The Hyperloop: BUSTED

[nctnico]

I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I believe it’s just a handfull of small companies and some engineering student teams.

I am afraid you are indeed wrong. Virgin Hyperloop One shall not be considered as small company. Nobody knows tells how much Branson invested, but it shall be huge pile of money.

https://hyperloop-one.com/blog/introducing-virgin-hyperloop-one

Quite recently they got new "injection" to burn in form of 50$ mil:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/18/virgin-hyperloop-one-raises-more-money-and-makes-richard-branson-chair.html

That money will never see any return on investment, it will just vanish.

Spin-off is the keyword you are missing here. I did some projects in the past which didn't pan out themselves but the knowledge & IP gained turned out to be very profitable. And big corporations have enough money to add patents into the mix. You can't predict the future but sitting on your thumbs is not going to be profitable for sure.

[ogden]

You can argue that uBeam and Solar Roadways are all "long sighted" projects too, good luck with that.

Why don't you add water powered cars and cold fusion projects to the list?  What I am trying to say - uBeam/FreakingRoads to Hyperloop is apples to orange comparison. Yes, they can struggle to get safety approval for human transportation for many years to come, but to say that Hyperloop is utterly failure or scam is.. how to say.. uneducated imprudence.

[edit] "uneducated imprudence" was the best I got: google.translate

[mtdoc]

I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I believe it’s just a handfull of small companies and some engineering student teams.

I am afraid you are indeed wrong. Virgin Hyperloop One shall not be considered as small company. Nobody knows tells how much Branson invested, but it shall be huge pile of money.

https://hyperloop-one.com/blog/introducing-virgin-hyperloop-one

Quite recently they got new "injection" to burn in form of 50$ mil:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/18/virgin-hyperloop-one-raises-more-money-and-makes-richard-branson-chair.html

Um, you left out the main point of my quote about there not being government subsidies, which your links show no evidence of that I see - only that Richard Branson has invested a large amount of money in one of the companies. Whether that makes them a large company now is beside the  point . I don’t think it does, but that has nothing to do with the point I was making about government subsidies.

That money will never see any return on investment, it will just vanish.

Perhaps - that is one opinion. Of course Branson losing his money if it occurs, does not mean the hyperloop fails and certainly doesn’t mean it is not an achievable engineering challenge.

.

[ogden]

but that has nothing to do with the point I was making about government subsidies.

I did not give chit about government subsidies. I selectively picked only "I believe it’s just a handfull of small companies and some engineering student teams" part which I did mention by quoting you.

[mtdoc]

I selectively picked only "I believe it’s just a handfull of small companies and some engineering student teams"

Exactly.

[ogden]

I selectively picked only "I believe it’s just a handfull of small companies and some engineering student teams"

Exactly.

Well, sorry then I can tell it now that I agree to you regarding that (government subsidies) part and obviously had nothing to add.

[mtdoc]

I selectively picked only "I believe it’s just a handfull of small companies and some engineering student teams"

Exactly.

Well, sorry then I can tell it now that I agree to you regarding that (government subsidies) part and obviously had nothing to add.

Even if it was not relevant to my point, I’m glad you brought the info regarding Richard Branson’s investment into the general hyperloop discussion. He may loose his money, but he’s no fool and has a good track record.

[amspire]

That money will never see any return on investment, it will just vanish.

Perhaps - that is one opinion. Of course Branson losing his money if it occurs, does not mean the hyperloop fails and certainly doesn’t mean it is not an achievable engineering challenge.

The trouble is that early investors in overhyped projects can make a lot of money and prestige. You can also look like visionary and a hero. You can be directly in touch with world leaders. A project like the Hyperloop can potentially attract billions of dollars, and that money has to go somewhere.

For example, there is Virgin Galactic trying to make vehicles that can fly into space. Hyperloop requires the development of safe passenger craft that can work in a vacuum. Can some of the development money cross between the groups, or can technology that Virgin Galactic needs be developed with Hyperloop money?

The Hyperloop would be a fantastic laboratory for exploring how to make space craft safer. Developing vacuum emergency equipment.

The attraction of Hyperloop is that the raw concept is fine - of course it would be possible to send a vehicle down a vacuum tube at high speeds and with very low friction. Hyperloop say they have now "proved" it, but the concept never needed $1 spent to be proved.

