I'm not sure that I agree with the author on Elon Musk's tunneling ambitions. Far more people are betting against him on Tesla and SpaceX without much success.
One thing lost in the debate is if the costs are lowered it will also increase the number of cities where a subway is possible financially. I see cities spending huge money on dedicated bus lanes. The bus companies adore it but I'm pretty certain that the return on investment is abysmal.
They tried to implement it locally and the grass roots groups put up such a huge fight the politicians withdrew support for it.
As far as the cost of the stations I wonder if anyone has given thought to using 3D concrete printing? Admittedly it would be easier if you excavated from the surface as opposed to widening a tunnel but I still think it has the possibility of losing costs.
"Musk says he can build tunnels cheaper if he just makes them smaller. But in reality, it’s not small TBMs that are the future, but big ones. The cost of a TBM doesn’t get much higher as you increase its diameter. Tt is therefore cheaper to build one very large tunnel, rather than two smaller ones."
If that is true, then Elon is betting on the wrong horse.
I can remember articles promoting hydrogen powered cars as the future. They even said Elon made the wrong bet with electric. Some company's are still hawking hydrogen as the future, the difference is no one is paying any attention to them any longer.
Someone else has made the bet for bigger tunnels and they're using a PR agency to push back. PG called out this tactic a few years back:
The bigger tunnel people have proven success, while the small tunnel people just have hype.
People shut up about electric cars over hydrogen when electric proved itself. Note that back when this started there were many hydrogen naysayers who pointed out all the problems the hydrogen proponents have faced. The electric car people got lucky that lithium batteries advanced to where they could work - 20 years ago this wasn't a given to battery experts.
One thing lost in the debate is if the costs are lowered it will also increase the number of cities where a subway is possible financially. I see cities spending huge money on dedicated bus lanes. The bus companies adore it but I'm pretty certain that the return on investment is abysmal.
They tried to implement it locally and the grass roots groups put up such a huge fight the politicians withdrew support for it.
As far as the cost of the stations I wonder if anyone has given thought to using 3D concrete printing? Admittedly it would be easier if you excavated from the surface as opposed to widening a tunnel but I still think it has the possibility of losing costs.
https://all3dp.com/2/concrete-3d-printing-how-to-do-it-and-a...