cramped pies

Why another post about The Boring Company? I've heard a number of people criticising The Boring Company (TBC) Loop project and/or Hyperloop and it strikes me that most people don't seem to understand the concept properly and are therefore rushing to judgement. Part of the problem is that TBC keep changing details about their planned system, and this is also leading to confusion. Therefore I wanted to write a piece that introduces the concepts and explains where the benefits are, and also try to offer a rebuttal to some of the objections to the system.  Introducing the concept In order to know why the loop concepts make sense we first have to understand the main issues with current (mechanised) transport solutions. Safety Land use Environmental impacts Convenience Currently ALL mechanised forms of transport cause a hazard to pedestrians. This is because they share the same space (the land).  Roads, train lines, trams, cycle lanes etc, all of them form barriers to pedestrians (a...

I can't speak for anyone else, but I really don't like flying. I'll always choose another option if possible. Sure its really terrible for the environment, but on a personal level, its humiliating, degrading, tiring, stressful, time consuming and thoroughly unenjoyable. Lets take a minute to figure out why. Getting to the airport Most flights are from mid-large size airports that are usually not close to where you live. Due to their size they are unlikely to be in or very close to any cities or towns. The good ones have good rail links but often that's not even the case so you may end up driving or catching a coach (bus). Neither are particularly relaxing, driving for (sometimes many) hours to get to the airport, having to book and pay for long term parking - frequently requiring handing over your keys for strangers to park your car. Then having to get a transfer bus with all your luggage. Its a huge hassle. In all time consuming and expensive. Airports and s...

Clickbait In this article I'm going to explain why I believe that Tesla will allow all of their vehicle owners to use Full Self Driving, even if they haven't purchased the package, and why you might still want to do so even if it costs $100,000. I'm also going to talk about the media circus surrounding the inevitable deaths. Preamble Tesla has been developing autonomous vehicle software for a while now, and their latest version "FSD limited beta" has just been released to a few selected individuals. This release marks the first time members of the public can activate a vehicle with ' feature complete ' self driving 'assistance'. What this means in short, is that under ideal circumstances your car can drive you from point A to point B by itself without any human assistance, regardless of where those points are. For clarity, the way Tesla are developing their 'full self driving' software is a little different from how some might imagine, and ...

The expression "necessity is the mother of invention" really came home to me thinking about electric vehicles. There is so much readily available power in those hydrocarbon droplets we as a civilisation have been lulled into a slumber of innovation. It was not until the EV revolution that automakers really started to think about efficiency, and the same will happen with air travel. Car efficiency According to the  US EPA  the average fuel economy of US cars in 2016 was a measly 25.1mpg. (This is in US imperial, for UK readers you should read it as 30mpg)  Whilst this is an average across the whole fleet it also shows that t he best non-EV cars are only getting about 50 mpg (and those are hybrids).  Looking at the graph over time, whilst we see some improvement especially around 1980 and 2005 mostly there hasn't been a lot of progress in the last 20 years despite government mandates trying to encourage it. Enter the EV. In 2012 the Tesla model S entered...

The previous post was getting on a bit so I left it there however there are a few other things I think are worth saying and in addition a few more examples of the potential range of electric planes would also be useful. On range I think the examples given in the last post were a bit rubbish. I chose the Cessna as there is a working prototype out there in the real world, but its not a great example for what could be possible in the near to medium future. So lets use a vehicle (class) that's currently one of the most popular for air travel, the Boeing 737. The current latest and greatest version, the 737 Max has a stated range of between 3700 and 4430 miles. Using the 'convert it' approach and current gen batteries, and the previously calculated 12 times multiplier, we might expect a converted-to-electric 737 to have a range of between 308 and 370 miles. This actually is close to the in development  Wright Electric commerical jet  that will have a similar payload c...

I just saw  this video  from the brilliant Minute Earth guys suggesting the future of aeroplanes is bio-fuel, and it inspired me to write a proper response. I've seen arguments like this before and their argument (and additional arguments from other places including this minute physics  video) against battery electric planes can be categorised as follows: Battery density is too low. Jet fuel has a very high energy density, batteries are much lower (over 2 orders of magnitude). A plane simply couldn't lift or fit enough batteries to fly. Batteries are too heavy and this will make the undercarriage of the plane break every time it lands (yes I've really seen this argument). Batteries are too expensive. Batteries take too long to refuel. On the face of it these arguments have some truth, however all of them lack context and vision. Please allow me to add some of both in rebuttal. Responding to the arguments against Battery density is too low. This argum...