Where does all the electricity come from? I think coal, but also possibly nukes or wind or your-favorite-renewable-resource.
What is understated is the effect of climate change, which might eliminate snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, making it impossible to live here or irrigate crops in California and Arizona (both fed largely by Rocky Mountain water). Of course there is desalination, and a big desert nearby...
The real problem is not in America, but in the Third World, where the economic resources to react to climate change and more expensive energy aren't available.
I am curious how USA could solve the surburban transport problem. The infrastructure is so inappropriate, isn't it?
The existing transporation infrastructure is almost entirely based on automobiles and airplanes. The railroad system in the Northeast carries a substantial fraction of the commuter traffice, and much of the railroad infrastructure built during the second world war is still in place so we could fairly easily implement a 1945-scale railroad transportation system. But even during the depression, most people had cars.
On the other hand, it would take no change to the roads to run busses. And electric busses powered by overhead wires are practical and not too expensive, so that would be a pretty easy step to take to cover transportation in the exurbs. Truly rural areas are more of a problem, but there aren't many people living in rural areas anyway.
In a parallel thread, I have an intermediate transportation proposal, where clients would submit their travel requests, and a transportation company would route its cars or minibuses to satisfy those requests. It is like taxi, but with different passengers served together. The idea is simple, actually, though possibly not implemented anywhere, due to complexities of routing and request communication. But with modern technologies of wireless communication and the internet, these problems can be handled. I believe this system could be acceptable to regular car users right now, and it would help to reduce traffic and its emissions substantially. Don't you think that this system can be viable somewhere in the US?
