A Partial Fuel Energy Answer for America: Electric Bikes

Robert U. Ayres & Edward H. Ayres

For twenty-first-century Americans, it’s difficult to separate the idea of progress from that of new technology. For a half-century, the neoclassical theory of economic growth has blurred those two concepts in its terminally vague notion of “technological progress” as the great exogenous driver.

Accordingly, Americans might reflexively expect that if we’re to find a better means of providing short-distance mobility than conventional cars and SUVs, it will be some spectacular new technological breakthrough. (Moving sidewalks? Flying scooters?) We have a huge mental block to the idea that progress might come from the past, or from unappreciated regions of ...