The World Oil Crisis and Mass Transportation
By John
Bachar
If a frog is placed in a pot of
water that is slowly brought to a boil in such a way that the imperceptible heat
change is not noticed by the frog, then it will not jump out of the pot. If a
frog is dropped into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. In
which state are we traffic-choked, urbanite frogs?
Only one trillion barrels of petroleum
reserves are left on Earth, and only one new barrel is found for every four
used. With over 30 billion barrels consumed annually worldwide (2004) and
rapidly increasing, there is less than 34 years left. Then it’s all gone!
Of the 48 petroleum-producing countries, only 15 can supply their own internal
needs; the remaining 33 must supplement their internal needs with imports. The
US domestic reserve supply is only 22 billion barrels (it imports over 60% of
its annual consumption), and if there were no imports, US oil would run out in
less than THREE YEARS (7.4 billion barrels consumed annually – 25% of the
annual world consumption)! The US transportation sector alone consumes
two-thirds annually (4.9 billion barrels), and the US fleet of 235 million
highway vehicles uses 3.9 billion (53 percent of annual US
consumption).
Clearly, a sustainable
energy source must soon be found to replace the impending worldwide petroleum
exhaustion. Undoubtedly it will be solar, but MUCH TIME is needed to develop the
technology for this transition. The most effective means for buying time is by
drastically reducing the use of petroleum in the transportation sector. Since
most (over 90%) of highway vehicle petroleum use is in urban regions, it follows
that the solution is the implementation of very extensive urban mass transit
systems. Even if there were an INFINITE supply of petroleum, it is critical that
urban mass transit must be used to eliminate our ubiquitous urban traffic
quagmire (24/7 gridlock virtually everywhere in the US, and especially in
California and the LA region). Urban mass transit is the only logical method
that can vastly reduce urban highway petroleum usage, thereby buying critical
time for solar technology development, and that can eliminate the traffic
quagmire, simultaneously (see below: “FUMTS” can reduce traffic
volume in the six county Southern California region [SCR] by
90%!).
In the current urban
transportation situation, there is:
(1)
enormous waste and a staggering exhaustion of the rapidly diminishing
nonrenewable petroleum resources on
Earth;
(2) unhealthful air quality,
resulting in death and impaired health for tens of thousands, and contributing
heavily to global warming;
(3)
pervasive 24/7 gridlock traffic conditions resulting in millions of wasted hours
daily by millions of passengers;
(4)
high accident occurrences, resulting in death and injury and extensive,
expensive property damage and medical costs for tens of
thousands;
(5) staggeringly expensive
vehicle insurance, maintenance, operational and acquisition costs for the
hundreds of millions of licensed drivers who own hundreds of millions of
vehicles;
(6) enormous road/street
maintenance costs and waste of fossil energy for road construction and
maintenance;
(7) ubiquitous parking
space/parking lot congestion and expense for
millions;
(8) unhealthful high and
constant noise pollution, especially damaging to those in the vicinity of
freeways and main roads.
The implementation of the FARELESS URBAN
MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM (FUMTS) solves the aforementioned problems. This system
provides an optimum model for any large urban region. The features of FUMTS will
now be described (go to “http://www.scfs-la.org/” and click on
“World Fossil Energy Crisis and Fareless Urban Mass Transportation”
- author John Bachar - for the complete detailed
analysis).
(1) No fares will be charged
to any user. FUMTS will be financed by a net-wealth tax on the upper 1% of the
appropriate adult population, so that 99% of the citizens will bear no cost. (In
California, the wealthiest 1% of the California adult population has over $2.5
trillion in net wealth; in the US, the figure is $25
trillion).
(2) In SCR, 25,400 buses
would comprise FUMTS at an annual cost of $5.6 billion; in the urban regions of
California, 48,000 buses are needed at a cost of $10.5 billion; in the US,
324,000 buses are needed at a cost of $71
billion.
(3) In California, the
wealthiest 1% of the adult population would be assessed annually only 0.42% of
their net wealth to yield the required $10.5 billion; in the US, the figure is
only a 0.28% assessment to yield the required $71
billion.
(4) Annually, for the SCR,
California and USA urban cases:
(a) The
cost of FMUTS is only 10.5% to 11.1% of the current cost of the essentially
all-auto mode (only 2% of all passenger travel is by public transit)! For every
$1 spent for the FMUTS mode, the average motorist spends $9.03 to
$9.50!
(b) The fuel consumption for
FMUTS is only 8.7% to 9.5% of that of the current essentially all-auto mode! For
every one gallon of fuel used in the FMUTS mode, the all-auto mode requires 10.5
to 11.5 gallons!
(c) The fuel savings
that accrue by use of FMUTS are 5.24 billion, 9.04 billion, and 56.96 billion
gallons, respectively; the savings in equivalent barrels of crude petroleum are
276 million, 476 million, and 3.05 billion barrels, respectively; the 10-year
savings are 2.76 billion, 4.76 billion, and 30.5 billion barrels,
respectively!
(d) The pollutants from
FMUTS are 10.1% to 10.2% of those for the current essentially all auto
models.
(5) The travel time using FMUTS
is vastly less than using one’s personal vehicle for almost
everyone.
THIS IS ABSOLUTE:
Ever-increasing gridlock is ever-increasing gridlock, enormous petroleum waste
is enormous petroleum waste, enfeebling wasted time is enfeebling wasted time,
and staggeringly expensive costs are staggeringly expensive costs by any other
euphemisms.
If we rigorously use our
human reason both to discover and acknowledge the facts about our current
transportation quagmire, and if we follow the logical implications for effective
human action that such knowledge entails, then we can free ourselves of our
plight. Failing this, we are doomed by mindless apathy, irrationality, ignorance
and the stranglehold of the powerfully entrenched corporate interests to suffer
our endlessly worsening transportation
afflictions.
John Bachar is
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics from California State University, Long Beach,
Guest Mathematician at UCLA, and a member of both the Science in the Public
InterestTransportation Task Group and the SCFS Executive Board. A copy of an
analysis of Los Angeles regional transportation can be obtained by contacting
the SCFS office at (310)
390-3898.
[This is the third in a
Beachhead series from the Southern California Federation of Scientists
(SCFS)]
Posted: Mon - May 1, 2006 at 09:02 AM