Monday, September 28, 2015

Dubious about hyperloops

How two L.A. start-ups are racing to develop transportation more amazing than self-driving cars - LA Times

Well, it's interesting to read about two different groups now investigating hyperloop transport ideas, but I remain skeptical about them for a few main reasons:

a.   as passenger transport, it looks like it could readily induce claustrophobia in anyone even vaguely susceptible to it;

b.  why would you build one in such a major earthquake zone such as California?  Seems to me to be rather like inviting trouble in exactly the same way that common sense would have suggested that building many nuclear power plants in Japan may not be the best idea;

c.  even if it works out cheaper than road or rail transport for goods, how many years will it take to recover its high capital costs if you are relying on goods transport as a key source of profit?

Still, I'm not opposed to people working on it.  I wonder if it might work out better as a transport feeder system on a smaller scale than that originally proposed.  

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