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Transportation

Could an Undersea Hyperloop Train Tunnel Offer One-Hour Trips From London to New York? (newsweek.com) 86

"Proposals for a tunnel connecting the U.K. to the U.S. underneath the Atlantic Ocean have resurfaced," reports Newsweek, "but with a price tag of almost $20 trillion, the project is a big ask." With the two global cities being over 3,000 miles apart, construction would take several years — the 23.5-mile Channel Tunnel linking England and France took six years to construct — and require significant investment. Estimates over the cost have reached as high as £15.5 trillion, the equivalent of $19.8 trillion.

However, developments in vacuum tube technology have made the concept more viable. By creating a vacuum within the tunnel and using pressurized vehicles, trains traveling along the structure could theoretically reach speeds of more than 3,000 mph, making the journey between London and New York barely an hour long. This is because trains would not face any air resistance within the tunnel, allowing them to reach higher speeds than unconventional trains. This design, which has seen new development in Indian transportation, is sometimes called a "hyperloop". Cutting the intercontinental journey down to a matter of minutes means that for the first time, the Transatlantic Tunnel justifies the hefty price tag that undersea construction comes with, as it would become significantly more efficient and environmentally friendly than flying.

While no plans are underway, it's interesting to ask whether it could even be done. Weighing in, Elon Musk "has suggested the idea of building a '£20 trillion' underground tunnel link from London to New York appears to be a genuine possibility," according to the site LADbible, "although he says he could do it for less." (On X.com Musk posted that his Boring Company "could do it for 1000X less money.") This comes after the SpaceX boss, 53, who promises to revolutionise the way we travel, said his 'Starship' rocket could be used to transport passengers to any city in the world in under an hour.

Could an Undersea Hyperloop Train Tunnel Offer One-Hour Trips From London to New York?

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  • No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Saturday December 14, 2024 @03:42PM (#65013581) Homepage

    /betteridge

  • by cahuenga ( 3493791 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @03:45PM (#65013589)
    The Mid-Atlantic Ridge spreads at a rate of 2 to 5 centimeters (0.8 to 2 inches) per year. This relatively slow spreading rate has created a deep rift valley in the center of the ridge that's about the same width and depth as the Grand Canyon.
    • by Raisey-raison ( 850922 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:37PM (#65013719)

      It's not just the mid ocean ridge systems that are moving apart. Even of they weren't, it will cost much more than estimated.

      The closest example is the Channel Tunnel. It experienced a 80% cost overrun. The cost overrun was partly due to enhanced safety, security, and environmental demands. Financing costs were 140% higher than forecast.

      Now look at the California Bullet train. When Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled his scaled for he proposed project, it was going to cost $33 billion. Now the latest estimate is $133 billion. Projected ridership is 25% less than anticipated.

      So take the $20 trillion estimate and once you account for so called unforseen cost escalation and financing difficulties, it will cost the equivalent of $120 trillion. The extra interest costs are a big part of this too.

      We could use the money in much more productive ways.

      And when the project goes bankrupt the rest of us will have to bail it out.

      • by cahuenga ( 3493791 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @05:11PM (#65013771)
        Add to that.... The mid Atlantic's average depth is 12,000 feet, at roughly an external pressure of 5,600 PSI. To make things worse, you need to create a vacuum inside the tunnel, further increasing the structural load.

        The Titan submersible implosion is going to sound like a cod fart in comparison
      • Worthy of modding up. Want to add to pre-boarding checks and luggage x-rays would defeat any time saving, plus the whatif's - like what if it got stuck in the middle, earthquake, subhoe or anchor damage. What MIGHT make the project viable is if oil/gas/gold/diamonds/xyz was extracted or found on the route. As long as Godzilla is not woken.
    • by RockDoctor ( 15477 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @05:23PM (#65013783) Journal
      Not incorrect, but also not important. Far more significant is the ca. 500 km (it varies) each side of mountains rising from the abyssal plains (circa 5km water depth) to the peaks of the undersea mountain chain (water depth 2~3 km). The descent curve away from the ridge closely matches the cooling rate given a 2~5 cm/ year spreading rate.

