ETT Q&A

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on August 11, 2008 at 9:56pm

Neil Cox asked about; Tube issues (size, cost, material, protection, & breach mitigation, thermal):
D.O. ans.> Neil, thank you for your many reasoned questions about ETT. Tube cost is very sensitive to diameter (approx with the R^3); utility diminishes with size; so the optimum tube diameter is about 1.5m, and our detailed cost study for the FHSRA bid in 2003 showed 350mph design speed guideway cost (double tube on suitable ROW) was $2m/mile in 2002 dollars. There is a new form of concrete with a ductile failure mode, and 30ksi compressive strength that is the best so far for making the tubes out of. Automated portable tube guideway making equipment as disclosed in the patent has the potential for further cost reductions.

Initial design speeds will be 350 to 500 mph. Speeds over 1k mph will likely be underground, and require active alignment. Thermal deflection issues are much less of a problem underground, and much less of a problem at low design speeds. Slow speed tubes will be white on the outside to reflect solar radiation. At moderate speeds, solar shading will be required (perhaps by PV if cost effective by construction time).

Branches of an eventually global ETT network will be protected with shunts, and eventually achieve a measure of redundancy – just as freeways that are also subject to occasional closure have alternate routes on slower roads).


Neil asked about >>> Maglev cost: Levitation energy

D.O. ans.> ETT can use any form of maglev, the preferred for ETT is called HTSM invented by Professors Wang at SWJTU in Chengdu China. The prototype HTSM first operated 31 December of 2000, and carried over 30k passengers it’s first year of operation. The car-sized prototype HTSM vehicle would levitate for about 7 hours (depending on ambient conditions) using about $3.50 worth of liquid nitrogen to maintain the superconductive condition. ETT in a vacuum, will experience much less heat gain, so the levitation cost will be about an order of magnitude less rapid. (click for more info on HTSM ). You are correct that levitating a locomotive is expensive – reducing the vehicle size and mass reduces the guideway component (permanent magnets) cost by a factor of about 18, making maglev much more cost effective.

Neil asked about >>> Power loss, malfunctions, collision risks:

D.O. ans.> The LEM (linear electric motors) have redundant power source, and most of the guideway requires no LEMs, as the vehicles cost on the HTSM. ETT mitigates almost all causes of collisions by fully controlling the ROW and the vehicles. Also, since HTSM requires no power supply to function, and has no moving parts, or electronic components subject to risk of failure, and no wear due to friction forces or stress concentrations, ETT it is very reliable compared to jet aircraft that have orders of magnitude greater complexity. The bottom line is that detailed calculations show ETT risk to be about 1/35th the risk of HSR (high speed rail) one of the safest travel modes in the world.

Neil asked about >>> Acceleration forces (horizontal, linear, vertical, speed dependant):

D.O. ans.> Most ETT guideway will be moderate speeds – 350 mph is good for most freeway alignments (min radius 1.6 mile) . We have charts (attached) that show the minimum radius and accel/decal distances for different design speeds. At 4k mph, the min radius is a couple hundred miles. All capsules travel at the design speed at all times – so all curves are at a natural bank angle as in aircraft or motorcycles. The stats assume a maximum 45 deg bank (1g lateral = 1.41g resultant vertical loading on occupants and the maglev suspension in a curve). 2 second transitions limit jerk rate to much more comfortable forces than typical in cars and aircraft.

The seats are reclined 45 deg so the one g acell/decell is not uncomfortable, and will not rely on seatbelts for passenger res

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on August 11, 2008 at 10:26pm

Maynard asked: How can we move to all-electric vehicles in ways that will not increase the demand for nuclear power, since there's nowhere to safely store the waste from nuclear power?

Maynard,
Since ETT can acomplish 50 times more transportation per kWh than electric cars or trains, it will require much less electricity, that can be supplied by renewable sources. Even if Nuke energy were to be used, electric cars and trains would require 50 nuke plants to run them, where as ETT would only require one nuke plant, thereby reducing the negitive impacts by a factor of 50 or more.

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on August 14, 2008 at 2:03pm

Mekhong Kurt had two comments on ETT(1.) infrastructure costs [especially relative to others] and (2.) energy costs relative to evacuating the tubes, manufacturing the stock and other "hardware (tubes, etc.).

