Shipping is the other exception. We have had electric transport in some areas of the world for a little over 100 years. The knowledge of electricity and its generation, distribution, control and application has expanded vastly since the 1950's and the advent of the electronic age. The advancements that are happening today are minutely incremental and are more focused on the nano, compared with the leaps and bounds that took place in early twentieth century. The electric vehicles that are yet to appear in Australia, all look like lightweights and are trying to mimic what a petrol/diesel can do but don't seem to making any great market penetration.

Electric rail passenger transport only makes economic sense in densley populated urban areas, or between major metropoli. Freight rail to and from factories is possible only once the factory reaches a certain size. Retail deliveries have a similar problem. But perhaps the biggest industry that cannot be electrified very easily is agriculture.

The transporting of grain, livestock, fodder and produce from farms is heavily reliant on trucks which are not easily replaced. In a post peak oil scenario where diesel is in short supply, it is questionable as to the survivability of many agricultural industries on the transport implications alone, let alone what is used on farm. It doesn't matter if there is oodles of electricity from any source available if it cannot be practically applied to a traction motor that is hauling a load. When it costs $20-25M just to put in a rail siding, what do think it will cost to run an electrified line past the door of every farm in the country?

The relentless assumption that we can just order up electric transport for everyone and then power it with renewables (or nuclear) is a simplistic answer to a complex set of questions.

The questions we need to be asking oursleves is what is essential transport and what can we do without; how do we redesign cities and towns so that people don't need to use mechanised transport as much as they currently do; if people are staying put, how do they get fed, clothed, housed and all the other essential inputs for life; what are the people going to do to keep themselves occupied, and what implications for transport does that have? etc etc ad infinitum.

If we can come up with low energy solutions to these questions, like Kiashus example of the 1 Tonne Carbon Lifestyle, then we may be able to simply retire many of the FF technolgies we currently use and either not have to replace them with anything or give zero emission technolgy a much lower total demand that they need to meet.