After Walmart announced it would bump the income paid to training trucker drivers, Bloomberg radio has done a bunch of sound bytes about the truck driver shortage.
What does the shortage mean? It means what we think of as long haul truck drivers. The best I have done driving long haul was when I was in between the summer break at the university in the early 70s. I and two physics majors took turns driving my Ford van from Wrightsville Beach North Carolina to the San Bernadino Freeway in something like 54 hours.
In his Wall Street Journal videos, Christopher Mims, the Journal's technology writer, along with other academics who study the US transportation business, talk about the coming shortage of men and women who would be willing to make a decent living, away from spouses and children for long periods. That is the essence of long haul trucking, unless you and your spouse want to drive together and never have children and make a decent living for the next 40 to 60 years.
The reality is battery operated long haul truck tractors that have to be recharged, much less self driving long haul trucks remains a 21st century dream.
Much less solar powered tanker ships as long as the Empire State building in Manhattan, much less the Empire State building deriving all its electrical needs from solar panels.