For (1), this spreadsheet compares ETT to the German Maglev train commercialized in China.ETTvTR_pp.xls

(2) The minimum energy (at 100% pump efficiency) of initial evacuation per mile of double tube ETT guideway is about 5 gallons of gasoline worth of energy (of course suppled by electricity -- not gasoline). Even at real world pumping efficiency of 30 to 50 percent, this is a trivial amount of the construction cost.

There is a slight power overhead to remove the small amount of air that will leak in to the system. This power overhead to occasionally run some of the vacuum pumps is what takes most of the energy needed for ETT -- about 1/50th as much energy per passenger-mile as traveling by electric train or electric car.

How much is slight you might ask? For comparison, there is a 52" tube (slightly smaller that the 60" ETT tube) that is a couple miles long for scientific experiments that is evacuated to a vacuum level a million times better than required for ETT, and it has no measurable leaks in two years. Old vacuum CTR televisions will not leak for years, and they require a thousand times higher quality vacuum than ETT. Most of the vacuum pumping requirements will occur at the airlocks where vehicles enter the system, the capsule displaces more than 99% of the airlock volume, and a pump removes the rest of the air before the airlock opens into the system. Some air sticks to the surface of the capsules, and will have to be pumped out of the tube.

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on August 14, 2008 at 5:00pm

At 8:30am on August 13th, 2008, mike fallwell asked:
Is there a biding process for different routes?

The short answer is both yes and no. There is no protected territory to bid on in the ETT license agreement ( available on www.et3.com ). The license provides processes for any license to make a "request for proposal" (RFP) or "request for quote" (RFQ) to initiate a bidding process for any project they put together. Conversely any licensee may bid or quote on any RFQ or RFP. In other words, there is a competitive market among licensees that is protected from outside competition by the collective ETT IP of the licensees.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Toigo on August 16, 2008 at 5:46pm

Message left for Tony Toigo from Craig A. Lee

At 5:29pm on August 16th, 2008, Craig A. Lee said…
ETT is all well intended, but the key to any change in transportation is to use existing infrastructure in better ways. You are talking about abandoning an existing infrastructure in favor of a totally new one. Your idea, although well intended, is so expensive that it is self deleting. I know, . . . you say it is very inexpensive to operate and that appears to be true. But it is only inexpensive if the existing transportation infrastructure was suddenly deleted and there was a competition to replace a former infrastructure in total. That is basic Transportation Economics 1A.

For ETT to be competitive today, the basic infrastructure would have to be constructed for “FREE” along side of the current transportation system. Then, from there on, it would have a much cheaper operating cost and could draw users away from Trains, Planes and Buses. ETT is only fractionally (tiny) akin to deleting the internal combustion engine in favor of electric cars, yet getting the automobile industry to change has the same arguments. The industry has an infrastructure that has a capitol investment that is nearly unabandonable. Unlike ETT, the use of electric cars and their production can be brought about by the public simply refusing to buy a “new vehicle” powered by the internal combustion engine. My idea is to get people off of their egos of a new car every two or three years and repair and refurbish existing vehicles. If the public stopped buying “new cars” and told Detroit (meaning the entire auto industry in general) that the only thing they will buy has to be electric, you bet the industry would have to cave in quickly. People as a mass have the power, but would have to hold there ground until Detroit made the capitol change. The only way ETT could be brought to the forefront would be if the public were willing to abandon all Airlines, Buses and Trains and suffer the lack of any alternativesfor years and probably decades while ETT was created. The introduction of Electric Vehicles can come about via a gradual change due to a consumer preference to an alternative.

ETT, if serious, and not fanciful, could bring about a gradual change in such places as totally new cities designed from the ground up, . . . like Dubai. Or maybe, . . . if the Chinese could be influenced to replace cities destroyed by the earth quakes in the Szechwan Province with model cities using ETT. Now there’s an idea.

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on August 19, 2008 at 5:06am

At 5:33pm on August 16th, 2008, Craig A. Lee said…
Craig said>>> the key to any change in transportation is to use existing infrastructure in better ways.
D.O. Response}} good point about “useing existing infrastructure in better ways”. Automobiles succeeded in spite of the fact that there was almost zero production infrastructure in 1900, and factories had to be built to assemble the vehicles, produces engines, all the parts in the engines, build transmissions, the gears in the transmissions, etc. Today, all the production infrastructure exists to build ETT with slight modification of existing processes. In fact most of the parts required for ETT implementation are off-the-shelf and already in high volume production.

