What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?
consumersresearch.org
consumersresearch.org
One of the reason's California's proposed high speed railway was so expensive was the politics involved in picking the route. It's also the same problem Amtrak has. The northeast corridor would make money, but the routs going west don't and are kept do to congressional pressure. The hyperloop's cost comparisons don't factor that in at all(nor should they). But building it in practice will be an issue.
The second part of the hyperloop's cost savings come from it being very light. We could simply build very light rail transport on the same pylons. Replace 1,500 KG of batteries with overhead electric wire and use the excess weight for a motor.
So the hyper-loops only real advantage is speed. Which is impressive, except for the fact that it requires you to build a tube with surface variances less than 5mm for several hundred miles, or the air barring will have problems. (or maybe not, perhaps you could have dynamic air barring and high precision topographic maps of the tunnel)
The budget summary at the end suggested $2.5 billion for land acquisition etc, which made me think it's not a serious proposal.
Actually, the only two cities it connects to in the Central Valley are among the largest population centers in California: Fresno (#5 largest city in CA) and Bakersfield (#9 largest city). By comparison, there aren't any large population centers southwest of San Jose until you're almost to LA with maybe the exception of Salinas.
Plus, if you want to swing up to Sacramento (#6 largest city) at a later point, then going inland makes more sense.
The whole thing built out with all phases connects 9 out of 10 of the largest cities in CA (Oakland is the only one left out).
Wha tI mean is that most of the popular backing for HSR seems to be in SF, SJ and LA. The interior of CA is like this whole different country.
The first thing someone is going to try to do is get it to connect somewhere in the middle of no where to San Jose to inflate their real-estate prices.
We already have rail transport on pylons, usually an implementation of a monorail[1], but it only solves the right-of-way issue. Everything else (energy consumption, speed, efficiency, passenger flow, safety) is not much different from standard transportation.
The speed is the huge benefit, but involves a technical challenge of rather unknown cost: how do you build a tube for hundreds of miles with a down smooth surface at the 5mm level.
There is no easy formula for magic fast, light, cheap rail transport. Sorry - there is, it's called the Hyperloop :) the greatest thing about it is that all of it's advantages come from it's well thought-out, integrated design, not any one technology we don't have today.
Energy savings are mostly moot if you power things from overhead wire/ third rail. Electricity is cheap(I'm actually curious why this isn't part of the proposal).
So it's benefit is speed. It's a very big benefit, but the tolerances for the air baring/tunnel wall it rides on are really really small.
I agree about the air bearing tolerances seeming like a big problem.
If it could be bigger and more comfortable it seems it would be more usable and with more chance not to fail. Then it would have sense to also be more expensive to make it and maintain it.
Especially after the first case of somebody going sick after he enters the tube and having to remain in it the next 29 minutes. Imagine you sitting next to that person. Imagine you being that person. Imagine your kid being that person. Imagine the press ("Mother watched her kid dying for 29 minutes in Hyperloop"). Imagine the reactions. The project would be dead for good after a few such cases.
You can't put normal people in the capsules for astronauts and just think "what could possibly go wrong." Health issues and effects are real problems and have to be considered. The public is used to car traffic accidents. It won't be so for the whole new transportation suited only for astronauts. This can be the start of the grand failure.
This is not universally true.
For example, here in New York, the express bus from Staten Island has at least 45 minutes of no stops and has no bathroom (just a regular bus). If you do somehow convince the driver to let you off, good luck finding a bathroom anywhere near the places you'd probably find yourself. Some of the Subway trains (such as the N train between Canal St and Atlantic Ave) run express and is about 10 minutes non-stop (and you're a long trek from a bathroom at either end).
Plus, try going to the bathroom in the first or last 30 minutes of a flight. You have a reasonable chance of being arrested.
> (and you're a long trek from a bathroom at either end).
And that's total BS. The long trek is less than 5 minutes on either side.
The vehicle carrying version is a tad larger (1.85m height), without adding much to the cost, and would probably be chosen for an actual build. Given the capsule will be coasting for most of the trip, it would be possible to walk around like in an airplane, if it's not doing a sharp turn.
The bathroom critique is again silly--it's a thirty minute trip; if you can't hold it that long, you probably need to repeat preschool.
This would happen. A lot. Then imagine who'd use that cleverness after the first such case and after every next.
I'd rather say "it's aimed at astronauts" than "commuters." Astronauts are thoroughly checked by medical teams and prepared before their trips, would you suggest such checks and preparations every time for everybody entering the tube?
Then those people can avoid riding the hyperloop?
Luckily we didn't use the same BS excuses to stop building planes...
>You can't actually expect that you wouldn't get sick the first minute after you enter the tube.
What? That's what 100% of the population expects when entering any vehicle. "Getting sick the minute they enter" is neither a common expectation nor a common occurence.
>Then imagine yourself having to remain there next 29 minutes and die!
Well, that escalated quickly.
Imagine even worse case: fire in the pod. People burn having to remain unmovable in the seats. Again imagine the public response. Just an impression of having absolutely no chance to do anything at all is enough to scare most normal people forever.
It just has to be big enough for people to normally move inside. Everything else is good for SciFi but not for real use.
If you don't travel, then imagine your computer being connected to the control of the tube in which you are and where you can't move. Now imagine that you can't kill the program for a half an hour which is effectively killing you. Even if the chances are low for the killing process to activate, would you even want to try such an experience?
More likely answer to the headline question: they will do the same thing with the hyperloop as with the maglev (ignore it).
The US government didn't ignore maglev, they did a lot of study (including paying for me and my boss to travel to Germany to perform noise and vibration measurements on the TR08) and offered to help finance starter systems. It didn't go anywhere because it was hella expensive, not because of apathy.
Seems it was the precursor of Consumer Reports, but CR was founded when the majority of the staff left in 1936 and founded a new publication. In the 77 years since, it seems the old organization's main achievement is still... that place everyone left to found Consumer Reports.