SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Adjacent to SpaceX headquarters, 25 teams gathered for another Hyperloop Pod Competition. This time the winner would be judged by how quickly they could go down the 1.25 kilometer (about .77 miles) track. On the final day of competition, three teams advanced to the finals and had the chance to push their pod to the limit.
With a speed of just over 200 miles per-hour, the Warr (pronounced Varr) team from the Technical University of Munich handily beat the two other finalists with its small, but quick pod. Weighing just 80 kg (176 pounds) and powered by a 50kw motor, the vehicle was essentially a small electric car built specifically for winning the competition.
[...] At the end of the competition, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk mused that there's no reason why future pods in the competition couldn't hit 500 to 600 miles per-hour on the 1.25 kilometer track. Of course that means that there will be another Hyperloop Pod Competition sometime next year and who knows, maybe we'll see pods hitting the speeds that'll make the mode of transportation truly rival air travel.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/27/hyperloop-pod-competition-winner-hits-200-mph/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday August 29 2017, @02:09AM (4 children)
That's the real trick ain't it? Scaling with at least no negative ROI. I always remember hearing about the "water engine", and then hearing out the rare earth metals it requires. None of it ever scaled beyond one single very expensive demo unit, that could indeed, run on water. Since the industry wasn't interested in making a half million the new threshold for buying a car... the idea died. Very often people ignore the scaling factor, and that at some point, you need to break even, or make money.
It will be the same with the hyperloop. Testing and design could be completed, and yet require very expensive and difficult to engineer track. I was always astonished when I heard just how much a half-mile of road costs. That's asphalt! You want concrete to German Autobahn standards (which can take jet planes landing on it), it's even more per mile. Something that can reach a vacuum, and yet support 500-600mph speeds in it? These are very impressive engineering feats, and even more if the cost could be kept to less than 10x traditional infrastructure costs. I think people forget just how much of a daunting engineering task it is to cross the entire U.S. with infrastructure. We take it for granted these days.
I've got a rather different idea. Let's build massive canal systems, lifts, dams, and pumps to create a water based infrastructure. To begin with we get concrete canals similar to the ones you see in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Capable of a lot of water, or can be redesigned to hold other traffic. Including the Hyperloop built on top of it. Or affordable housing. We already have a very large rail system. Convert all the lines to canals, and where there are railroad crossing guards you find bridges instead.
Building those canals will be a project that rivals the original interstate highway programs. If we build to last, we could end up with some seriously valuable infrastructure that can be built upon, and indeed, contain the Hyperloop. Why I like the canals though is, all we need is traditional steel and concrete. We can benefit from advances in both technologies when we build the canals. Simple engineering materials, and plenty of jobs to be created. Nothing complicated like a vacuum tube supporting magnetic travel and super high velocities. It's mostly future proof in that provides a suitable foundation for future infrastructure. In other words, it is valuable in its own right.
I would fill these canals up with straight sea water. It's readily available, and if we believe the scientists (which I do) we already have sea level rise problem. Desalination technologies keep getting better all the time, and we need to be able to deliver water across the whole country more easily in the future. Climate change or not, there are some US states with record drought problems greatly affecting wheat futures. So we end up with an absolute ton of sea water flowing across the whole U.S. in their own canal infrastructure. What's more efficient than using gravity and floating packages on it in barges? So what if it takes a week to cross the U.S if it provides really cheap shipping that is by definition environmentally friendly with no fossil fuel emissions? If we have a great need for water in some places, it would be nice to create a large desalinization plant in a state without beaches. This provides oodles of water in the same way the natural gas lines in the U.S total in the hundreds of billions in terms of capacity.
I toy with the idea regularly because it doesn't require anything really complicated, millions of tons of rare earth metals, or expensive engineering. If we ever developed extremely good desalinization it could mean plentiful and cheap water everywhere. All this does is create a project slightly more involved than the original interstate project, which was very successful and improved this country dramatically. Lastly, what I really like about it, is that Americans own it. Not some fake not-evil billionaire who dreams of a dynasty on Mars. We own our interstates, which means we own our infrastructures. The trend towards privatization isn't good when making roads. Trump is just giving away billions by attempting to invest in our infrastructure, but with private corporations that end up owning it. Do you want corporations to really own the main arteries that allow us to move around freely? Give me your papers can just as easily be replaced with financial hardship and private property rendering your ability to move a lot harder.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday August 29 2017, @01:49PM (1 child)
[Splitting this reply up to see if I can get round the lameness filter.]
Nice idea. Obviously it'd be complementary to any hyperloop infrastructure, which would be all about getting humans over medium distances as quickly as possible. (At least, that's how it was conceived.)
Waterways also tend to be desirable from an aesthetic PoV, and for human well-being. In Britain you can take lovely canal holidays.
But that does bring me to my next point. Before building new canals for transport, you'd want to have a good understanding of why Britain's canals - once its industrial backbone - have been supplanted by other forms of transport, and what your new scheme would do differently.
In Musk's original document [spacex.com], magnetism was not the plan. He suggested that the levitation would be done on a cushion of air pumped from the front of the pod - which also prevented a build-up of air resistance at the front of the pod, and meant that the tubes merely need to be low pressure rather than a 'hard vacuum'.
However, a company called Hyperloop One does seem to be thinking in terms of magnetic levitation for their projects.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:42PM
Interesting. I did not know the Britain's canals were once an industrial backbone, but it makes sense. I believe the new scheme would work for many uses cases and could replace freight lines. Overnight and passenger travel will obviously need to be much faster. Also, I plan on designing it so that gravity and water flow replaces propulsion. It's a passive system that only requires energy input at the pumping/lift stations. If those can be as energy efficient as we can make it, and the capacity of these canals is much larger than Britain's, it may provide for much cheaper transport as opposed to rail, plane, and Hyperloop. I'm thinking solar and wind where possible. I'm thinking there could even by hydro power production serving a similar purposes to regenerative braking on electric vehicles.
Where it is different would be in the costs once it scales. Not good for every transport job you need, but when logistics and lead times give you the ability to ship across 10 days versus 24 hours, you can realize quite a bit of savings now just by switching from plane to freight.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday August 29 2017, @01:56PM (1 child)
Is that a joke?
More Musk jokes ...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:19PM
No, it's not a joke. He may present himself as a "friendly" billionaire trying to make environmentally friendly products, and get us to space, but he's just your typical toxic rich piece of shit.
I liked him a little bit before I found out that all the jobs he was bringing to the U.S were for the Eastern European men he imported as cheap labor. He took quite a few millions from the mouths of families in Northern California that had the skills and could've done the work. Instead, just like every other toxic piece of shit billionaire it was about doing something as cheaply as possible and to hell with the local communities and little guys. I'm sure he got tax relief and all sorts of incentives to come in, which is usually because it will help create local jobs.
That's the problem with complete fucking dipshits like Elon Musk. Yeah, you built your wonderful little toy with cheap labor that hurt our communities, and you still expect us to somehow be able to afford your Hyperloop?
Yeah, he wants to build a dynasty on Mars. Ship people there to be indentured servants essentially creating his new wealth on Mars. Live your entire life as one of his employees, and if his behavior on Earth is any indication, he will provide you with as little as possible to the job. When you are at place that depends on his corporation for continued supplies and the ability to breath air, I'm just totally positive that the work offers will be without duress and completely fair.
Fuck Elon Musk with a Hyperloop.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.