Craig said>>> You are talking about abandoning an existing infrastructure in favor of a totally new one.
D.O. Response}} I have said nothing about “abandoning existing infrastructure”. We welcome accurate critique of ETT, and strive to use it constructively. US history has been witness to several paradigm shifts in transportation. Preceding every shift there were those few who could visualize how existing processes could be used to achieve quantum improvements; the vast majority failed to anticipate the shift until after it occurred, and a few never made the shift (E.G. the Amish).

Craig said>>> Your idea, although well intended, is so expensive that it is self deleting.
D.O. Response}} Many people jump to the conclusion that ETT is too expensive. We have detailed cost analysis that shows that ETT can be built for 1/4th cost of a 4-lane freeway yet carry more than 10 times as many passengers per hour. ETT can be built for less than 1/10th the cost of High Speed Rail (HSR), yet use 1/50th the energy per passenger-mile, and achieve greater than double the speed. If you take the time to study ETT, we believe you will agree that ETT is the most affordable transportation currently possible -- and we cannot afford not to implement ETT as soon as possible.

Craig said>>> I know, . . . you say it is very inexpensive to operate and that appears to be true. But it is only inexpensive if the existing transportation infrastructure was suddenly deleted and there was a competition to replace a former infrastructure in total. That is basic Transportation Economics 1A.
D.O. Response}} ALL paradigm shifts in transportation displaced existing modes due to better value. In the US, canals dug in the 1700s doubled the standard of living for americans in less than a generation, trains did again in the 1800s, car factories built in the early 1900s, airlines adopted in the mid 1900s,. – If not for all the major shifts in transportation thinking, we would still be debating the merits of strapping animal hides to bare feet – the one and only “proven” transportation alternative!

“Space Travel on Earth” ™ is highly proven. All humans have been traveling their entire lives through the evacuated environment of space; accelerating once a year from our relative orbital velocity around the milkyway of 135k mph to about 265k mph without using any energy.

Craig said>>> For ETT to be competitive today, the basic infrastructure would have to be constructed for “FREE” along side of the current transportation system. Then, from there on, it would have a much cheaper operating cost and could draw users away from Trains, Planes and Buses.
D.O. Response}} ETT can be built at low enough cost that on high demand routes the fare to recover 100% of the construction cost in less than 10 years, AND 100% of operating and maintenance expenses. And ETT would still be less than half the cost of air travel, and be faster and more comfortable. Also, since ETT uses car-sized vehicles, there is no schedule – go according to your needs, not the average of when the airline thinks 200 people might want to travel. Some neigh-sayers might stick to more expensive aircraft, most will switch to the mode offering THE HIGHEST VALUE.
Once the guideway cost is recovered, the ticket cost could drop to less than a half cent per passenger mile – or less than 1/20th the cost of airfare. The reason is vastly lower costs, and much higher benefits.
The base price of a 747 is $185m dollars. At 400 seats of capacity, that is $462,500.00 (almost a half million bucks) per seat. By contrast, the per seat cost of ETT capsules will be less than $5,000.00 per seat or 1/100th the cost.

Craig said>>> ETT is only fractionally (tiny) akin to deleting the internal combustion engine in favor of electric cars, yet getting the automobile industry to change has the same arguments. The industry has an infrastructure that has a capitol investment that is nearly unabandonable. Unlike ETT, the use of electric cars and their production can be brought about by the public simply refusing to buy a “new vehicle” powered by the internal combustion engine.
D.O. Response}} GM appears to be capable of abandoning bad investments! While the automobile industries COULD adapt unused or underutilized production assets to build ETT, is is unlikely they will be the first to do so. However with sufficient pain inflicted by the market perhaps they will. Happily, ETT will not require such production assets, ETT is about 1/100th the complexity of building automobiles, and the companies that have the most appropriate production assets to do it are NOT presently producing for the transportation industry – so they will have nothing to lose, and much to gain by allocating any underused production capacity to ETT production. In time, some auto manufactures may come to realize that they could shift their production capacity to participate in ETT implementation.

Craig said>>> The only way ETT could be brought to the forefront would be if the public were willing to abandon all Airlines, Buses and Trains and suffer the lack of any alternatives while ETT was created. The introduction of Electric Vehicles can come about via a gradual change due to a consumer preference to an alternative.
D.O. Response}} What evidence suggest to you that it will be necessary "to abandon all Airlines, Buses and Trains and suffer the lack of any alternatives while ETT was created" for a shift to ETT to occur? There are plenty of people like you and i who are also imaginative enough to visualize many plausible ways ETT implementation will occur – that is all that is necessary to make it happen. The vast majority who cannot visualize the many valid paths simply will not matter – just as 20 years ago only a few could grasp what the internet was going to become.

