National efforts for efficiency and conservation continue to lead us to analyze aspects of daily life to find opportunities ripe for sustainable progress. Our transportation infrastructure is one of the largest and most energy intensive systems that our country needs to function. As a result, every time a mode of transportation is pitched it comes laden with facts and figures as to how it is responding to our needs for increased efficiency. But across the board, how do all of these various players (hybrids, buses, planes, trains) stack up in the amount of energy it takes to get someone from one place to another?
With a growing pressure from the government, our economy is beginning to weigh the costs and benefits of reviewing our means of transportation and deciding which deserve promotion while others are best left unaided. Only last week President Obama announced his landmark (albeit under-funded) promotion of High Speed Rail with the doling out of $8 billion in loans. As Americans, our transportation choices decide the course of huge amounts of GDP. When one considers automotive sales, public transit funding and commercial aircraft the order of magnitude is already in hundreds of billions of dollars. It is no surprise that industries are all fighting to shift the course of the next two decades towards their respective products.