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Daryl Oster's company has submitted proposals to Florida, at least, on building and maintaining a system such as this. I think part of the requirement for submi

Daryl Oster's company has submitted proposals to Florida, at least, on building and maintaining a system such as this. I think part of the requirement for submitting such a proposal is at least a cursory cost analysis. Wikipedia reads a bit like the company wrote it itself, but: The firm fixed bid for the 96-mile (154 km) Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) system was $253M, this was less than one tenth of the cost of the bid by Global Rail Consortium to build electrified double track High Speed Rail for $2.6B. The bid by et3 contained letters of support by three entities in China to supply IP and key materials for the project. The engineering consultants hired by the authority did not dispute the validity of the et3 bid price or ETT technology, but recommended to eliminate the et3 bid from consideration for other reasons.[1] This comment doesn't pass judgment on whether Daryl Oster is a patent troll or not, but that's also a discussion worth having. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuated_Tube_Transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuated_Tube_Transport

ChuckMcM 14y ago
Would love to see how they costed that out. Given that I don't know of a single engineering company that can build straight up light rail track for at $2.5M/mile even if you give them the land for free. Edit: add this update -- Interestingly this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts claims that the ET3 bid was 1.2B$ which is $12.5M/mile which is a lot more credible (still low though since the surrounding infrastructure to keep the tube evacuated, the mag lev stuff, etc all add cost over regular fused rail electrified service (which California is considering for its fast rail) and that is looking closer to $25M/mile in the current state of the art)
- Retric 14y ago
  A large chunk of the costs of projects like this is building the long flat tunnel/level ground over significant distances. The actual costs of building a moderate vacuum is not that significant. Where this project falls down is in the maintenance and safety side of things not the infrastructure to send the first train down the line. Don't forget every 10m adds 1atm water pressure. Building a glass enclosed under sea walkway 30m down is not that much harder than building one 20m down and these projects are going to be using glass.
  - planetguy 14y ago
    There are two problems here. Firstly: As I see it, an evacuated tunnel at 20m is a very different proposition to a non-evacuated tunnel at 30m, even if the pressure difference is the same. Why? Well, your big problem is always going to be leaks. In an air-filled tunnel you can get away with microscopic cracks, no problem; you've got a small direct interface between water and air, and the surface tension of the water is enough to keep the water in place. It's very hard to force water through a really tiny crack. In a vacuum, however, surface tension goes away -- liquid water at an interface with vacuum will boil, and all of a sudden you've got water vapour filling your nice evacuated tube through every microscopic crack in its five thousand mile length. Nasty. Clearly the joined-concrete construction used for the Transbay Tube isn't going to be sufficient. Secondly: unfortunately the Atlantic Ocean isn't 20m deep, or 30m deep, or even 40m deep like the deepest point of the Transbay Tube. It's several kilometers deep.
    - allenlavoie 14y ago
      Is there some reason that sandwiching air between the evacuated tube and the water wouldn't work? Granted it would add to the cost. The ocean depth point is interesting. The article says "engineers would tether the tunnel at a fixed depth." I take this to mean tethering to the bottom and relying on buoyancy to keep the tunnel floating at the right depth, which presumably could be 30m or so.
      - planetguy 14y ago
        >Is there some reason that sandwiching air between the evacuated tube and the water wouldn't work? Yep, because now you've just got your air rushing into the vacuum through the cracks, instead of water. The ocean depth point is interesting. The article says "engineers would tether the tunnel at a fixed depth." I take this to mean tethering to the bottom and relying on buoyancy to keep the tunnel floating at the right depth, which presumably could be 30m or so. Even if you could get it to be neutrally bouyant at 30m (realistic estimate? dunno) you're now stuck with a tube, five thousand miles long, floating free in the ocean and anchored only to the bottom. Even neutrally bouyant, there'd have to be huge strains on the joints due to ocean currents, plus presumably some up-and-down forces as the season changes the water temperature and... heck, even a whale headbutting such a flimsy structure sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. And remember, you can't afford to get any imperfections in your tube or it'll leak -- that probably eliminates anything you might have used to build in a bit of flexibility.
- Eliezer 14y ago
  How the hell does light rail track cost $2.5M/mile? How did people build railroad tracks back in the days of horses and buggys?
  - abraham 14y ago
    Slave labor and "slave" labor.
    - shmulkey18 14y ago
      Slave labor was too expensive to use because you risked losing your valuable capital. Instead new immigrants were used such as Irish (East Coast) or Chinese (West Coast).
      - planetguy 14y ago
        Slave labour was used sometimes, e.g. the Thailand-Burma railway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway Five hundred men died for every mile of track laid, but hey, they had too many prisoners anyway!
      - abraham 14y ago
        That's the "slave" labor.
  - mostly_harmless 14y ago
    I feel that most of the cost is for tunneling and the difficulties of working in such a space as a subway system. as for normal railroads, a quick googling shows that the cost is much more conservative, with a 1995 estimate[1] stating about $250,000 per mile to rehabilitate an existing railroad. [1] http://tacnet.missouri.org/history/railroads/rrcosts.html http://tacnet.missouri.org/history/railroads/rrcosts.html
    - psyklic 14y ago
      Light rail is above ground, often operating alongside street traffic.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Would love to see how they costed that out. Given that I don't know of a single engineering company that can build straight up light rail track for at $2.5M/mile even if you give them the land for free. Edit: add this update -- Interestingly this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts claims that the ET3 bid was 1.2B$ which is $12.5M/mile which is a lot more credible (still low though since the surrounding infrastructure to keep the tube evacuated, the mag lev stuff, etc all add cost over regular fused rail electrified service (which California is considering for its fast rail) and that is looking closer to $25M/mile in the current state of the art)