Craig said>>> ETT, if serious, and not fanciful, could bring about a gradual change in such places as totally new cities designed from the ground up, . . . like Dubai. Or maybe, . . . if the Chinese could be influenced to replace cities destroyed by the earth quakes in the Szechwan Province with model cities using ETT. Now there’s an idea.
D.O. Response}} Good point about ETT being the best choice to serve new cities with. ETT could eliminate not only the need for most roads, and airports, but also water, sewer, and gas pipelines. By the way, ETT is serious. ETT development officially started in Szechwan in 2002. We lived there 4 months, (on two different trips) to help found the ETT programs there. Fortunately, our many friends in Chengdu were spared any injury from the horrible quakes.

Craig, Thanks again for you many comments -- i look forward to future constructive comments. You will learn the basics about ETT fastest by reading the ETT patent document with the drawings on the website open in another window. If you have any specific questions to help with you understanding i will be happy to answer them to the best of my ability, or if i am unable to, i will see if i can find some one who can.

I apologize that my prior post was argumentative and obtuse. Please forgive me for my rudeness, just prior to writing my response, i had been in a debate with someone who had seceded in getting me riled up -- i am sorry i cam across so strong.

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on September 1, 2008 at 4:59pm

Questions about ETT by Ronald Butts on August 29, 2008 on the ETT group:
You may have covered this, but I cant remember, are these tubes to be held in the air at some altitude, or are they to be ground based, much like modern rail systems? Also, this is to be essentially a Zero-atmosphere maglev train but with unconnected cars correct?

Ronald
Thank you for your reasoned questions about ETT. Ideally the tubes will be far enough above the ground for people, animals, and vehicles to pass under (or underground). Yes, inside the tubes is "zero atmosphere"; and ETT is unlike a train or railroad in almost every respect. The vehicles are car-sized and not connected, they operate like a freeway, the vehicle determines the switching -- not the guide way as with a train. The cost of ETT is about 1/10th the cost of railroads because the vehicles are so much lighter weight.

good questions, thanks

daryl

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Permalink Reply by Bill Tucker on December 15, 2008 at 10:20am

Hi Daryl,
I have to admit to being some what skeptical about ETT, but I am open to the concept. I have several questions:
1) The tubes would they be above or below ground?
2) What would the tubes be made of?
3) If the tubes are above ground where would you put them?
4) What would be the expected cost to maintain the tubes and keep them atmospherically sealed?
5) At 350 MPH what would be the life expectancy if there was a problem? What kind of safety precautions are already in place?
6) What would be the projected cost of a 200 mile tube way?
7) If above ground what would be the effect of people or cargo in the capsule if the tube had to gain or lose altitude?
8) The savings realized because of low energy requirements would be enormous but in reality how practical is ETT?

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on May 25, 2009 at 9:17pm

Bill, thank you for your questions. i am sorry for the very slow reply! (if an automated alert e-mail was sent, i did not see it).
A1) Just like with roads or rail, ETT can be built underground or above according to needs dictated by the route, economics, and needs. Underground ETT (2 tubes of 1.5m diameter in a 4m diameter tunnel) will cost a minimum of three times more than above ground, and in some if not many places it will be worth it.
A2) This question has been answered previously in this forum -- a special form of concrete that is about ten times stronger than ordinary concrete. This reduces the wall thickness from about 5 inches down to about a half inch thick.
A3) The standard specification is for two tubes (one for each way) to both be elevated above the ground to allow for use of most of the ROW for other compatible uses, and to allow for grade separation with other modes. The standard height used for costing of our generic proposal is 15ft of clearance.
A4) Since the type of concrete used is is extremely durable, and always loaded in compression from the atmospheric load, leaking will be slight, and easily and quickly sensed and repaired without shutting down. Compared to roads and rail, the maintenance cost will be much less. For one, there are only a few moving parts, and most of the system will experience virtually no wear. Also the dead loads and live loads are reduced by more than an order of magnitude. Most of the tube is totally passive, as are the switch sections (the vehicle controls switching -- like a car on a freeway does). Maintaining the tube will mostly consist of aligning the tube to compensate for slight difference in earth movement that occurs over a period of time -- this movement varies with location. For high design speeds, tube alignment will be automated.
A5) Our detailed safety analysis shows that compared to high-speed-rail (HSR), the relative risk of ETT is reduced by a factor of 35. It is well known that HSR is safer than flying, and flying is about 1/15th the relative risk of driving (all measured on a passenger-mile basis).
A6) Our firm quote for the Florida High Speed Rail Authority for the 96 miles of guideway, three stations, and vehicles to meet the RFP capacity requirements was $253m in 2003. On flat topography, and existing ROW, with no switches or stations and allowing for inflation, the cost would likely come in at less than $750m for 200 miles.
A7) Did you mean to say "if the capsule gained or lost altitude"? If so, as outlined in the capsule, the pressure in the capsule is linearly varied during the trip to match the atmosphere pressure at the destination (if there was an altitude change for instance). This minimizes the effects of discomforts caused by sudden pressure changes. If you are talking about the tube supports sinking -- that is an alignment issue, and as disclosed in the patent (available on www.et3.com) the alignment is sensesed by automated and redundant means, and if acceleration forces change from normal, the alignment is adjusted. In the case of extreme changes, the system would close the branch with the alignment until repairs could be made, or undergo an emergency shutdown if there were risk of failure.
A8) ETT is practical BY DESIGN. The convenience of car sized vehicles on freeways, combined with the speed of jets (and eventually much faster), but a tenth the cost (100th the cost once the system is paid for). Eventually, ETT can reach individual homes and businesses. With a fully developed ETT network, about 90% of automotive, train, and aircraft transportation will be displaced.

