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Elon Musk Claims U.S. Approval for World’s Longest Tunnel (hyperloop stuff)

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DBT85

Member
robochimp said:
If they can turn that NY to D.C. Commute into what they're claiming they could pretty easily justify the cost.
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If they can do it for $10m a mile maybe, fuck even $100m a mile would be hilariously cheap for this stuff and it would still cost $22bn

If it's going to be closer to other tunnel boring projects then it won't be anywhere close to that and could well be over $1bn a mile.
 
S

subrock

Member
DBT85 said:
If they can do it for $10m a mile maybe, fuck even $100m a mile would be hilariously cheap for this stuff and it would still cost $22bn

If it's going to be closer to other tunnel boring projects then it won't be anywhere close to that and could well be over $1bn a mile.
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I mean $22bn vs California’s $70-some-bn for their high speed rail doesn’t sound half bad.
 
G

Gallbaro

Banned
subrock said:
I mean $22bn vs California’s $90-some-bn for their high speed rail doesn’t sound half bad.
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22 billion is if he managed to break the unions and suddenly construct the tunnels under civil rather than common law.

It would much more likely be 100 billion.
 
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Prinz Eugn

Member
It's a neat concept but the estimates costs are hyperoptimistic, and "verbal" approval shows Trump-level naivety about government.
 
P

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
fuzzyset said:
There's 0% chance of this happening. He needs 100s of non-verbal, real approvals for this to even break ground.
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Why is getting those real approvals a 0% chance?

Unknown Soldier said:
I don't really know if I want to make that trip underground. They should build it above ground so you can look at the landscape going by so fast it's just an unrecognizable blur.
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Miles of underground strobing advertising though.
 
S

Sectorseven

Member
My understanding is he wants to tunnel way deep underground which would bypass the need for a lot of the necessary permits, since he wouldn't anywhere near things like plumbing, foundations and other infrastructure.
 
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killer rin

Member
I mean, its awesome news and all, but wouldn't that take for-fucking-ever to build? I mean let's be honest here. Even if he put it in the ground this second and put it on a straight line towards the route, the hole would take decades to actually dig..
 
E

Earthbound64

Banned
Massachusetts says "Underground tunnel, you say? We got you, bro."

4k8xpuj.jpg
 
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PumpkinSpice

Banned
killer rin said:
I mean, its awesome news and all, but wouldn't that take for-fucking-ever to build? I mean let's be honest here. Even if he put it in the ground this second and put it on a straight line towards the route, the hole would take decades to actually dig..
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Yes. The new Chuo Shinkansen line in Japan is almost entirely underground, and the section between Tokyo and Nagoya that they're working on now is a 14 year project (about the same distance between NY and DC). And that's in a country that is really, really good at digging (lots of underground rail + mountains to dig through) with a government and companies really, really good at long term infrastructure investments.

In short, cool story bro.

That's before getting into his whole hyperloop thing is a giant scam and a bunch of BS, mind.
 
E

East Lake

Member
killer rin said:
I mean, its awesome news and all, but wouldn't that take for-fucking-ever to build? I mean let's be honest here. Even if he put it in the ground this second and put it on a straight line towards the route, the hole would take decades to actually dig..
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Watch his recent ted talk. He basically explains why he thinks he can cut down the time.

Approval wise he's probably taking a page out of his Tesla battery pitch in Australia, announcement puts pressure on politicians.
 
Soapbox Killer

Soapbox Killer

Grand Nagus
That would make it about 15min from Philly to NYC, effectively making us a suburb. Even more weirdos moving to West Philly in 15 years.
 
A

antonz

Member
East Lake said:
Watch his recent ted talk. He basically explains why he thinks he can cut down the time.

Approval wise he's probably taking a page out of his Tesla battery pitch in Australia, announcement puts pressure on politicians.
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It is about pressure for sure. I have had a good laugh all day on this with even professionals thinking Musk must be some moron if he thinks a verbal agreement means anything.

Musk is leveraging initial talks and trying to push it further by getting the public involved. He knows there is a lot more to the process.
 
Z

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
A verbal agreement means literally nothing. You'd have to get every municipality as well as NY, NJ, PA, MD and DC to approve at state level to sign off on it between NYC and DC. Fat chance.

