When it comes to mass transportation, green options are being developed aplenty, but almost all are failing the economic viability test. The IIPM Think Tank analyses the economic and social benefit of contemporary machines that will be green, clean and fast – but not necessarily in the same order of priority!
Ice Age, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age... one would think that we should have come of age after going through these multiple bouts of evolution. But then, mankind has had the penchant for reinventing itself every now and then.
We have displayed that ability exceptionally well with respect to our transport system. The invention of the wheel started it all. Evolution kept ‘happening’, till the time when the entire connotation of transport took a whole new meaning with the invention of the internal combustion engine (that used petrol and petroleum by-products), which laid the foundation stone of modern transportation and gave birth to a huge population of fuel-guzzlers and carbon-emitting machines. It also gave us the concept of black gold; for which many wars have been fought, apart from the spectre of pollution – that has not only contributed to global warming, but also has been the leading reason for cancer.
In the late 20th century, countries started to re-calculate the negative effect of mass transportation on the environment. The focus on power and speed started getting replaced with a focus on green transportation, at least in policy circles, to an extent that the vision of having green transport systems became no longer confined to a few developed countries (In most developed countries, on an average, transport systems consume between 20-25% of total energy – an issue that is motivating the developed nations faster towards alternative less energy consuming systems). Despite all the hullaballoo about the ecological benefits, the clear fact is that the economic benefits of the so called ‘green’ alternatives are absent, and in many cases, too prohibitive for Third World nations (the costs to implement such eco-friendly systems is beyond logical levels and extraordinarily huge – this is an insurmountable impediment considering that even at the current level, almost all public transport systems, irrespective of which nations we consider, are more or less running on losses).
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
Ice Age, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age... one would think that we should have come of age after going through these multiple bouts of evolution. But then, mankind has had the penchant for reinventing itself every now and then.
We have displayed that ability exceptionally well with respect to our transport system. The invention of the wheel started it all. Evolution kept ‘happening’, till the time when the entire connotation of transport took a whole new meaning with the invention of the internal combustion engine (that used petrol and petroleum by-products), which laid the foundation stone of modern transportation and gave birth to a huge population of fuel-guzzlers and carbon-emitting machines. It also gave us the concept of black gold; for which many wars have been fought, apart from the spectre of pollution – that has not only contributed to global warming, but also has been the leading reason for cancer.
In the late 20th century, countries started to re-calculate the negative effect of mass transportation on the environment. The focus on power and speed started getting replaced with a focus on green transportation, at least in policy circles, to an extent that the vision of having green transport systems became no longer confined to a few developed countries (In most developed countries, on an average, transport systems consume between 20-25% of total energy – an issue that is motivating the developed nations faster towards alternative less energy consuming systems). Despite all the hullaballoo about the ecological benefits, the clear fact is that the economic benefits of the so called ‘green’ alternatives are absent, and in many cases, too prohibitive for Third World nations (the costs to implement such eco-friendly systems is beyond logical levels and extraordinarily huge – this is an insurmountable impediment considering that even at the current level, almost all public transport systems, irrespective of which nations we consider, are more or less running on losses).
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
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