At the World Government Summit held in Dubai, breathtaking technology were on everyone’s lips: life extension, 3 D printed body parts, humanoid robots, the UAE’s 2020 mission to Mars, “gecko” grips that allow you to climb up along side it of buildings, as well as sensors in your brain that permit you to communicate with others simply with your ideas.
But one of the most stunning revelation was this news that in the sluggish field of ground transportation, a near-supersonic technology that first surfaced this year ought to be ready for full-scale, full-speed testing before the end of the year.
Hyperloop is real. Hyperloop is going on.
That technologies are the Hyperloop, a pod-in-a-tube that will use friction-free near-vacuum conditions and linear-induction motors to whisk people and cargo between cities at speeds of up to 1,100 km per hour – and possibly more.
When the concept first emerged, it seemed just another one of those sci-fi jetpack/domed-cities concepts that never seem to exercise. But with the fertile mind of Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX) installing the scientific case inside a white paper, and bequeathing the idea to anyone who wants to follow up (because he’s too busy), many groups will work on real-world applications. And no yet another aggressively than Los-Angeles-based Hyperloop Technologies.
“Hyperloop is real. Hyperloop is going on,” said Brogan BamBrogan, HT’s co-founder and chief technology officer, to some rapt audience of government and business leaders at the World Government summit. He said his company has solved a number of “hardcore” problems, such as how to levitate a passenger vehicle, and just how perfect your vacuum should be. He states the company’s “Kitty Hawk moment” – a full-scale test of the technologies – should happen at a testing facility north of Vegas by year-end.
Related
- Tesla Motors Inc’s Elon Musk really wants to reinvent electricity having a mind-blowing plan that’s totally off the grid’It’s like Nazi Germany’: Why individuals this tiny U.S. town hate Elon Musk
-
-
-
Although it’s no official relationship with Elon Musk, HT has got the next most convenient thing: executives who have caused Musk. BamBrogan, for instance, would be a senior staff engineer at SpaceX, which built a spaceship in less than Ten years that’s able to dock with the International Space Station and return safely to earth.
First proposed to run between Bay area and Los Angeles, hyperloop is a totally new type of transportation. It’s not quite urban transit – HT is proposing lightweight pods that will carry about 12 people. That’s because hyperloop is most likely to run on elevated tubes (tunneling is possible, but a lot more expensive). The lighter the vehicles, the more affordable the machine is going to be.
Still, Brogan admits no one knows exactly what the probably applications is going to be. Will hyperloop perform best over short, medium or long distances? Will it be more suited to passengers or freight? HT is keeping its options open, he states: “We’re asking governments around the world, how would you use this system to best help your people?”
BamBrogan framed the flexibleness of hyperloop in ways certain to intrigue the Summit audience, the majority of whom were from Dubai or other Emirate communities: “Imagine travelling between Dubai and Abu Dhabi (160 km apart) in Fifteen minutes. And you’ll have the ability to leave whenever you want. You don’t need to bother about missing your train, because there’s always another pod leaving in a few minutes.”
The cost? “We are able to deploy and operate hyperloop for less than the cost of high-speed rail,” says BamBrogan. However he added, “Once we innovate deeply, we believe we can cut those costs by Half.” Given those savings, he states, “rides could nearly be free.”
The audience in Dubai had all the same questions you might have: How safe is it? Let’s say there’s a malfunction? What can take place in an earthquake? BamBrogan reassured his listeners that HT is putting safety first by citing an array of sensors, fail-safes and impact-dampeners.
Toronto city officials, now planning for a quantity of high-profile transit projects, can rest secure that high-volume, short-distance LRT and subway with a lot of stops will most likely ‘t be displaced by hyperloop in the near future. Looking back, however, hyperloop may have made more sense than the $456-million Union-Pearson Express airport train, that has been largely running empty since its launch this past year. It’s also been suggested that hyperloop may be the best way to connect Toronto using the growing high-tech hub of Waterloo. As well as in his presentation BamBrogan mused about connecting Calgary and Edmonton having a hyperloop that would whisk people between those cities faster than the current air shuttles.
In an interview using the Financial Post the next day his presentation, BamBrogan declined to go over specific projects that HT is focusing on. But he did state that interest is high, which some prospects are prepared to write cheques when the technologies are proven. BamBrogan said he was particularly pleased that a senior Dubai business leader had just appropriated one of HT’s slides for a presentation around the region’s economic future.
BamBrogan says HT expects to have its first commercial system ready to go by the end of the decade. To meet its ambitious goals, the organization appointed a new CEO last fall -former Cisco Systems president Rob Lloyd – and it is now trying to close a US$80-million financing round.
Once the first systems have been in operation, BamBrogan foresees underground hyperloops, undersea tubes, and even hybrid services that transport people throughout the day and cargo at night. “There is not just one hyperloop,” he says. “You will see a lot of ways you can deploy it.” Like every good technologist he is sure many new and significant applications will emerge that nobody today can yet imagine.
But one thing’s without a doubt. “We don’t desire to be a theme-park ride,” says BamBrogan. “We don’t desire to be a 12-mile airport connector. We want to be of real value.”