      If, of course, you're building it on the seabed. When the extra pressure engineering needed to maintain a vacuum against water pressure will change the structural problem from one of 500 atmospheres to one of 501 atmospheres.

      A slightly less insane design, avoiding having to design and build "tunnel segments" proof to 100 atmospheres, others to 200 atmospheres ... down to whatever the route's maximum depth will be, would be to "float" the tunnel segments at a convenient depth below wave-base, and at a constant pressure design for 90% + of the route. As a corollary, the consequence of an earthquake rupture at seabed (or even a surface lava eruption) would be a mild tremor running up the anchor chains, and possibly sensible to passengers through whatever "suspension" the system has. Incorporating a [design life+50%] of allowance for continental drift would be three segments with curvature greater than the great circle rate, which could be straightened at increments as the drift rate required it.

      Not that the thing would get built anyway. The mythical "hour of transit time" would need an hour, minimum, at each end to go through security. By which point, you're into a time scale that Concorde couldn't make a profit at.

      Same comment for freight. The engineering costs of the infrastructure would be far more expensive then the cost of putting it onto a ship with a 50 year slipway-to-scrapyard lifetime.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      That does it, I'm not taking the Tectonic Express!

    • by Kisai ( 213879 )

      You would not be building an "underground" tunnel under the Atlantic ocean (or any ocean) because the pressure would crush the tube. You'd think we'd not forget what happened to OceanGate already. A Vacuum tube would be under even more pressure.

      The most likely scenario is an under-water tube 100 meters down (so only 10 atmospheres, rather than the bottom of the ocean which would be 3682m or 368 atmospheres of crush depth, PLUS the vacuum.)

      So this would be like connecting the UK under Iceland, through newfou

    • There is that, to be sure.

      But I laughed when I read the headline; they couldn't manage to do make a practical, functional hyperloop on flat, dry land, but now they're going to do it underwater in the ocean, one of the most destructively harsh environments on the planet?

      I mean, it's just so hilariously stupid and ungood. I wonder how much funding will be pissed away on this bullshit pie-in-the-sky scam.

  • Please stop (Score:5, Insightful)

    by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @03:47PM (#65013591)
    Hyperloop was a joke by clown supervillain, the Joker if he was a boring conservative instead of a fun anarchist. Tunnels are expensive. Hyperloop dumb. Stop.
    • Hyperloops are just a popularization of an older sci-fi concept, Evacuated Transport Tubes. There are places where they could work and be amazing - essentially bridging two cities together to seem like they're a short subway's ride apart. Think cities in the midwest. Crossing the Atlantic via bored tunnel is not one of those places, at least not until far far future....
  • This nonsense again?

    • Hyperloop on ketamine.

      Could be worse - it could be the Barents Sea tunnel again - but this time they remembered the problem of people getting to each end of the tunnel.

  • by david.emery ( 127135 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @03:50PM (#65013599)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (Also published as "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", which is the title I remembered when I read this post.)

  • By creating a vacuum within the tunnel and using pressurized vehicles

    Stop fucking trolling.

    A vacuum tunnel is a dumb idea even when it's not underwater.

    • In all fairness, 400 atmospheres versus 401 atmospheres is not a big difference.

      • It's not about the pressure differential, because you're right that's basically irrelevant. It's about the evacuated tunnel which is already a problem for passenger safety.

        • It's about the evacuated tunnel which is already a problem for passenger safety.

          They'd be stoned to the gills on ketamine, so they wouldn't care.

  • Silver sunglasses, silver phone.

    Connects to someone who doesnt know, that these feelings we cant control

  • Is that equal to? 20 billion? Doesn't make much sense looking at it that way?
  • by lilTimmy ( 6807660 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @03:57PM (#65013615)
    The existing Hyperloop tech is terrible and was probably just a way of derailing more light rail and subway talks. Musk has failed to deliver on most of his promises. Full Self Driving cars has been 'next year' for more than a decade so far. I think we have a better chance of Musk developing a mars colony and filling it with his kids than doing a hyperloop from London to NYC.
  • And what an incredibly stupid question. Can you imagine trying to maintain something like that? Or what would happen if you didn't and the whole thing collapsed as it inevitably would?

