3 ms·

How much energy does it cost to evacuate many miles of tubing?

• snuxoll 10y ago
  Depends on how much atmosphere is leaked back into the tunnel and how much vacuum you need. The former is a much bigger issue with the concept, if it takes a lot of energy to evacuate the tube once it's not too big of an issue, but ongoing maintenance of the vacuum would be problematic with leaky or damaged seals over the lifetime of the tunnel. Of course, most of the vacuum tube proposals require a vacuum of something like 0.001 atmospheres, which is incredibly problematic as well....
• nickff 10y ago
  Quite a bit, but the power does not have to be stored aboard the vehicle, or transmitted to it while the vehicle is travelling at hundreds of kilometers per hour.