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Hyperloop One to shut down

bloomberg.com

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#441

Post by beembeem »

rschiavone wrote: post #379
marcus_holmes wrote: post #313

I thought the point of Hyperloop was to head off the upgrading of Californian railway systems? Created and Hyped by Tesla's owner because Tesla needed Americans to stick to buying ever-more-expensive cars. So, its purpose is done now and it can retire gracefully. Or am I being too cynical?

That seems to be the reason. "Musk reportedly told his biographer, Ashlee Vance, that the Hyperloop proposal was motivated by “his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” which he felt would be too slow, outdated and expensive. “With any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled,” Vance wrote." https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-m... https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/149…

And when I found this out, I lost a lot of respect for him. All his talk of sustainability is junk when you see words like this.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#442

Post by ianburrell »

bluGill wrote: post #279
ianburrell wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the $8 billion includes building the train station under the Transbay Terminal. Train stations, especially underground ones, are really expensive. Plus, it is digging a tunnel for the tracks.

Germany avoids doing those things. Good engineering could get the cost down as there are options

I almost used the example of Stuttgart 21 project which is way over budget (9 billion) and over time (6 year delay). It is bigger scope, with whole new main station and lots of track.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#443

Post by jokteur »

xnx wrote: post #439
jokteur wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but rail is the lowest form carbon footprint you can find, if you exclude biking and walking. Also, boarding a train is so much more comfortable and convenient than boarding a plane (no security check, at least in Europe, wide seats, no emergency tutorial, ...). Also the train drops me right in the city center. I would argue that up to 500 km of distance, high speed train is the best option, then it become…

Trains on existing tracks are very efficient at moving weight. When the tracks don't exist (i.e. in the US) there are billions of dollars of carbon cost (moving earth, concrete, steel) to building new track.

This study [1] cites a 80 to 280 tCO2 per km of new high speed track laid (it includes bridges, tunnels, ...). Lets lay 700km of new high speed tracks (Orlando to Atlanta). So 700km of high speed track is 56'000 tCO2 to 196'000 tCO2.

Orlando to Atlanta will have sold more than airplane 310'000 seats in December 2023. At 250g per km per passenger, we get to 54'250 tCO2 emitted on this route alone in December. You can see that laying 700km of high-speed tracks that will last more than 30 years before renovation will emit as much as one to four months of flight emissions on the busiest US airplane route.

You can argue about the specifics of this back of the envelope calculation, but flying emit orders of magnitude more tCO2 than any form of transport (on short haul) that even building a whole new high-speed rail route is worth it after a few years of exploitation. Obviously you are not going to convert 100% of passengers to rail, especially in the beginning with spotty transport coverage, but focusing on busy airplane routes ([1] https://uic.org/IMG/pdf/carbon_footprint_of_railway_infrastr...

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#444

Post by jokteur »

xnx wrote: post #438
wtfwhateven wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how are trains not a proven technology??? planes are faster, have flexible routing, and cheaper upfront cost sure the rest is simply not true. how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? wtf?

Good questions. > how are trains not a proven technology??? The US currently has nothing that would be considered high speed rail by the rest of the world. It could be built here, but it would cost billions and take decades. Hofstadter's law strongly applies to major infrastructure projects in the US. "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." > how do planes have "fle…

Exactly the same thing with trains. I live in Switzerland, and they are adapting the capacity of the trains route by route, and to the time of the day.

The train I take every day to work has 12 cars in rush hour, and 4 cars off-peak, sometime 6 cars in the middle of the day, or 10 cars just after rush hour. They put extra trains in rush hour, have trains in standby is case of a breakdown of other trains, and they even introduce special trains dedicated for events (football games, big concerts, sports event). How is this "not flexible" ?

The only valid point is that the US forgot how to efficiently build huge infrastructure projects. But it is not an impossible thing to solve. Sent some experts to France, Spain and ask them how to manage high-speed project within reasonable costs. France is building the Grand Paris Express (a lot of tunneling, more than 200km of tracks) for a reasonable cost, and is now reusing tunnel boring machines to build another project in Toulouse.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#445

Post by asylteltine »

wilg wrote: post #210
asylteltine wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure he is working on it just like he’s working on FSD with Tesla.

You don't think Tesla is working on FSD?

Considering it’s been 10 years since he promised it’s coming out this month, every month, no I don’t think so.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#446

Post by PicassoCTs »

belter wrote: post #402
Eisenstein wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people say 'we don't have the money' for stuff like infrastructure? We never have a problem finding the 'trillions of dollars for wars'. It seems there is only ever a problem coming up with funds these days when it is to invest in things that help our own citizens (outside of just throwing money at them).

Because the debt is now due? "U.S. Debt: Visualizing the $31.4 Trillion Owed in 2023" - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-ow...

? American debt is only due, if they abandon the world, which pays for this debt by valuing american security and insurances of free trade high, by using the dollar to trade and as reserve currency.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#448

Post by wildrhythms »

beembeem wrote: post #441
rschiavone wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be the reason. "Musk reportedly told his biographer, Ashlee Vance, that the Hyperloop proposal was motivated by “his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” which he felt would be too slow, outdated and expensive. “With any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled,” Vance wrote." https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-m... https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/149…

And when I found this out, I lost a lot of respect for him. All his talk of sustainability is junk when you see words like this.

It wasn't after Musk publicly went around calling a rescue worker a pedophile for disregarding his attention-seeking 'rescue submarine' concept?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#449

Post by zizee »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #418
zizee wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a better candidate for colonization?

How do you look around at the legacy of colonialism on earth and be like "yes more of that please?" There's an incredible amount of scientific understanding to be achieved over the next few decades using unmanned probes in the solar system including mars. After that we'll see. We are barely capable of manned spaceflight at all, don't even have a proof of concept of a self-contained ecosystem that can be isolated for…

> How do you look around at the legacy of colonialism on earth and be like "yes more of that please?"

Are you talking about human race, spreading out from our cradle in Africa thousands of years ago? Or more recent colonization? Or more recent examples of one group of people subjugating another pre-existing habitat of a land?

Because you know there are not people or animals on Mars right?

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#450

Post by Nevermark »

awill88 wrote: post #419
sonicanatidae wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. It's not about how much money is available. It's always about the choices of where they spend it and those choices rarely benefit the citizens, somewhat ironically.

It’s not even just about choices, it’s about consensus and we’ve forgotten how to see a win from a partial loss. We no longer know compromise at a federal level

As you say, we have forgotten consensus building.

And we have forgotten the rational can-do optimistic spirit of problem solving via hard work, (the ideal of) objective thinking, and the hunger for adopting ideas from anywhere.

A lot of this is the result of power centralization in our social and political sphere's. Winner take all dynamics are so immediately and decisively rewarding, that long term, collaborative and independent thinking have become self-defeating (for the political and socially powerful).

Technology can solve many problems. Unfortunately, that can include shifting the price of growing problems into the future and onto the powerless. Enshittification of the whole planet and human condition.

It isn't technology's fault, and if/when society gets shocked into organizing better, we are going to need every technological edge we have accumulated to turn things around.

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