    We already know hyperloop was a trick to shut down high speed rail. So what are they trying to shut down this time?
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Of course, high speed rail *should* be shut down. What should be supported is medium speed rail. Say 90-100 mph with separate grade near population centers. Aiming for "fastest possible" is a mistake. What should be aimed at it "faster, more reliable, and also more frequent:", This means that stations are no on the track, but on a side loop off the track, so you don't need to slow down if you aren't going to stop.

      • by ukoda ( 537183 )
        Sounds like the reality of high speed trains common in China and Japan, but they are faster at around 200 to 350 kph. They are great, so much nicer than air travel since they are much less drama.
  • by gweihir ( 88907 )

    Please stop hallucinating publicly. It is embarrassing.

  • But I expect most people would be put off by the idea of being under thousands of feet of water when something goes wrong.

    I don't know that it is practically different than being thousands of feet in the air when something goes wrong... but I'm betting people won't see it the same way.

    • I don't know that it is practically different than being thousands of feet in the air when something goes wrong.

      Almost always when something goes wrong at high altitude it's the engines at fault, not major structural failure. (The Aloha Airlines "rag top" flight being both a counter-example, and a pro-example - while the roof ripped off, the rest of the structure held together until after landing and evacuation.)

      Which is why aircraft extended operations over water require a minimum of two engines, and half

  • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:05PM (#65013635)

    Could Teleportation Offer Ten-Second Trips From London to New York?

    See? It's just as likely to happen as an undersea hyperloop, but it's more fun to dream about!

    • The argument against it:

      Which form of teleportation? Magic? The elves will never allow humans to use that again..... Transporter? You'll never get FDA approval. Too many accidents. Plus the security is easily bypassed by even the most ignorant of people. Asgard Beaming Device? The licensing issues from CBS/Paramount will take decades to sort out and that's before you have a chance to convince the Asgard that we won't use it to beam a nuke somewhere.....
  • Great idea! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:11PM (#65013647)

    A tube maintaining an internal near-vacuum against the incredible pressures at the ocean's bottom sounds like a trivial, non-scary thing to put people inside.

    I think we should give free tickets to everyone stupid enough to think it was a good idea.

  • by rufey ( 683902 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:12PM (#65013649)

    Discovery Channel had a series called "Extreme Engineering" about 10-15 years back and one of the episodes explored this idea, except the tunnel would not be the entire way but be under the surface of the water, tethered to the seafloor so it doesn't surface.

    It would take time to get up to speed on the way out and then to slow down on the other end, and would add time onto the total travel time. A 10 minute acceleration to 3000 MPH from 0 would impart about 0.23g on the passengers. A 20 minute acceleration would impart about 0.11g, but would reduce the distance you'll be going at 3000 MPH. That acceleration/deceleration shouldn't be too uncomfortable for passengers ( see https://rechneronline.de/g-acc... [rechneronline.de] ).

    The biggest hurdle after the massive cost of construction and maintenance, is what happens if there is an accident with a train going 3000 MPH in a tube that is in vacuum. That is a whole lot of kinetic energy that would need to go somewhere. The over-engineering required to handle just about any kind of accident, not to mention handling a leak somewhere, would be massive and expensive. Have an accident 1500 miles in, under the seafloor (assuming its buried)? Whats the contingency for something like that? Cannot evacuate to the tunnel because its a tube in vacuum. Pressurize the tunnel so passengers can transfer to some other train, and then you'll need to depressurize the tube when done. Could segment the tunnel into chunks that could be pressurized and depressurized in a reasonable time frame, but that adds complexity of airtight doors between segments that need to open/shut as trains pass through, and so forth.