Retric 14y ago
A large chunk of the costs of projects like this is building the long flat tunnel/level ground over significant distances. The actual costs of building a moderate vacuum is not that significant. Where this project falls down is in the maintenance and safety side of things not the infrastructure to send the first train down the line. Don't forget every 10m adds 1atm water pressure. Building a glass enclosed under sea walkway 30m down is not that much harder than building one 20m down and these projects are going to be using glass.
- planetguy 14y ago
  There are two problems here. Firstly: As I see it, an evacuated tunnel at 20m is a very different proposition to a non-evacuated tunnel at 30m, even if the pressure difference is the same. Why? Well, your big problem is always going to be leaks. In an air-filled tunnel you can get away with microscopic cracks, no problem; you've got a small direct interface between water and air, and the surface tension of the water is enough to keep the water in place. It's very hard to force water through a really tiny crack. In a vacuum, however, surface tension goes away -- liquid water at an interface with vacuum will boil, and all of a sudden you've got water vapour filling your nice evacuated tube through every microscopic crack in its five thousand mile length. Nasty. Clearly the joined-concrete construction used for the Transbay Tube isn't going to be sufficient. Secondly: unfortunately the Atlantic Ocean isn't 20m deep, or 30m deep, or even 40m deep like the deepest point of the Transbay Tube. It's several kilometers deep.
  - allenlavoie 14y ago
    Is there some reason that sandwiching air between the evacuated tube and the water wouldn't work? Granted it would add to the cost. The ocean depth point is interesting. The article says "engineers would tether the tunnel at a fixed depth." I take this to mean tethering to the bottom and relying on buoyancy to keep the tunnel floating at the right depth, which presumably could be 30m or so.
    - planetguy 14y ago
      >Is there some reason that sandwiching air between the evacuated tube and the water wouldn't work? Yep, because now you've just got your air rushing into the vacuum through the cracks, instead of water. The ocean depth point is interesting. The article says "engineers would tether the tunnel at a fixed depth." I take this to mean tethering to the bottom and relying on buoyancy to keep the tunnel floating at the right depth, which presumably could be 30m or so. Even if you could get it to be neutrally bouyant at 30m (realistic estimate? dunno) you're now stuck with a tube, five thousand miles long, floating free in the ocean and anchored only to the bottom. Even neutrally bouyant, there'd have to be huge strains on the joints due to ocean currents, plus presumably some up-and-down forces as the season changes the water temperature and... heck, even a whale headbutting such a flimsy structure sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. And remember, you can't afford to get any imperfections in your tube or it'll leak -- that probably eliminates anything you might have used to build in a bit of flexibility.
Eliezer 14y ago
How the hell does light rail track cost $2.5M/mile? How did people build railroad tracks back in the days of horses and buggys?
- abraham 14y ago
  Slave labor and "slave" labor.
  - shmulkey18 14y ago
    Slave labor was too expensive to use because you risked losing your valuable capital. Instead new immigrants were used such as Irish (East Coast) or Chinese (West Coast).
    - planetguy 14y ago
      Slave labour was used sometimes, e.g. the Thailand-Burma railway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway Five hundred men died for every mile of track laid, but hey, they had too many prisoners anyway!
    - abraham 14y ago
      That's the "slave" labor.
- mostly_harmless 14y ago
  I feel that most of the cost is for tunneling and the difficulties of working in such a space as a subway system. as for normal railroads, a quick googling shows that the cost is much more conservative, with a 1995 estimate[1] stating about $250,000 per mile to rehabilitate an existing railroad. [1] http://tacnet.missouri.org/history/railroads/rrcosts.html http://tacnet.missouri.org/history/railroads/rrcosts.html
  - psyklic 14y ago
    Light rail is above ground, often operating alongside street traffic.