If you look at some other areas of technology like the development of the transistor, IC's, Quantum Computing, WiFi, the Internet, medical imaging, etc. These are all massive technological leaps forward that are not based on anything obvious. Someone has to invent new technology that never existed before.

[ogden]

I’m glad you brought the info regarding Richard Branson’s investment into the general hyperloop discussion. He may loose his money, but he’s no fool and has a good track record.

The term is: risk investment. He definitely knows what he is doing, why he did not invest in uBeam but in Hyperloop

[mtdoc]

Spin-off is the keyword you are missing here. I did some projects in the past which didn't pan out themselves but the knowledge & IP gained turned out to be very profitable. And big corporations have enough money to add patents into the mix. You can't predict the future but sitting on your thumbs is not going to be profitable for sure.

Very good point. Even if the hyperloop is never realized as a large scale public transport project (as I suspect will be the case due to financial and political but not technical reasons), one or more of the companies involved may still be successful. One could argue that the education and inspiration it has contributed to engineering students has already made it a success.

[vk6zgo]

Even if it was not relevant to my point, I’m glad you brought the info regarding Richard Branson’s investment into the general hyperloop discussion. He may loose his money, but he’s no fool and has a good track record.

As did Alan Bond, till he "went down the gurgler"!

[EEVblog]

Very good point. Even if the hyperloop is never realized as a large scale public transport project (as I suspect will be the case due to financial and political but not technical reasons)

I'm happy to categorically state that practical realities will kill it, even if the financial and political will are there.
I'll even take a bet on it.

[EEVblog]

Why don't you add water powered cars and cold fusion projects to the list?  What I am trying to say - uBeam/FreakingRoads to Hyperloop is apples to orange comparison.

No, because both are similarly impractical. Both are a ridiculously convoluted way to do the intended task.

Yes, they can struggle to get safety approval for human transportation for many years to come, but to say that Hyperloop is utterly failure or scam is.. how to say.. uneducated imprudence.

I have never said it was a scam, I'm saying it will ultimately be impractical to implement, it will not succeed as a public transport system as intended (e.g. the stated vacuum thing).
Not when you have perfectly practical existing technologies that work. e.g. Maglev works at 430kmh, I know, I've been on it.
To think that an order of magitude more complex, expensive, and less reliable system that only goes twice as fast will be a solution is complete folly.

[wraper]

I have never said it was a scam, I'm saying it will ultimately be impractical to implement, it will not succeed as a public transport system as intended (e.g. the stated vacuum thing).
Not when you have perfectly practical existing technologies that work. e.g. Maglev works at 430kmh, I know, I've been on it.
To think that an order of magitude more complex, expensive, and less reliable system that only goes twice as fast will be a solution is complete folly.

You can barely call Maglev as such being practical. Huge power is needed to push the train, therefore it's extremely expensive to build. It's absence except a few very short routes is an obvious consequence for that. Also running it underground needs some huge tubes or reducing the speed a lot. Air resistance is the main reason why Maglev cannot run faster. Placing Maglev into vacuum severely reduces requirements to Maglev part and therefore makes it able to run much faster, cheaper and more practical to implement.  I'm not saying that other parts of the whole system are not required to be viable as well.

No, because both are similarly impractical. Both are a ridiculously convoluted way to do the intended task.

Look no further than modern CPUs/GPUs with billions of transistors in them. Convoluted as hell, especially by merits just a few decades ago. Yet you have them everywhere. If in 80's you said that in relatively near future PC or even freaking portable phone will need gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of storage, people would call you stupid or crazy.
Comparing hyperloop with uBeam and Solar Roadways is incorrect because you compare things which cannot work in theory to begin with what can work in theory but may be hard to implement.

[EEVblog]

You can barely call Maglev as such being practical. Huge power is needed to push the train, therefore it's extremely expensive to build. It's absence except a few very short routes is an obvious consequence for that. Also running it underground needs some huge tubes or reducing the speed a lot. Air resistance is the main reason why Maglev cannot run faster. Placing Maglev into vacuum severely reduces requirements to Maglev part and therefore makes it able to run much faster, cheaper and more practical to implement. I'm not saying that other parts of the whole system are not required to be viable as well.