Thanks,

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Permalink Reply by Gregory L. Smith on May 20, 2009 at 4:45pm

Daryl, The main reason is that it is a drastic deviation from the normal transport systems offered and therefore untried with people in the USA.
If there was a transition process that used a larger carriage and used an semi-opened tube, there would be far less concern over safety, and the loss, due to air would be only twice as high as with a vaccum, which also has its own set of problems: namely, in the even of a leak or a broken seal, where death could occur and no one would be able to stop it until it got to its destination. Sure it is a far fetched possibility, but it is 100% possible if there is any flaw in a number of conditions and situations. I say, try a system first that can show the Maglift capabilities first, and then go with the total system you envision. Is it something you can live with? Probably not, but that is your problem, not ours. If you have flexibility you will get further and not have the dangers you now face with a catastrophic failure in any one of a number of systems. Is it likely? For about 5 years the answer is yes! Is it a dead switch for the system? Again, the answer is yes. Get comfortable with go-between systems and you will get there faster...Gregor Smith gregors@att.net

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Permalink Reply by Daryl Oster on May 25, 2009 at 9:58pm

Gregory,

ETT is a paradigm shift -- not an incremental improvement. ETT relies on the tube being evacuated for many reasons. Furthermore, maglev AND pneumatic tube systems are BOTH highly proven and in everyday use, so there would be nothing to gain by operating "semi opened".

You do have a good point that human safety is paramount, and about 80% of humans do not make rational decisions but decide based on emotion. To accomplish the same thing as the incremental technology approach you advocate above, many et3 licensees advocate initially restricting ETT to cargo transport only. In this way the emotional impact of an early accident (even though unlikely) would be much less than if lives were lost.

Thanks for your continuing interest in ETT

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Permalink Reply by Jay Keaty on June 7, 2009 at 2:12pm

Ett is a wonderful concept, but safety is an issue when we are talking about moving people like this.

Let’s cover where I am coming from first: I am a retired USN veteran, that worked in submarines. All submarine sailors must have a basic understanding of all systems on board due to the number of personnel on board. Everything from Life support and atmosphere, to mechanics and even Nuclear engineering (to some degree).

I have examined your proposal, and though intriguing, there are some fundamental issues that must be addressed prior to making this a reality. Let’s cover a few facts first:

Human Life on earth cannot live without oxygen, or atmospheric pressure to support life.

Sudden loss of air pressure can be fatal, through atmospheric nitrogen expanding in the blood causing “The Bends”

Sudden absence of atmosphere will be fatal, through “Explosive Decompression”.

At high velocities, an object switching from an atmospheric void to positive air pressure encounters air friction, causing heat.

Nothing is impervious to weather erosion except for precious metals such as gold.

Electrical failures happen.

Natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes can destroy infrastructure.

Knowing these things, the issues of structural integrity of the capsule and transport tube become paramount. The electrical system also must be of a high degree of importance. Once small design flaw, accidental incident, or even sabotage with the maglev system, tube integrity, or capsule integrity could instantly spell disaster for anyone in the tube, or immediately around the tube incident.

How are these issues being addressed?

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