Transportation

Traveling long distances isn’t easy.

The mega regions are interconnected using subterranean maglev systems that transport people and cargo:

  • Deep underground

  • Evacuated tunnels with plasma windows to maintain vacuum at stations

  • Individual pods (cargo, private, public, car carrier)

  • Pods are passive and propelled by the tracks

  • Entire system is run by an automated system with minimal human oversight

  • Private pods are reasonable equivalent to private rail cars

  • Limited access ports inside a mega-region

Sub-orbital intercontinental transports

Dirigibles:

  • Relatively inexpensive

  • Slow

  • Used for passenger and cargo transport

  • May or may not be autonomous

Aerodyne

  • is an aircraft powered by ducted jet fans

  • closely resembling a flying automobile

  • Personal, medivac, transport, and combat applications

  • Autonomous cargo hauling in Cyberpunk 2077

Surface Vehicles

Road Trains

The World’s Longest Truck - Road Train in Australia

Biggest Road Trains Truck Crossing Flooded River

Fuel

CHOOH2

  • From a GMO high-sugar wheat

  • Synthetic alcohol that can be produced in different weights (diesel, kerosene, and gasoline)

  • Desperate people drink it

Isn’t the primary fuel source like in Cyberpunk.

  • Naval Research laboratory (NRL)figured out how to synthesize different hydrocarbon fuels from sea water

  • It can make ethanol (eg bathtub gin)

  • There’s a catalyst that can break down plastics and we assume that it could be used to produce fuel (gasoline, diesel, cooking gas, etc) from trash

The CHOOH2 has to have a significantly better EROEI than NRL method, assume at least as good as sugar cane (8.3-10.2).

Assume that the wheat and yeast can be created using easily available biotech equipment and knowledge at home. Could be a simple as farmers growing the feed stock like old farmers grew hay for their working animals (10% of land for hay to feed the draft horses). Might be the occasional patent infringement actions against people growing the wheat off license…

Electric

Assume that there is at least an order of magnitude improvement over lithium polymer batteries, the chemistry uses easily obtainable materials (eg dual-carbon or equiv), and doesn’t suffer from a negative temperature coefficient.

Electric is the primary solution for all short and medium range surface vehicles used for intra-mega region travel.

Might have sufficient energy and power density for use in light aircraft (Cessna 172 or equiv).

Fossil Fuels

Assume people have tapped abandoned oil wells and are running crude refineries to produce fuel.

Investigation of air emissions from artisanal petroleum refineries in the Niger-Delta

The Battle Raging In Nigeria Over Control Of Oil

Chiraq & Nigeria’s Oil Pirates