
Is it time to take the Hyperloop seriously? No - lisper
http://blog.rongarret.info/2018/03/is-it-time-to-take-hyperloop-seriously.html
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curtis
I don't think we're obligated to take Hyperloop seriously until there is a
large-scale demonstration system up and running. On the other hand, I don't
think we can fully discount it as long as so many people (with funding!) are
actively working on it.

~~~
barnabes
Right. In addition to that, I was simply going to write "make it not fail". In
the plane example, what the author doesn't mention is that there are many
mechanical failures, or human errors on a plane that lead to, well, death of
100% of its passengers. Yet we still fly.

So in this respect I see the Hyperloop as being very similar to air travel:
make it not fail.

~~~
lisper
> there are many mechanical failures, or human errors on a plane that lead to,
> well, death of 100% of its passengers

That's true, but there are very few failures that lead the entire system to
grind to a halt.

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tdb7893
Weather creates a whole mess with tons of missed connections and cancelled
flights that can take up a a couple days to sort out. This means that air
travel in entire states grinds to a halt a couple of times each year.

~~~
lisper
Fair enough, but in the meantime passengers are not trapped aboard airplanes
(which are considerably more comfortable than hyperloop pods). On a few rare
occasions passengers have been trapped on airplanes for several hours. This
was considered unacceptable and led to major changes in policy.

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lxmorj
You could easily build in emergency-use-only, slow-speed-required exit
valves..

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bonesss
I kinda can't imagine them _not_ having something comparable to the safety
mechanisms in the Chunnel...

Basic repairs, emergencies, etc can't require a full service stop across the
line. There are solutions used in similar situations that are baseline
operational requirements.

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stcredzero
_The fundamental problem is that the hyperloop track is a cascading single
point of failure._

So, pretty much like highway-speed transit on highways. One breakdown, and
huge stretches of highway slow to a crawl or to a halt. The same goes for the
US air travel system, except it takes the weather disruption of a major hub to
get the cascading failures.

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wellboy
Trains?

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KnightOfWords
Trains fail more gracefully than hyperloop - they have enough room to stand up
in, toilets and exits.

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curtis
I'm skeptical whether Hyperloop as described in Musk's original paper is
practical. On the other hand, I think it's possible that some variant which is
clearly Hyperloop-inspired might actually be feasible.

You can probably make the case that we're already in Hyperloop-inspired
territory, since as far as I can tell everyone working on Hyperloop has
dispensed with air-bearings and moved to maglev for levitation.

~~~
lisper
Yes, but it's still in an evacuated metal tube. That's a severe constraint.

BTW, going to maglev completely blows the original economic model out of the
water. The whole point of the original hyperloop was that the track was going
to be cheap because it was _just_ a welded metal tube. Now it's a welded metal
tube with a maglev track inside. That's no longer cheap. In fact, it's a
reinvention of maglev in a way that makes it even more expensive. If maglev
wasn't economically viable before you put it in a tube (and it wasn't) it
won't be economically viable after.

~~~
gnode
I don't see any reason why using maglev means the track has to be anything
clever. There are methods where the vehicle contains the only active part, and
the track can simply be a metal strip, such as servo-levitation (varying the
strength of an electromagnet on board the vehicle with feedback), induced
current levitation, or by using a rotating set of fixed magnets.

~~~
lisper
I must confess I'm not up on the details of maglev technology (which is why
it's not central to my argument). I have to wonder, though, if maglev is so
cheap and easy why hasn't it been deployed more already?

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Atheros
Because maglev _isn 't_ cheap. [This
guy]([https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/6ogwml/ny_to_dc_in_29_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/6ogwml/ny_to_dc_in_29_minutes_elon_musk_gets_goahead_for/dkjjp2a/))
runs the numbers of a Hyperloop in a tunnel using maglev.

~~~
lisper
That is a great link, thank you!

I think it is telling that the best analysis of this issue that anyone has
been able to find in this thread has been in a reddit comment.

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maxerickson
Be sure to take your Boring Company™ flamethrower on any hyperloop trips that
transit an underground section, in case the mole people attack.

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zimmen
If we would always think about “what could go wrong” and decide whether to go
forward based on that we still wouldn’t use fire today.... in order to make
something safe we need to make it work first. No guts, no glory.

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xfactor973
This may seem stupid but couldn’t you just reverse the stuck pods back to the
station the departed from?

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blackrock
Technically, I think the Hyperloop can work.

Economically, to make it profitable, then I am not certain it can work in the
United States.

The Hyperloop is running in a vacuum tube.

* We have the ability to evacuate air from a tube, to low air pressure levels.

* We have the ability to build space craft that can operate in a vacuum.

* We have the ability to build a maglev, to propel the pod.

* We have the ability to build nuclear power plants, to energize the maglevs. I don't think solar or wind will create enough electricity to meet production usage demands.

Given all that, it's now starting to sound like an economical non-starter.

The United States just doesn't have enough people to make this work
economically. It sounds cheaper to just go with a maglev. And you can get up
to 300 to 400 mph if you push it. This is almost comparable to an airplane,
but more comfortable. And the volume of people you transport can be a lot
higher.

And all the Hyperloop plans are regional. One for Houston. One for Chicago.
One for Virginia. This means that each location is fiscally responsible for
themselves. But for some locations, then there is not enough people to
economically sustain it. A national system may work, as it will allow some
lines to be profitable, and this will balance out the lines that are not
profitable. So the entire national system may eke out an operating profit.

And then, there is all the land rights that you have to buy up. Just look at
how expensive the California high speed rail project is costing.

And all the tunneling and bridging that must be done.

And the designs only show two tracks running in parallel, but I think they
actually need 3 tracks, in the event one track breaks down. This adds to the
costs, but I don't see anyone suggesting this, or even thinking about it.

And they need to design contingencies in the event something breaks down.
Americans do not like new technology things that kill people. One disaster may
kill the entire project.

And, what about the science of the sonic boom, as the pod crosses the sound
barrier. Given this is propelled through a vacuum tube, at lower air pressure
levels, then will a sonic boom be generated?

All of this is now starting to sound really expensive. All this research is
going to cost a lot of money. No company can really afford that, except maybe
Apple. The US government is not interested in footing the R&D bill.

Then again, I could be completely wrong. And once again, Elon pulls a rabbit
out of a hat, and comes to the rescue.

~~~
wellboy
You just completely made things up.

All the things you listed amount to 10x less costs than the bullet trains. You
can have a look at hyperloop costs.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You can have a look at hyperloop costs.

Yeah, the hyperloop paper that claimed low costs did so by a combination of
sheer fantasy and not actually going anywhere near the city centers it was
serving, and making the cost of transit connections to the city centers out of
scope.

Of course , a lot of the cost of high speed rail is the urban part of the
route necessary to actual serve the population centers it's supposed to
connect.

