Invention and Innovation by Vaclav Smil;

Author:Vaclav Smil; [Smil, Vaclav]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: technology; science; innovation; tech; transportation; transport; carbon neutral; decarbonization; net zero; aviation; electric; fusion; nuclear; Tesla; hyperloop; supersonic; Boeing; silicon valley
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2023-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

Travel in a (Near) Vacuum (Hyperloop)

On August 12, 2013, Elon Musk, at that time the chairman of Tesla, released his Hyperloop Alpha paper. At its very beginning, when outlining the background of the idea, he asked whether there was “a truly new mode of transport—a fifth mode after planes, trains, cars and boats”—that would be safer, faster, cost less, and be more convenient while being immune to weather, sustainably self-powering, resistant to earthquakes, and not disruptive to people living along its route (fig. 4.1). He noted that “many ideas for a system with most of those properties have been proposed and should be acknowledged, reaching as far back as Robert Goddard’s to proposals in recent decades by the Rand Corporation and ET3. Unfortunately, none of these have panned out.” The second sentence of this quotation was quite correct; the first one greatly understated the origins of the idea, and hence the time that has elapsed since its first coherent formulation, a reality that should also lead to exceedingly cautious and highly skeptical appraisals concerning its near-term commercial realization.

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