Here are some statistics on how freight moves in the U.S. Compared to my preconceived notions, trucking is even more dominant compared to rail than I thought. Even pipelines move more than twice the weight of rail. Air is vanishingly small in terms of weight, but used to move higher-value items. It’s not too surprising that the monetary value of everything shipped is projected to grow along with the economy, but it is a little surprising to me that the weight of everything shipped is projected to grow by 40% over the next 30 years. It argues against the idea that we are “dematerializing”, or achieving economic growth without physical growth. Sure, people like Alan Greenspan can make an argument that the weight per dollar is not increasing, but what does that mean exactly when a dollar is a fairly arbitrary human measure of value? Ultimately the tonnage of everything we move, from raw materials and fossil fuels to manufactured goods to waste, is one proxy for ecological footprint, and it doesn’t look like we are going to turn the corner soon. The only way that would change is if we had a closed loop, “circular economy” where the waste becomes raw materials again. Then we could theoretically keep shipping it around the loop faster and faster without increasing our footprint. That is, given enough clean, cheap energy.