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Heaven Help Me, But I Sort of Love Elon Musk’s New Hyperloop Idea. (Well, at Least in Theory…)
The sci-fi buff and futurist in me just loves, loves, loves Elon Musk’s idea of building an underground hyperloop between Washington and New York. Heck, I would love the idea even if the vacuum tube connected LA and San Francisco or Houston and Dallas or Chicago and St. Louis. Even Dubai to Abu Dhabi.
Now since I live in the greater Washington DC area, I find the idea even cooler. I would love to be able to zip to Manhattan in 30 minutes. Plus, I would imagine, real-estate prices within driving distance of the stops would get quite a boost. And when there are hyperloops from coast to coast, time to get started on a space elevator.
But, but, but … the technology does not yet exist. The regulatory path to approval does not yet exist. The business case does not yet exist. The commitment for public financing does not yet exist. If we were a country that could build a project like this, I imagine we would already have a continent-spanning, high-speed rail network. And about the cost. Probably north of $300 billion. It is hard to see public financing on that scale to fund better transportation for the Acela corridor. (Oh, and it seems likely there would be additional stops, such as in Wilmington and Newark.) Didn’t the POTUS get elected by promising to help the left-behind communities in the Rust Belt and Appalachia? Musk’s idea for a city on Mars might be more realistic. (The Economist offers some conceptual problems as well as some boring, non-Boring Company transportation ideas.)
Then again, this is hardly the worst idea I’ve heard lately. (Using protectionism to “bring back” manufacturing jobs, travel bans, a solar border wall immediately pop to mind.) And I love that someone is trying to push forward rather than look backward. Anyway, Wired offers a pretty good take on the Musk hyperloop:
First, you have to get the OK from all the states and cities and municipalities involved…. To give you a sense of how big a deal getting everyone on board with a hyperloop would be, consider that just New York and New Jersey have struggled for over 20 years to reach an agreement to build a single tunnel under the Hudson River — a tunnel the region needs desperately…. Even if the feds could somehow take the lead on this one and ram a hyperloop through localities, it’s not clear who’s in charge. The Federal Railroad Administration, which handles high-speed rail? The Federal Highway Administration, which manages the roads? Who determines safety standards and holds the Boring Company accountable?…
And then there’s the little problem of moolah. Just updating the current Northeast corridor railroad — you know, the one run by Amtrak — to high-speed rail standards would cost an estimated $123 billion. Tunneling will be even more expensive…. Carving less than two miles of tunnel under New York for the Second Avenue Subway took $4.5 billion. Even if this hyperloop were entirely privately financed, it would take lots of zeroes…. Environmental effects can also strangle projects indefinitely. An extension of Washington, DC’s metro has been in the works since 1994, but was hamstrung by lawsuits alleging the project would destroy wetlands and other wildlife habitats…. Then there’s the little trouble of perfecting a technology that doesn’t exist yet. Hyperloop One, one of the many companies competing to build the first hyperloop, ran a successful test out in the Nevada desert last week. Just a few small problems: The track was 315 feet, the “train” a sled, and that sled reached just 70 miles per hour. (A completed hyperloop should hit 700.)
It’s a long way from here to there, even with “verbal government approval.”
Published in Economics, Technology
I’m still pretty skeptical.
Clearly, they wouldn’t be able to create a vaccuum from Boston to Washington D.C., so the tube would need a series of airlocks along the route programmed to open and shut as the vehicle barrels along at hundreds of miles per hour.
Not impossible, but a dang scary idea.
Of course you do, James.
Of course you do, James.
Of course … clearly I’m in a James P hyperloop.
Been a very busy round-the-clock work weekend. Lost track of the date. Is today national “Own Your Caricature Day”? (If so, yeah, I’m owning mine here.)
JimP,
I was a process control salesman in my twenties. One old hand told me I should look out for the guy that tells you he can do anything by the 100 100 100 theory. So I ask the obvious question, “What’s the 100 100 100 theory?” He says, “I can do anything if you give me $100 trillion, 100 years, and 100 of the smartest people on earth.”
You aren’t buying the technical idea you are buying Musk. Musk is a super exciting lemon. After Tesla, you are throwing good money after bad. Cut your losses while there is still time.
Regards,
Jim
If we could get everybody inside the Beltway and all the “think tanks” in there at one time and have it create a true vacuum lasting hours, that would be a great project.
Now you can zip between Washington and New York in record time without ever having to step outside your bubble or have uncomfortable encounters with the lower classes! Neat!
Not to rain on anyone’s parade.
But this thing will not work.
Let the Boring Company research this boondoggle with their own money, but dont waste any tax dollars on this.
If the technology can be figured out, I love the idea. However, I think the cost and use would need to be seriously reviewed. I am highly skeptical of the benefits of high speed rail. These services are great for people living in cities, but their benefits to average people are very questionable. As someone who lives in the suburbs of Philly, I live too far away from the major Amtrak hubs to save time by using trains and the cost is way too high. In my experience, only business travelers can afford to travel this way. Therefore, it seems to me that investing in our highway system is a much better option.
I believe Musk implied that property-owner approval (or eminent domain) would not be necessary since the system is entirely underground.
But is this actually true under the relevant real-estate laws? I tend to doubt it…
At least there’s one reasonable sentence in the article.
But, but,but……… it’s another chance for a crony capitalist to get a bunch of taxpayer money for something that the government has no business being involved in.
I’m very skeptical, but somewhat intrigued.