    And it won't be built because it will never recoup its cost. How long would it take to recoup the 20+ trillion price tag? How expensive will be the tickets? It will be competing with $1000 airline tickets from New York to London. At $1000 a ticket, that would be 20 billion tickets to make up the $20 trillion cost. Even at $2000 a ticket, that is still 10 billion tickets.

    The Channel is about 24 miles long. This would be 120 times longer.

    • by rufey ( 683902 )

      And one more reference. The new (well, 8 years since opening) Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland took 7 years to excavate at a cost of about $10 billion USD, The boring machines started from both ends and the middle, otherwise it could have taken 10+ years. And this is a 35.5 mile tunnel, the longest railway tunnel in the world. One crossing the Atlantic would be about 85 times longer than this one.

      See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      So, no, this will never be built.

    • You'd want it under significant wave activity. The highest (non-tsunami) wave of which I'm aware was almost 200' high. To avoid that kind of wave activity, you'd need your tunnel to be anchored 600' under water or the first rogue wave to cross the ocean is going to flex your tunnel into bits. The pressure at that depth is around 270psi (if you trust Google).

      The good news is that surface currents only go down to about 300', but there are deeper currents and they can have chaotic interfaces around undersea

      • The highest (non-tsunami) wave of which I'm aware was almost 200' high

        That would be the "Ramopo" wave, mid-1930s? My memory is havering between 120 and 150ft (50-odd metres in real money).

        There was a monster recorded on one of the North Sea platforms - Brent A? Auk? I forget. (I always found the "A" to be a wobbly fucker, no wonder it was the first of the Brents to be decommissioned.endless problems with pipe flanges springing leaks When I was on it.) Whatever, that was in the same range. Of course, all th

        • I did a quick Google, I saw one that was measured against a cliff face it happened to strike. Which honestly doesn't seem right, but yeah, there were multiples in the 100' and a couple in the 150' range if I recall correctly. I didn't dive into how they were authenticated.

          Regardless, my understanding is that rogue waves are probably a lot more common than we know and mostly go unnoticed because there aren't any humans around to get scared by them. A permanent tunnel would eliminate the option of missing

    • 20 trillion just to build. Factoring in maintenance and operational cost (maintaining a vacuum that big is a very hard task)

      A more conventional train moving at 200 mph moving freight might be worthwhile, but that's contingent on finding enough freight that isn't just as easily loaded on a cargo ship. A 15 hr ride could still command a ticket price, either by being cheaper than air, or providing room to lie down and sleep on the trip. I imagine an overnight train leaving NY at 9 or 10 AM and arriving at Lon

  • Lol. Trump will do it and in the process make billions for himself & his buddies. At the end of 4 years, Americans will be stuck with the bill and a tenth of what was promised
  • by Kelxin ( 3417093 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:14PM (#65013655)
    With the distance at 3494 miles, it would have to exceed 3500 mph to make it in an hour. Would you trust a train under the ocean at those speeds, considering we can't even trust a plane at those speeds right now?
  • Some questions

    1. how much energy is required to maintain the necessary vacuum?
    2. how hard is it to maintain the pressure differential between the vacuum of the tunnel and the interior of the train?
    3. If something breaks down, what will be involved in doing repairs in situ and/or evacuating the passengers?
    • The recovery part of the operation could easily be roboticised - sponge, wiper arm, lots of little plastic bags for the sponges to go into, each only containing 15 or 16 mixed people-splashs.

      The "rescue" part of the operation ... you'd need to make some of the cameras thoroughhhly crash resistant, so that the splashed people can be monitored for signs of being dead in the several days for the rescue equipment to get to the incident site.

      Dead people don't need expensive hospital treatment, or support in th

  • I'm sorry Elon, there's no way this could cost "only" $20 billion. It's physically impossible.
  • Any "faster than a conventional aircraft" trans-Atlantic transport will be competing with whatever else is available 10 or 20 years from now, namely, much faster aircraft and sub-orbital space flights. Investors beware.

