace their vehicles earlier than would be justified on purely utilitarian and environmental considerations. This has driven the economic growth, generous employment and population redistribution that we have seen in the last century and arguably isn't sustainable. The question should be is economic sustainability even possible given our current expectations of continued economic growth? Can our expectations be changed? Unfortunately, the free market suffers from the parable of the commons and periodic economic collapse is inevitable in such a system.