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L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

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Re: L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

#71

Post by JKCalhoun »

_Schizotypy wrote: post #48
throw_awy_1 wrote: post #7

Very cool to see this technology progress. Will be interesting to track. China certainly has shown that it both can invest in and build public infrastructure at an amazing scale and pace. It's a little concerning that this isn't really a sale - it's a joint venture. From the article: "HyperloopTT will form a joint venture with the Tongren authorities, according to the Guizhou provincial government, though the company…

which part is the interesting technology? the train or the tunnel?

"Hyper" in the name?

Re: L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

#73

Post by bilbo0s »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #56
bilbo0s wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... I don’t see how this will work out ...." That's how most Chinese infrastructure projects start. I saw Ningbo in 1992. I look at it today and, yeah, can you say different? I thought Three Gorges would be impossible, even for the Chinese. A few key innovations later and there it is. (Subtle innovations which, in my defense, a reasonable engineer would never have seen coming.) If there's one thing they're good at o…

The last time I was in ningbo was 2004. Is it really that different today? Building a dam isn’t that hard? Definitely not impossible if you are willing to displace a few million citizens. But tunneling under granite for 30+ km? Yes, possible, but it won’t be cheap. I don’t think the Chinese would do that, it will definitely be a vacuum enclosed viaduct to match what they did with HSR.

"... Building a dam isn't that hard ..."

???

Three Gorges is a mile and a half long almost. (maybe a tad longer.) Almost what? 6 or 7 hundreed feet tall. Ship locks and ship lifts too! For what? 10 thousand tons or so would be my guess? Not to mention entirely new ports to accommodate new heavy shipping inland. New walls and other flood control measures. And all of it designed to concert in such a manner that they never exceed the design specs of the dam.

Displacing citizens is the LEAST of the problems that project faced.

Building ANY dam is definitely not to be characterized as "not that hard". Building Three Gorges falls on the "near impossible even with backing of wealthy nation state" end of the scale.

Re: L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

#74

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bilbo0s wrote: post #73
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I was in ningbo was 2004. Is it really that different today? Building a dam isn’t that hard? Definitely not impossible if you are willing to displace a few million citizens. But tunneling under granite for 30+ km? Yes, possible, but it won’t be cheap. I don’t think the Chinese would do that, it will definitely be a vacuum enclosed viaduct to match what they did with HSR.

"... Building a dam isn't that hard ..." ??? Three Gorges is a mile and a half long almost. (maybe a tad longer.) Almost what? 6 or 7 hundreed feet tall. Ship locks and ship lifts too! For what? 10 thousand tons or so would be my guess? Not to mention entirely new ports to accommodate new heavy shipping inland. New walls and other flood control measures. And all of it designed to concert in such a manner that they ne…

I’ve been through the dam before, I know how large it is. The locks (multiple ohes) alone take a whole night to go through. And at the end of the day, the human cost was the greatest hurdle for the project that still isn’t completely worked out.

But I don’t see how it was extra amazing vs. the grand coullee or hoover dams built almost a century ago.

Re: L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

#75

Post by bobthepanda »

dczot wrote: post #62
bobthepanda wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cool" and "new" usually ends up meaning "expensive" and "proprietary" later on, especially if it's not standards conforming and tries to reinvent the wheel. See: BART

Interesting, what was cool and new about BART originally?

BART's technology was created by aerospace engineers who wanted to reinvent the railroad and make it "better".

What this resulted in was - a wider track gauge than any other used in the US - bespoke rolling stock with different braking, control, coupling systems - untested ATO that had several early failures

The first two have had lasting impacts; servicing BART equipment is very difficult because no one else has ever made traincars like that, and it makes it difficult to extend BART over existing rail tracks. The expensive of all this "cool" factor is at least a factor of two over standard rail projects, which is why eBART was built as a normal diesel rail line instead of as a BART extension.

Other examples of "cool" transit technologies that ended up aging poorly because of their rarity are monorails and maglevs. With economies of scale it's hard to beat trains, and trains already go to 220+ MPH; there are very few markets where you would need to go significantly faster via land, and where doing so would be a big advantage over air travel, as Hyperloop is proposing.

Re: L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

#76

Post by bilbo0s »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #74
bilbo0s wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... Building a dam isn't that hard ..." ??? Three Gorges is a mile and a half long almost. (maybe a tad longer.) Almost what? 6 or 7 hundreed feet tall. Ship locks and ship lifts too! For what? 10 thousand tons or so would be my guess? Not to mention entirely new ports to accommodate new heavy shipping inland. New walls and other flood control measures. And all of it designed to concert in such a manner that they ne…

I’ve been through the dam before, I know how large it is. The locks (multiple ohes) alone take a whole night to go through. And at the end of the day, the human cost was the greatest hurdle for the project that still isn’t completely worked out. But I don’t see how it was extra amazing vs. the grand coullee or hoover dams built almost a century ago.

"...But I don’t see how it was extra amazing vs. the grand coullee or hoover dams built almost a century ago...."

Count the number of locks and lifts integrated with them.

Count the number of deep water ports built to concert with them.

Then you'll START to get an idea of how non-trivial Three Gorges was. It's not just a dam, though a dam even the size of Hoover or Grand Coulee would be non-trivial in themselves for us to do today. (A dam the size of Three Gorges? Not even close to being easy.) Throw in concerting projects, and to call it "not that difficult" is, frankly, laughable.

Re: L.A. Company Wins China Hyperloop Deal

#77

Post by agumonkey »

cmdli wrote: post #13
Gargoyle wrote: post #3

Hacker News has assured me repeatedly that this is an imaginary technology that cannot possibly work, so I assume this must be fake news.

I think the criticism isn't that it couldn't possibly work, but rather that it was impractical and expensive. Basically, its the modern monorail.

Stupid idea, could there be reduced pressure (instead of near vacuum) and air pump/exhaust on each end of the vehicle ?
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