Hyperloop One, one of the tech companies attempting to develop the hyperloop high-speed transport system first conceived by Elon Musk, has said it is interested in testing the technology in Australia, as the first step towards producing a Sydney to Melbourne hyperloop link.
Conceptual designs for hyperloop systems project travel speeds of 1200 kilometres per hour, twice the speed of the fastest high-speed trains currently working in parts of Japan and China. It would consist of pods suspended by magnetic levitation inside of a tube line placed either underground or elevated above ground on columns.
Alan James, Hyperloop One’s vice president, told National Geographic that the company considered a link between Australia’s two largest cities to be a prime candidate for the new high-speed technology.
“Melbourne to Sydney is the third busiest air corridor in the world,” James said, “and we can give you Melbourne downtown to Sydney downtown in 55 minutes.”
Hyperloop One expects its initial test site at Nevada will be fully operational within the next six months, and is also looking towards Australia as another option for further testing.
“We would be looking, either in NSW or Victoria, or possibly in ACT, to develop the first section of that route [from Sydney to Melbourne], to prove the operation of Hyperloop, to get regulatory approval,” James was quoted as saying.
While some have questioned the viability of Hyperloop as a form of transport provision, James said that the company was confident that it wouldn’t be long before they could present a working example of the technology.
“This is not a ’10 years away story’, this is not a ‘five years away story’, and literally months from now the world will be able to touch, smell and see an operational Hyperloop.”
The company hopes to have three Hyperloop systems in service by 2021. Steve Artis, who is the chief executive of Hyperloop One’s partner company Ultraspeed Australia, was reported by the ABC as saying in May that they had been investigating the feasibility of constructing a link between Sydney and Melbourne.
“We are engaging with relevant stakeholders across Australia at the moment, and we have done for quite a number of months – we’re reasonably confident of building our case,” Artis was quoted as saying.
“In terms of the commercial availability of the system we hope to have a scoping study of business case developed over the next few months, and that would prove the commercial viability of it in Australia.”
At the beginning of this year, at the Hyperloop Challenge sponsored by Elon Musk, an RMIT University-based team VicHyper beat 1,700 teams to make it to the finals after presenting a test-run of their prototype hyperloop pod.
Zac McClelland, VicHyper’s chief executive, was quoted in The Herald Sun saying that the hyperloop technology could overtake standard fast rail technology as a cost-effective option for transport that dramatically shrinks the travel distance between major cities.
“If we really wanted to do it, we could do it now, and be built within three to five years,’’ Mr McLelland said.
This may or may not be the transport of the future, but saying it could be built within three to five years does not advance the case. If work on obtaining the necessary property rights were to start today it would be very unlikely to have them complete in five years let alone solving all the technology to have a real operating system in place.
It looks like another pipe dream to me.