Photo by CLICK HERE (not owned by CargoFish)
CARGOFISH: Explained
Move Only What Matters!
How? Two primary ways:
Move mostly payload, to the greatest extent practical, by fully loading the vehicle.
“Kinesulate” as well as possible, choosing propulsion and support that loses the least energy.
Final Efficiency is the product of these two factors. Improve each by only a factor of 3, and overall efficiency is 9x greater. Improve each by 10, and final efficiency is 100 times better.
How Much Energy Do Typical Methods Use?
Fast moving consumer goods get to our homes primarily by us driving our cars and light trucks, or by parcel delivery. First examine the car. The mean average US grocery store transaction is $35, and weighs 20 lbs. The typical take is half that weight, and fits in one shopping bag. Average convenience store purchase is $5 and weighs 2 lbs. The average car weighs about 4,000 lbs. So from our grocery stores to our homes we move 200x as much mass as intended, and from convenience stores to home, 2000x as much. On top of this, pushing a car is much harder, pound for pound, than pushing a shopping cart. The same flex of the rubber tires that provides good traction and smooth ride, also generates copious amounts of heat, every bit of which is energy lost from the car’s motion. Even at 30 mpg, specific energy consumption for these examples ranges from 200 to 2000 BTU per pound-mile. At 3 miles per kWhr, which is typical for the Nissan Leaf, specific energy consumption is from 17 to 170 Watt-hour per pound-mile.
Other key benefits are almost too numerous to list:
Reduced traffic congestion
Reduced petroleum consumption
Reduced dependence on foreign oil
Reduced traffic accidents
Fewer animals killed by vehicles
Less disruption of wildlife
Less traffic noise
More livable neighborhoods
Elimination of "food desserts"
Reduced distribution handling
Reduced cost of goods
Greater free time
Equal access for the handicapped
Faster exchange of physical things between businesses
Technology extension into personal transportation
Energy requirements so low that hand crank or pedal generators can serve as emergency backup
Electric powered, so able to use any fuel
Elimination of garbage trucks
Elimination of waste pileup prior to pickup day
Numerous business spin-offs from this revolutionary change
Faster access to most goods
Short notice access to a wider variety of goods
Will end the current US economic recession
Profitable to the financial backer(s)
People will freely choose to use this
Government subsidies/mandates unnecessary
Time line
Within the short term, the project demonstrator will be completed and perfected, and marketed and contracted for first installation. Its success will lead to a phase of rapid replication of many separate systems. By the medium term, connections between adjacent systems will begin, and expansion into the larger phase two gage will begin. Once this larger gage backbone has been built out well enough near the end of the medium term, the third phase utilization of this system as part of a dual mode personal rapid transit system will begin to take hold, and in the long term, this technology will finally challenge the dominance of the petroleum powered car for personal transportation.
CARGOFISH PRO’s
Overhead expenses for distribution of Consumer Packaged Goods would plummet
These savings would be passed on to consumers in the form of cheaper goods!
Levels of service and convenience would skyrocket
There would be huge energy savings, and a tremendous decrease in the burning of fossil fuels
Packaging waste could be slashed - and there’d be no need for plastic grocery bags
CARGOFISH ADVAntAGES
All-weather - it is underground, unaffected by storms, and can even be engineered to avoid major damage from earthquakes
High security - when packages are shipped through pipes directly into a consumers home, there is little chance of theft
Low liability - nor is it likely that the package will cause or be damaged!
Low specific cost - once installed and in use, the cost of each delivery will be minuscule
Low specific energy - since CargoFish system consists of self-propelled vehicles on energized rails, very little energy is used to move each parcel
The Trouble With Drones
Fair weather only
Low security
High liability
High specific cost
High specific energy
What’s wrong with SideWalk Bots?
Fair weather only
Low speed
Sidewalk congestion
High specific cost
High specific energy
Why not crowd-sourced delivery?
Too expensive
Too much additional traffic congestion
Too much wasted energy
What’s wrong with Fed-ex/UPS/Amazon deliveries?
Double parking
Cost
Too slow