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JPods Corp.
email: bill.james@jpods.com JPods integrates roller coaster mechanics with computer networks to create a physical version of the Internet. People get in, tell the computer where they want to go and it takes them there. JPods are ultra-light, computer-controlled vehicles suspended from rails that move people and cargo on-demand. As elevators provide access within a building, JPods provide access between buildings, a network of horizontal elevators. Bill James, JPods inventor explained the technology, “Beam me up Scotty would be perfect use of energy, you move only what you want to move. Although we do not have the physics for that, we can implement the physics that it costs less to move less. Driving Parasitic Mass, the mass we pay to move that is not passengers or cargo, toward zero preempts a lot of the waste we see as pollution and congestion.” “A well developed idea,” said the President of Minneapolis City Council, Barbara Johnson, after riding in a JPod. “Computerized transit networks, a physical version of the Internet, will increase personal mobility of our school kids, the economically challenged, our senior citizens, the disabled community and those stuck in rush-hour traffic. It will give more people access to the facilities that make Minneapolis a great city. And in the long run, besides being energy and ecologically efficient, a new job market will be created that enhances the attractiveness of living and working within our city.” How long will it take to hop a pod? Bill James, JPod’s inventor replied, “Hopefully the first commercial network will be built within six months. Saving 27 cents per passenger mile over cars and not polluting will help drive adoption. But what will radically and quickly expand networks is the consequences of Peak Oil. Peak Oil will force this type of technology be a dominant form of commuting within 15 to 26 years.” Peak Oil is the peaking of the rate of extraction of oil. Oil is a limited resource. Oil’s extraction has to follow oil's discovery. New discoveries of oil peaked in 1960 and have declined ever since. By all official estimates Peak Oil will happen sometime between five and 26 years from now. When oil’s extraction rate peaks, the price of oil is expected to increase rapidly. The price of oil tripled in the last six years. Summary of Peak Oil: http://abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/
James explains, “About 4 billion of the 8 billion miles Americans drive every day are highly repetitive and can be automated at a savings of 27 cents per passenger mile. Farm needs and other industrial needs are not repetitive and cannot easily change their power source from oil to electricity. We have a choice, save a billion dollars a day and or leave no fuel to plant, harvest, process and deliver food. I am confident we will choose to automate commuter travel.” For more information on JPods its web site is at www.jpods.com.
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