The Smog To Fog Challenge: Settling the High-Speed Rail vs. Hyperloop Debate 333
waderoush writes "Elon Musk thinks California should kill its $68 billion high-speed rail project and build his $7.5 billion Hyperloop instead. It's a false choice. We should pursue all promising new options for efficient mass transit, and let the chips fall where they may; if it turns out after a few years that Musk's system is truly faster and cheaper, there will still be time to pull the plug on high-speed rail. But why not make things interesting? Today Xconomy proposes a competition in the grand tradition of the Longitude Prize, the Orteig Prize, and the X Prizes: the $10 billion Smog to Fog Challenge. The money, to be donated by big corporations, would go to the first organization that delivers a live human from Los Angeles to San Francisco, over a fixed ground route, in 3 hours or less. Such a prize would incentivize both publicly and privately funded innovation in high-speed transit — and show that we haven't lost the will to think big."
300 MPH flesh sacks of water (Score:2, Insightful)
What is the obsession with flinging your sack of water down a track at 300 miles per hour. In a world of diminishing cheap energy, why travel fast? You know, in many cities, the tram systems carried more people everyday than most cities now transport people in cars into the city from the suburbs.
Ding Ding!!
No. (Score:2, Insightful)
"conventional" high-speed rail is a proven concept in use today in many non-North American countries. Musk's idea, while based on things that are already being studies, contains a lot of unproven technology.
Even if we could do the necessary R&D in a *reasonable* amount of time, the 7+ billion price-tag is way too low.
It's a pipe dream - er, tube dream - to think this is a practical transportation solution right now or even in the near future.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Estimates (Score:3, Insightful)
California's high speed rail was originally going to cost $33 billion. (2008's Proposition 1A was a $10 billion bond).
5 years later, the estimate is $68 billion and it won't actually be high speed.
the race (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hyper loop (Score:0, Insightful)
These "Hyperloop" ideas have been bouncing around since at least the 1950s. They are nothing new.
"Musk's" system will not be cheaper and it couldn't be profitable - let alone break even. It'll be a HUGE money pit. It'll be the Concorde on land - or below land. It won't be able to carry enough passengers to make it worth while. The technology is unproven and doesn't even exist. It would be better to try it in the NE Corridor - NY to Washington DC.
High speed rail would be a better bet because you can carry more passengers at once, the technology is proven (Gee, high speed rail in an earth quake prone area - the Japanese solved all those problems.), the technology is off the shelf - nothing will have to be custom made (very little R&D), it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper to implement, etc ....
You know, the electric car was first invented in the 19th century, private rocket flight in the 1930s and Burt Rutan has been working on it for DECADES, and there were a few online payment systems before PayPal; so why is Musk considered this "visionary" again?
Oh high, great self promotion - like Edison, Jobs, etc ..
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neither (Score:3, Insightful)
They are both a waste of money.
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the actual high speed rail technology is a concept that's been done before - however, stomping over all of that privately owned land between LA and SF is a political concept that's completely infeasible at this point in time.
Although Elon Musk is using a bunch of existing technology in new ways, his plan is politically feasible - and it's not like we would just start building the Hyperloop without doing a proof-of-concept first. If it turns out that the idea doesn't scale, we'd do something else.
It's not a fair test. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a fair test. Railroads could deliver that speed today if not for government regulation. Even today's high speed rail projects only get rail travel speeds up to what was normal 100 years ago. Now, if you remove all of the restrictions imposed by the government facing railroad then you level the playing field. In addition, it shouldn't be about getting 1 person there in 3 hours. What is more efficient, moving 1 or a small group of people from point a to point b in x amount of time or moving a large group of people from point a to point b?
The Concorde was very good at moving a small group of people from point a to b at a high speed, but it wasn't economically sustainable. The slower jumbo jets, because they could carry more passengers were actually more efficient. So, if your goal is to get a single person from point a to be as fast as you can, then neither high speed rail nor hyperloop are the way to go. Both would be a collosal waste of resources.