The hyperloop speed isn’t that much faster than an airliner, which is typically around 500-575 mph. How is this going to be much of a time-saver? How would the hyperloop avoid an airport-style bottleneck at the station?
The underground part of the idea seems just silly. Why put it underground? Isn’t that going to increase the cost enormously?
No, it isn’t true, generally speaking. There may be some unusual state variants, but you generally need an easement to run something under someone else’s property.
You can put the station in a downtown location, which isn’t possible for conventional aircraft because of space requirements.
The question of relative traffic capacities is an interesting one. In railroading, there is a concept of ‘headway’, the amount of time/space that must be allowed between trains for safety reasons. I haven’t seen any claims about headway requirements for hyperloop, but haven’t looked very hard…
Good old Pethokoukis. I wonder if they’ll need illegal immigrant labor or robots to actually make this thing, I mean aside from massive subsidies.
If only we’d used that half a trillon dollars from Obama’s 2009 “Stimulus-that-didn’t-Stimulate-Anything”* we could have had high-speed rail four times over!**
*Except the bank accounts of Washington Rent-Seekers and well-connected cronies
**Not that I’m in favor of subsidizing high speed rail. I think such things exist only to provide opportunities for graft.
Next, there’ll be spandex jackets one for everyone.
It’s a cool idea, but It worries me a little because the ground doesn’t stand still. Suppose you’re in there going 700 mph and even a small earthquake up ahead un-aligns the tube and breaks the vacuum? How quickly can it respond to a problem like that, and how long to fix it before it can be used again?
A terrestrial station avoids many of the problem an airport faces. Also, with the route being pre-set, you can move carriers through almost as often as the demand requires.
Airline flight frequency is affected in part by fuel costs…jet fuel being a rather expensive fuel and the need to lift off the ground requires more energy than shushing along a in a tube.
Naturally, these points don’t help with the enormous up-front cost per mile of the infrastructure. Use of airspace doesn’t involve eminent domain.
Just want to throw in a little dig here: that mag-lev trial between Bakersfield and Fresno is still in its infancy (did I say mag-lev? Should have said something else because it isn’t mag-lev as it was sold…). A Fresno-based relative of mine moved his business in the spring because he was where the terminal is to be located. Federal money notwithstanding, these things take a long time.
There are many cities that have/had downtown airports for conventional aircraft, but do not have airplane service due to economic/practical reasons. Chicago Meigs (now demolished) had direct flights from Chicago to Springfield IL so that the Daley Machine could get its way with the State. Cleveland has Burke, and Kansas City had two downtown (one in Kansas, the other Missouri) airports. There are many examples of former downtown airports (such as Denver’s Stapleton) that are no longer used, and newer/bigger airports are built out in the country. The one major exception is in Washington DC (where else!) with Reagan/Washington National. With the modern technology used on the Air Force C-17, many downtown (>4,000 feet) are long enough, but there are no economic/practical reasons to have service there.
Likewise for this rent-seeker’s proposal.
I love the Hyperloop idea. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it will never be a major component of the transcontinental transportation infrastructure. I’m not even sure it will be a big player in the high-value route (NY-DC, or LA-SF) market, but it might have a place there. The value is that ideas like this capture the imagination, People who take these ideas seriously identify problems and find solutions. These solutions are almost always applicable to other, less captivating, areas. Even if the Hyperloop is a total bust, I say, “Thanks Elon Musk for providing inspiration for thousands of, mostly young, designers.”
Also known as The Train between DC and NY, now. The odd thing about the train is that bubble-popping is available for the duration of your trip, if you look out the window. You see the blasted post-industrial ruins, the working-class neighborhoods gone to seed, the rust and the rubble. Then green space, verdant and alive despite capitalism’s never-ending war on helpless Gaia – then another blighted city. It’s anything but shiny and happy, and when you get to New York you walk through a grey, stained passage into a humid low-ceiling dump.
You could ask “why are things like this, and who made them so?” if you wanted, but eventually you tire of the answer.
I would just point out that since Washington “sucks” this should help.
Great series. My vote is for launch loops:
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
Mike,
What you said.
Regards,
Jim
Build an underground, multi-hundred-mile, vacuum-sealed, maintenance-free pipeline for a reasonable (or even a moderately unreasonable) amount of money?
Not going to happen.
The same thing, but above ground? Nope.
At the best, it’s going to suffer from normal wear and tear.
At worst, it’s a long, expensive target for terrorists and accidents.
The good news is that making a welded steel structure that can handle a mere 14 psi of pressure is fairly trivial. A big oil pipeline can handle several times that (although holding pressure in and holding it out are two different things, steel is still really tough stuff).
The bad news is that even thick steel can be damaged, by malice or by incompetence.
Elon Musk is more than welcome to fund, build, and run it. By himself. With no government funding of any kind. Good luck with that. Everything he does is on the backs of taxpayers.
Don’t understand the objections from the technical standpoint. Cost is the issue.
I read an interesting comment recently proposing using a tube full of hydrogen at normal pressure instead of vacuum. Moving through the tube at what would be mach 1 speed in air, a train would meet vastly lower resistance in hydrogen. I especially like the idea that the tube walls could be transparent plastic.
Problem #1. Musk, et. al. want me to help pay for it. Why do people expect me to pay for their over sized theme park ride? No way Jose. If this is such a great idea, let a private company pay for it. What? It wouldn’t be profitable? Then can the idea and come back to real life. Same thing goes for the High Speed rail garbage in CA. A TOTAL waste of time, money and land.
Could we use the same vacuum tube technology for launching people into orbit?