An LA to SF loop would be far easier, or even something like Chicago to Detroit if you go under lake Michigan.
 
Falchion

Falchion

Member
That would be such an asset to have. Reducing travel times that much be a game changer, but I wonder how much tickets on such a train would cost.
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
Not going to happen. The thing isn't even tested yet on a longer track. Verbal approval means nothing. It is going to be a gigantic project in the tens of billions of dollars if not more. Digging a tunnel that long, and going under multiple cities since you need people to get on and off near the transport centers, is a logistical nightmare. Getting a regular metro tunnel built already takes decades these days, so this will be even worse.
 
S

smisk

Member
Even if he was able to start tomorrow, how the fuck long would it take to build? I'm thinking a decade at least.
Not sure how I feel about his tunnel projects... The ideas are cool but I feel like they will mostly benefit rich people. How about improving public transit within cities that people rely on?
 
E-Cat

E-Cat

Member
Ecotic said:
How does this guy have the time for side projects like this? He runs Tesla (which now includes SolarCity), SpaceX, and has 6 kids.
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He's allocating literally 2% of his time to the Boring Company.

Edit: double post, dammit!
 
C

Crispy75

Member
Hyperloop can probably be made to work, but the problem is capacity. The tunnels (and therefore the vehicles) are small to make it realistic to get the air pressure down, and the high speed forces you to have very long headways (ie. if a vehicle has a catastrophic crash, you need to be able to emergency brake the following vehicle before it reaches the wreckage. Faster speed = longer braking distance). The combination of small vehicles and long headways means the hyperloop has like 10% the throughput of high-speed rail.

If the Boring Company really does manage to slash the cost of digging tunnels, it would make much more sense to put regular trains in them.
 
M

mnz

Unconfirmed Member
Would this be the biggest modern US infrastructure project? I have very strong doubts about this ever happening.

It's kind of funny, but I feel like Musk's tunnel projects are the most unrealistic parts out of all the crazy things he does.
 
P

Pyrokai

Member
smisk said:
Even if he was able to start tomorrow, how the fuck long would it take to build? I'm thinking a decade at least.
Not sure how I feel about his tunnel projects... The ideas are cool but I feel like they will mostly benefit rich people. How about improving public transit within cities that people rely on?
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This. Transit in this country is in shambles.
 
Pagusas

Pagusas

Elden Member
In this day and age why would you even talk about a "verbal" agreement, it means jack shit and will go no where. Unless you have sign, stamped, processed papers, funding and a timeline, shut up.
 
W

waveuponwave

Member
People want to believe him because it's Elon Musk, but honestly everything about this sounds like a scam

Even if the Boring Co. did receive some kind of approval to start digging a tunnel, it’s not clear how quickly the company will be able to move. Musk began digging in May on a small test tunnel using a second-hand boring machine, called Godot, which he acquired for his speculative new enterprise. Here’s how Musk described the Boring Co. at a Ted Talk in April: “This is basically interns and people doing it part time. We bought some second-hand machinery. It’s kind of puttering along, but it’s making good progress.”
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At the time, Musk said his plan was to use an existing tunnel boring machine and modify it so that it could dig more quickly. “To make it five times better is not crazy hard,” he told Bloomberg. It’s not clear if Musk has bought a tunnel boring machine in Washington; the only tunnel the company has dug so far is in the parking lot of SpaceX.
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Yeah, good look building the biggest infrastructure project in humane history. lol
 
M

mnz

Unconfirmed Member
waveuponwave said:
People want to believe him because it's Elon Musk, but honestly everything about this sounds like a scam

Yeah, good look building the biggest infrastructure project in humane history. lol
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Yeah, boring is a huge industry with a lot of money and R&D behind it. You will not go in there and start boring fives times faster than anyone else in the world. If he really said it like that then he should be labeled a scam artist tbh.
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
waveuponwave said:
People want to believe him because it's Elon Musk, but honestly everything about this sounds like a scam

Yeah, good look building the biggest infrastructure project in humane history. lol
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I get the guy has good ideas and such and has done amazing work with Tesla and SpaceX. But making these kind of machines 5 times better sounds like a thing that would be "crazy hard".
 
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