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Grain was transported by horse back then. We switched to automobiles because fuel is far denser. One semi-truck full of gasoline can provide thousands-of-trips
by dragontamer 4y ago
Grain was transported by horse back then. We switched to automobiles because fuel is far denser. One semi-truck full of gasoline can provide thousands-of-trips and carry tons-and-tons of product. Ex: 1-ton of gasoline carries hundreds-of-tons of product.
In contrast, 10-tons of horse feed will only feed enough horses to carry maybe 10-tons of actual product, depending on distance.
I forget the math exactly, but there's a reason why the horse-to-automobile tranformation only took a decade. The difference between horse-feed and gasoline is completely massive and almost an unfathomable increase in efficiency, due to the ratio of "fuel-per-ton" (ie: horse bread in the 1800s vs gasoline in the modern day).
- hyperman1 4y agoI read somewhere how automobiles were the environmental cleanup of their times. We first had horses producing far more manure than a city could handle, with all kinds of hygiene/smell/viability consequenses. People complained how cities became unliveable. Cars fixed all that. No more feed, no more manure, no more raising and keeping alive the animals. All replaced with a very energy dense fuel, a machine you can just leave on the street, and some very clean minimal exhaust. Then we all got cars.