And therein lies the devil in the practical detail.
It's all fine saying normal Maglev has problems and limits, and that reducing those problems isn't beneficial, but just think at what is involved in doing that, it's a showstopper.

Look no further than modern CPUs/GPUs with billions of transistors in them. Convoluted as hell, especially by merits just a few decades ago. Yet you have them everywhere. If in 80's you said that in relatively near future PC or even freaking portable phone will need gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of storage, people would call you stupid or crazy.

It wasn't a huge jump, it was a slight increase in performance and techniques every year for, what, 50 years.

Comparing hyperloop with uBeam and Solar Roadways is incorrect because you compare things which cannot work in theory to begin with what can work in theory but may be hard to implement.

Rubbish. uBeam and Solar roadways can both work in theory and also in practice, demonstrably so, that's a fact. They are just impractical.

[mtdoc]

Very good point. Even if the hyperloop is never realized as a large scale public transport project (as I suspect will be the case due to financial and political but not technical reasons)

I'm happy to categorically state that practical realities will kill it, even if the financial and political will are there.

You need to be more specific about what you mean by "practical realities".  In my view the financial and political will are the major practical realities.

[amspire]

You need to be more specific about what you mean by "practical realities".  In my view the financial and political will are the major practical realities.

Political will may last one Hyperloop or two.

It is not going to build the loop around Europe and the Baltic countries. It is not going to build massive Hyperloop networks into cities. It is not going to build big networks of container Hyperloops from major ports. The only way complete networks will be built is if it is practical. If it is not practical, it cannot be financially viable no matter what the politics. Even at this stage when no Hyperloop exists, they are only saying it will be a little cheaper then high speed rail. I guess that means it will more expensive then truck or freight train.

Some Hyperloops may be built, but there is no guarantee that supersonic speeds will even be safe. It may be the safe speed is under 200mph.

[EEVblog]

Very good point. Even if the hyperloop is never realized as a large scale public transport project (as I suspect will be the case due to financial and political but not technical reasons)

I'm happy to categorically state that practical realities will kill it, even if the financial and political will are there.

You need to be more specific about what you mean by "practical realities". 

Sure, the vacuum part.
If "HyperLoop" becomes a reality then it will not involve the vacuum part as has been, dare I say it, hyped.
Make no mistake, the entire premise of the Hyperloop concept is based on the vacuum to lower to air resistance and lower the maglev power. It has no other "innovation".

[nctnico]

Very good point. Even if the hyperloop is never realized as a large scale public transport project (as I suspect will be the case due to financial and political but not technical reasons)

I'm happy to categorically state that practical realities will kill it, even if the financial and political will are there.

You need to be more specific about what you mean by "practical realities". 

Sure, the vacuum part.
If "HyperLoop" becomes a reality then it will not involve the vacuum part as has been, dare I say it, hyped.
Make no mistake, the entire premise of the Hyperloop concept is based on the vacuum to lower to air resistance and lower the maglev power. It has no other "innovation".

First of all you have to define vacuum when it comes to the hyperloop. The amount of energy you can save depends linear on the density of the gas you are travelling through. So at 1/10 of the atmospheric pressure you save 10 times the energy. Some people may not call that a vacuum though.
 
However in general IMHO you'd do better to take a more objective approach rather than being the umpteenth armchair nay-sayer. Going through the technical challenges and trying to find the economic angle without prejudice/judgement will result in a much more informative video and not deteriorate your credibility. After all there are things you don't know about a project because they are kept secret for competitive reasons.

It is good to be critical about things but when a lot of smart people + lots of money are involved in a project then it is better to watch and learn. For example: when Google announced Android as a Java based mobile device platform I was convinced it could never work because Java applications where typically such a pile of buggy crap (also due to Sun's implementation). Later on I learned Google already figured that out for themselves and was going to write their own Java engine from scratch. The rest is history.

[IanMacdonald]

A major issue I see is that operating in a vacuum involves many of the safety issues of operating in space. There is enough experience of space operations to know the ins and outs of this (suit required for the out part!) and that there are quite a few gotchas that can lead to a fatal accident if due care is not taken.

If the train springs a leak, people start asphyxiating rather fast. Oxygen masks are also no use in a complete vacuum; about a fifth of sea level pressure is the lowest they will sustain life in, and that won't be enough vacuum for the hyperloop.

