With fuel prices edging upward and upward as oil hits $61+ a barrel, some businesses are desperately seeking the path of least resistance for transporting their goods. AP reports that the 180-year-old Erie Canal is being pressed into service again:
As a pair of large turbines made by General Electric make their way across the Erie Canal, state officials are hoping to see more commercial shipping on New York’s canal system. A 90-foot tug is pushing a 300-foot barge carrying the two G-E turbines, one of them built in Schenectady. The cargo left the Port of Albany yesterday and is scheduled to reach Oswego by tomorrow. From there, a Canadian tug will take the load to a nuclear plant in Ontario, Canada. Other turbines are scheduled to be moved through the canal system in September and October.
The state Canal Corporation wants to encourage more commercial traffic with loads such as sand and hay. The agency says with rising oil costs, companies may opt to transport large cargo loads via the waterway because of the fuel efficiency.
Other businesses are finding similar alternative options:
Frustrated by highway congestion and a shortage of trucks, shippers are giving the inland waterways another look. Just last month, for instance, Sappi Fine Paper shipped a load of pulp bound for Europe via the Great Lakes out of the Port of Duluth. It was the first time anyone can remember pulp moving out of Duluth by that mode.Not just in recent times, but ever!
We assume that Americans will find a way out of their oil woes by embracing the latest and most modern energy technology. This didn’t happen with the Roman Empire: 500 years after its fall, its provinces had actually seemed to go backward. In the absence of a strong central authority, the populace reverted back to “Whatever Works, Baby.”
Signs of the times…