The Oil Drum

I agree with the Life After Peak article that it is possible to change the lifeblood of our economy from oil to ingenuity.

Germany de-monopolized power generation and now generates 12% of the electricity from solar. Their Feed-in-Tariffs has created 250,000 post-oil jobs and exports of 8.5 billion Euros in 2007. Not bad of a 5 year old policy.

Current transportation is less than 1% efficient, with 99% going to climate change. Soon there will be a wave of de-monopolization of transportation. The success of Morgantown's PRT will commercialize.

There is plenty of energy in solar. In ultra-light versions of Morgantown (Why move a ton to move a person?) the energy required to move a mile is 200 watt-hours. Solar collectors 6-foot wide mounted on the rail, gather 2.5 million watt-hours in a typical day (16% efficient solar collectors). That is enough power for 12,500 vehicle-miles.

The cost to build, operate, maintain and power these networks is about 65% of current transportation costs. Wealth can increase by changing from oil to ingenuity.

The Internet is an example of infrastructure evolution possible in a once stagnant and monopolized industry.

The major risk is that monopolies have stifled incremental innovation, delaying action to a point the economy is brittle and cannot adapt in time.