    Here's a hypothetical/alternate-universe comparison: What if early automobiles, early trains, and early-but-practical dirigibles and planes all came online at about the same time. If that were the case, investors would be less supportive of building out the railroad network, on the grounds

    • investors would be less supportive of building out the railroad network, on the grounds that "by the time we get this built, we will be competing with aircraft and automobiles for much of our business.

      Aircraft compete with double-stacked, 500 car freight trains in which alternate universe.

      Airfreight is a thing for high-value-per-cubic-centimetre goods. For low value, million-tonne-per-year goods, it's less of a competitor.

  • A Chinese cargo ship drags its anchor over it [asiafinancial.com] ...

    • Cables are susceptible to damage by anchors and other such things because they lie on or very near the surface of the sea bottom. The proposal here is to build the tunnel a considerable distance beneath the seabottom, which should protect it from such things.
  • Earthquakes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:32PM (#65013701) Homepage
    I would be worried about what would happen during an earthquake? I'm assuming it would not actually be tunnel under the sea bed but rather a tube floating below the sea surface and anchored to the sea bed. That could provide some seismic isolation but still sounds like a scary way to travel.
  • The article is missing important information: hot cathode? B+ voltage?
  • by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:33PM (#65013707) Journal

    With the excavated material we can build ten space elevators, become a multi-planet species, and travel from New York to London in one hour.
    It's simple because we have 3D printers, and computers got better so we know it's possible.

  • by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:41PM (#65013731)

    What happens when a 3,000 mph train in a tunnel has a malfunction?

    Stories like this seem like trolls. Lazy ass reporters looking for clickbait.

  • No. Next question your Ketamine Kraziness?
    • musk bad
      he never invented anything
      he is just spending government money
      he enables fascists on twitter
      he promised we would be driving self-driving cars on Mars by now, just to get money from investors
      he killed my dad
  • Russia would love to "tinker" with this.
  • Then we know it's false.
  • One of my pet peeves.

    "could do it for 1000X less money."

    If something costs $100, what would its cost be if it was 1x less? At 1x less, that would be 0, right? "1000x less" is nonsense.

    Even without my pet peeve, 1000x less is deranged. He's saying he could do it for $20 billion? Clearly, he's smoking much better shit than I can get.

  • Estimated carbon emissions from this project relative to comparable air traffic over time, anyone? And don't expect air travel to reduce as a result of this, if it were even possible.

    The evil geniuses in control are getting more evil and geniusy by the minute. Our lives are just games to them.
  • The US and the UK have trouble building high-speed rail...
    I'd suggest figuring out why that isn't working before taking on a $20 trillion project.

  • Technically, it may be possible. But I doubt such a project would make it past Elon's DOGE scrutiny.

  • Lest another Chinese ship " accidentally " drag an anchor over it like they do the undersea internet cables :|

  • This might just be a bad conversion from metric to imperial, but I noticed the Newsweek article said it would be around "3,000 mph" while the article from The Mirror that Newsweek links to says around "5,000 mph".

    Regardless I'm more than a bit skeptical. Even if the technology existed to build this quickly, the $20 trillion price tag looks like something that will quickly kill it.

    I'm also really curious as to how we can decelerate from 3,000 mph in a reasonable time. There may be some physics here
  • This makes rocket travel between NYC and London look like a level-headed, reasonably priced idea.
  • As per the title, not this bullshit again...

    Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop with this hyperloop horsecrap.

  • Nothing wrong in theory, and this has been talked about since at least the 60s - I seem to remember it even appearing in a bad scify movie. It *could* be built, but would be insanely expensive.
  • The current state of the art of the promised Hyperloop is a couple of cars fucking about in a tunnel under Vegas that can't even compete with an underground metro. The London Underground was more technically advanced in 1863. It's amazing that -ELON doesn't get sued for fraud more often.

  • Proposals for a tunnel connecting the U.K. to the U.S. underneath the Atlantic Ocean have resurfaced

    "resurfaced" - yeah, no, that's not good for a tunnel underneath the ocean.

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