This is probably the biggest issue, since it means that any small prang with a train that cracks the hull means everyone on board dead in a few minutes.

[EEVblog]

However in general IMHO you'd do better to take a more objective approach rather than being the umpteenth armchair nay-sayer. Going through the technical challenges and trying to find the economic angle without prejudice/judgement will result in a much more informative video and not deteriorate your credibility.

Nothing wrong with my credibility.
I'll stand by my spidey sense impractical detector, thanks.

[EEVblog]

If the train springs a leak, people start asphyxiating rather fast. Oxygen masks are also no use in a complete vacuum; about a fifth of sea level pressure is the lowest they will sustain life in, and that won't be enough vacuum for the hyperloop.
This is probably the biggest issue, since it means that any small prang with a train that cracks the hull means everyone on board dead in a few minutes.

It's such a retarded idea, watch the money just disappear and the design teams progressively back down on the "vacuum" part of it.

[wraper]

Comparing hyperloop with uBeam and Solar Roadways is incorrect because you compare things which cannot work in theory to begin with what can work in theory but may be hard to implement.

Rubbish. uBeam and Solar roadways can both work in theory and also in practice, demonstrably so, that's a fact. They are just impractical.

In theory they are very inefficient way of using already existing technologies. Therefore I say they don't work in theory. Say, if you need to use unsafe levels of ultrasound = it does not work.
EDIT: And to be clear, this does not even include a cost to build. There is just no way uBeam and Solar roadways can operate sufficiently even if made for free.

[EEVblog]

Rubbish. uBeam and Solar roadways can both work in theory and also in practice, demonstrably so, that's a fact. They are just impractical.

In theory they are very inefficient way of using already existing technologies. Therefore I say they don't work in theory.

Nope, they can both be reasonably efficient enough in theory and kinda in practice even, just not under practical usage circumstances.
But it's semantics of course.
The idea of keeping a 1000km long several meter wide vacuum system working with a 1000km/h projectile in it is just madness.

[amspire]

Rubbish. uBeam and Solar roadways can both work in theory and also in practice, demonstrably so, that's a fact. They are just impractical.

In theory they are very inefficient way of using already existing technologies. Therefore I say they don't work in theory.

Nope, they can both be reasonably efficient enough in theory and kinda in practice even, just not under practical usage circumstances.
But it's semantics of course.
The idea of keeping a 1000km long several meter wide vacuum system working with a 1000km/h projectile in it is just madness.

The 1000km/h is a number not based on any safety testing. You can buy a car that can go at 440 km/h but that does not mean that it is safe to regularly travel anywhere at 440 km/h. The safe speed tends to come from experience, but in Australia, for example, they have settled for speeds varying between 70 and 110 km/h outside urban areas.

Let's say they can travel at 1000km/h. The tubes have to be safe. There has to be a safe distance between tubes so a crash in the Up tube can't take out the Down tube. A safe separation may be 100 meters. That is not the worst part. It has to be safe for people in the proximity of the tunnels. A safe distance exclusion zone could be 400 meters? I do not know but we are talking  a possibility of a big high energy collision with shrapnel - it could be 1 km or more. So when they build the London to Edinburgh hyperloop that they talk about, are they going to build a corridor 2 km wide all the way through the heart of England? Even putting the tubes in trenches will not stop shrapnel flying for massive distances.

Talking about putting solar cells on top of the tunnels is a total joke if you are going to have 1km each side unoccupied.

Or will they mostly use tunnels?

Now they cannot just have a single tunnel with the two tubes.  They have to have at least 3 separate tunnels. They will need one tunnel for the Up tube, one tunnel for the Down tube, and one tunnel in between for maintenance/rescue service access.

If the Up and Down tunnels take different routes, it is much worse. You need a total of 4 tunnels. Both the tunnels will need their own maintenance/ safety services tunnels.

Now, if they are mostly using tunnels, where are the solar panels now?

I think if you multiplied any current estimate of costs by 10, you would still be underestimating the costs.

To make it even worse, they are talking about sending shipping containers on the hyperloop at 800km/h or more. How much kinetic energy can a loaded shipping container have at this speed? The vehicle will probably have to have at least the mass of the heaviest container.