A couple of interesting concepts struck me today as i was driving home from Wellington (the city, not the footwear).
First I was considering the problem this day and age of transportation; giving people the freedom to move where they want, when they want, with great speed and convenience. This is ultimately the problem that, if solved, would have people give up cars. As it is, other transportation methods always fail on one of these criteria, or are too expensive for most people to afford. The ideal solution would either use the infastructure that is already in place (e.g. electric/hydrogen cars) or something which needs a minimum amount of both up front capital cost and regular maintenance.
This is where a decision has to be made: any system which has no infrastructure cost (or low cost) will likely not allow the conveyance of the fuel supply along it (the problem with roads, you can't transmit any sort of power or energy through it/along it efficiently. The example of this i choose to take is that if we use the skies as our road, as aircraft do, it is impossible to transmit the fuel source through such a medium. The polar example for me is rail, where electricity can be transmitted through it or along it (with some additional infrastructure). This also raises the other paradigm shift that occurs between these two situations; if one carries their own energy/fuel source they are free to roam to the limits of their vehicle. If a user relies on the infrastructure for their fuel they can't go outside of that infrastructure, one thing that has limited electrified rail (because the infrastructure is so expensive and rigid).
The only option to move forward in vehicles that don't have their own fuel source is to create a new infrastructure. Something that can (unlike roads) transmit some source of energy, be it electrical, magnetic, kinetic, etc. And something that can be extended to every home, just as we have extended roads to every home. This is the key in the end if we hope to move away from cars as a mode of personal transportation. Some people would believe that this is what happened with cars; but cars came over a thousand years after the first paved roads. Rail was a different story, because of it's usefulness as a heavy transport medium. It is logical that there is no business case in creating an entirely new transport framework for people to use when the one they currently use isn't broken. So the challenge in creating a new mode of transportation that doesn't require people to carry a fuel supply is two-fold; can we make use of a medium or framework that already exists, as cars did? or can we start a technology like this by first monopolising a small community of users as electricity did?
These are only the issues that surround the creation of such a system, let alone the technical issues of building the system itself.
First I was considering the problem this day and age of transportation; giving people the freedom to move where they want, when they want, with great speed and convenience. This is ultimately the problem that, if solved, would have people give up cars. As it is, other transportation methods always fail on one of these criteria, or are too expensive for most people to afford. The ideal solution would either use the infastructure that is already in place (e.g. electric/hydrogen cars) or something which needs a minimum amount of both up front capital cost and regular maintenance.
This is where a decision has to be made: any system which has no infrastructure cost (or low cost) will likely not allow the conveyance of the fuel supply along it (the problem with roads, you can't transmit any sort of power or energy through it/along it efficiently. The example of this i choose to take is that if we use the skies as our road, as aircraft do, it is impossible to transmit the fuel source through such a medium. The polar example for me is rail, where electricity can be transmitted through it or along it (with some additional infrastructure). This also raises the other paradigm shift that occurs between these two situations; if one carries their own energy/fuel source they are free to roam to the limits of their vehicle. If a user relies on the infrastructure for their fuel they can't go outside of that infrastructure, one thing that has limited electrified rail (because the infrastructure is so expensive and rigid).
The only option to move forward in vehicles that don't have their own fuel source is to create a new infrastructure. Something that can (unlike roads) transmit some source of energy, be it electrical, magnetic, kinetic, etc. And something that can be extended to every home, just as we have extended roads to every home. This is the key in the end if we hope to move away from cars as a mode of personal transportation. Some people would believe that this is what happened with cars; but cars came over a thousand years after the first paved roads. Rail was a different story, because of it's usefulness as a heavy transport medium. It is logical that there is no business case in creating an entirely new transport framework for people to use when the one they currently use isn't broken. So the challenge in creating a new mode of transportation that doesn't require people to carry a fuel supply is two-fold; can we make use of a medium or framework that already exists, as cars did? or can we start a technology like this by first monopolising a small community of users as electricity did?
These are only the issues that surround the creation of such a system, let alone the technical issues of building the system itself.
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