That's what, around 20km? The high speed rail is on the 560km scale.
30 times bigger for 14 times the cost. The estimate might actually be low.
Total length, including the new access roads and rails on land, is about 20 km, yep. About 14 km of the total is made of various bridges and tunnels, 3 in total. The cost then includes an 8km / 5mi dual track undersea railway tunnel, the third largest suspension bridge in the world plus the west box girder bridge. That one is actually two independent bridges of the same height, built right next to each other. The total width would have been impractically wide if it was built as a single construction.
So the project has about 28 km of bridge or tunnel included in the price tag.
Which is why I was wondering. If you just wanted some fairly straight and level high speed rail track, including foundation, power supply, signalling and stations, then you will get a *lot* of it for $68bn. Both the Germans, the French and the Japanese have decades worth of experience here, and at least the French and the Germans can assemble a high speed rail line pretty much in assembly line fashion.
What I don't know anything about are the local conditions in CA when it comes to geography and property rights, both of which are the big jokers here, of course.
you didn;t read the explanation.
the nose of each capsule contains a turbofan creating a pressurized bubble around the main cabin. as the capsule travels forward the fan sucks in the air volume from front , pressureises it , sends it around the main capsule ( so the capsule floats ) and uses it as ehaust in the back to propel the capsule.
if a capsule fails the system comes to a halt and the system essentially repressurizes itself to atmospheric. it kinda works like a peristaltic pump. the capsule acts as the rotary vane and the turbofan in th enose of the capsule creates the pressuredifferential across the vane ( the capsule) low pressure up front , high pressur behind , so the damn thing essentially propels itself.
it's like sticking jet engines in a long pipe. they simply propel themselves forware. use a maglev construction to float the cabin in rest , while moving the air pressure takes over so less maglev power is required. the maglev provides contactless power to the motor driving the turbofan in the nose as well as the slife support systems for the humans on board.
Actually I had fully read the complete document, when I wrote my previous post. I had considered the possibility of using the turbofan to create a virtual vacuum around the pod, thus reducing drag to nearly nothing (except for rolling and bearing losses in the wheels, of course).
Bottom line: Even at vastly reduced speed the energy budget doesn't add up, if the system is forced to run at atmospheric pressure during an emergency.
Some additional napkin math: In round numbers, then, if you slow the pods from 1200 to 100 kph (60mph) during an emergency, then the apparent air pressure in front of the pod drops to 1/12th of normal (high vacuum) conditions. However, atmospheric pressure is more than 1000 (one thousand) times higher than operational pressure. So during an emergency the
total mass of the air, which has to be moved by the fan per second when moving at 100 kph, is 1000/12 ~ 80 times higher than usual. This is before we consider drag losses in the 'landing wheels'.
The different pressures means we probably cannot even get the high efficiency of the turbofan at atmospheric pressure, as compared to normal operation in a very low pressure. All the heat exchangers and tubing will ensure this. But let us for now assume that we 'only' need 80 times more energy per time to move the required amount of air at atmospheric pressure and under turbofan power.
Everything else being equal, this means we now move 12 times slower than maximum speed, and per time we need to expend roughly
eighty times more energy to create our virtual vacuum bubble to eliminate air drag. Normal travel time is 35 minutes. Unfortunately during an emergency we will have pods, which has just entered the tube at one end when it is pressurized. So they have to travel about 560 km at 100 kph, taking 5.6 hours. As a fraction this increases the travel time by 5.6*60/35 = 9.3 times.
So the battery capacity has to be 80 * 9.3 ~
750 times higher than what is required for completing the journey under low pressure conditions.
Which is probably a bit ineconomical.
...and then I haven't yet mentioned the problem with engine cooling during an emergency.