Transportation of the Future: Amish Style

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Much is being made in the media and especially the green media as to the hybrid-electric and fully electric vehicles; of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel, etc., as being the answer to our transportation needs past peak oil. But, I must say that I very much doubt that any of that will be the future of personal transportation.

Rather like it was said in the film “The Power of Community” the motor car – of whatever kind – is going to be just a blip in human history and we will have to return to human and animal powered means of land transport, with the exception for trains running on steam, if we are lucky.

For personal transportation it will be a return to walking, horse riding, horse and buggy, and the humble bicycle.

I have no doubt that Amish style transportation, if we want to call it thus, will be the future of travel for the absolute great majority of us.

The EV, the electric vehicle, in whatever shape or form, as I have expressed before, due to the end of cheap and abundant oil headed our way, will be the domain of the rich, as will be motoring per se, much in the same way as it was in motoring's early days.

Rather than becoming cheaper I would hasten to suggest that, with energy costs rising and the costs of raw materials, their manufacturing costs will drastically increase and thus will put them well beyond the pocketbooks and banck accounts of most ordinary mortals.

So, what is left? Not much, you might say, and you are not all that wrong in that.

For the great majority who cannot stable a horse (and buggy) it will be Shank's Pony¹ and the Iron Steed².

Too many people seem to live in the real of fantasy when it comes to transportation, and especially personal transportation, in the future.

They do not seem to consider the implications of cost of production, etc., with the rising energy costs and those of raw materials.

Everyone, it would seem, is looking to maintain, at all costs, a status quo as to personal transportation by talking about EVs, hybrids, bio-fuel powered ICE cars, etc. That, however, is all but wishful thinking and it is time everyone took a reality check and woke up to smell the roses.

The infernal combustion engine, better known as the internal combustion engine (ICE), running on petroleum products of sorts, is history and the battery-powered vehicles and -tools also will not last.

Wood gas and methane gas may be an option in and for some vehicles, such as trucks, and also for trains, but not for personal transportation use of and by the masses.

The only way, as far as I can see it, that most of us will be able to get about in the future is by walking and cycling. The rest, as they say, is history.

© 2011

1Feet

2Bicycle