OTOH, if your goal is to move the most number of people from point a to b in a reasonably fixed period of time, then that is a different problem and would probably call for a different solution.
Basically, before throwing money at a problem, you should be sure you have defined the problem you want solved. Otherwise, you might just pay a lot of money for a solution that you don't really need.
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Telecommuting is such a failure. (Score:2, Insightful)
This is true.
Nothing beats actual human interaction.
Telecommuting is such a failure.
Nobody wants their human interaction cheapened. If you ever want to build any kind of relationship (sales, groups, fucking, etc..), you actually have to meet people in real life.
Telling someone you want to telecommute is telling someone you aren't worth their time to do something expensive for them
Telecommuting is for people that want to cheapen relationships.
Also, 100% of the population needs to build relationships. It's not a salesman-only thing. You have to build relationships with your boss, your clients, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your government representatives, etc. basically anyone you want to do you good, you need to do good for them.
Only libertarian losers that believe in "freedom" think life shouldn't be about building relationships and think of life as for themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have to kiss ass to those in power if you want power back.
You can find these sorts of self-absorbed losers on computer sites like Slashdot and Reddit. There is a reason geeks are considered awful people.
Understanding (Score:5, Insightful)
If you waste money to procure a handshake, you shouldnt be in business.
If you don't understand the true value of a real face to face handshake is at times immeasurable, you DEFINITELY should not be in business.
Re:300 MPH flesh sacks of water (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:300 MPH flesh sacks of water (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, for the 0.001% of people who truly need to be somewhere that fast, let them take their corporate jet to LA. Don't sink $70 billion to support a couple of hundred of sales people. Nobody else needs to get from LA to SF at 300 mph to see their relatives.
Dude, your virtual Disneyland still sucks; how long have you been working on it now? Even Euro Disney sucks less than your virtual Disneyland.
Fix that, and we don't even have to talk about how much your virtual Grand Canyon and Virtual Arches National Park and virtual Machu Picchu and virtual Angkor Watt and virtual Great Wall of China and virtual Tunguska site suck, because if you can make your virtual Disney unsuck, you can probably fix those other things. Eventually.
Until then, I'm throwing my sack of water in a tin can headed to the physical reality of those things.
Re:300 MPH flesh sacks of water (Score:5, Insightful)
The alternative to building California's HSR is spending $38.6 to $41.0 billion on 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways, plus $119.0 to $145.5 billion building 4,295 to 4,652 new lane-miles of highway, all just to move the same number of people as $98.1 billion spent on HSR.
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
It is a boondoggle. Ridership estimates are being grossly inflated and the final legs will likely never be completed due to objections of property owners. Even now the average Amtrak trip is less than half full and all are subsidized by taxpayers. The Los Angeles to New Orleans leg is subsidized by over $400 for every passenger. How bad must passenger rail be for many states to turn down billions from the federal government? California was once always at the top but now because of many years of Democratic legislative control and decision making the state has fallen to to bottom in terms of deficits and unemployment.
Re:Telecommuting is such a failure. (Score:4, Insightful)
Only libertarian losers that believe in "freedom" think life shouldn't be about building relationships and think of life as for themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have to kiss ass to those in power if you want power back.
Ah, yes, the instinctive urge to bash so-called "libertarians" brings out the inner cockroach. Libertarianism has nothing to do with "building relationships," but is merely a philosophy about governance. In a libertarian society, there would be an even greater need to build relationships because you couldn't use the force of the state to insure compliance or seize resources. The mugger doesn't need to build a relationship. While much is made of self-reliance, less is discussed of the new opportunities for building relationships that would exist in a libertarian society.
There's a portion of the population that is for lack of a better word, "introspective". They don't interact well with people or easily build relationships. They aren't naturally libertarians any more than anyone else. So labeling this group as "libertarian losers" just indicates ignorance on your part.