The Silk Road Hyperloop version

The Silk Road, the artery that linked China to the confines of Europe to transport silk and other precious commodities, should be given a new lease of life. No more camel caravans crossing the arid deserts of Asia, no more cosmopolitan caravanserais, no more rocky tracks jumping from fortress to oasis. Today, it is through the Hyperloop that goods will transit. Capsules projected at very high speed into a tube snaking from China through Russia.

 

Ct was Vladimir Putin who announced it through his Minister of Transport, Maksim Sokolov. The Californian company Hyperloop One has indeed just signed an agreement to conduct feasibility studies to open a "new silk road" with "a Hyperloop cargo ship that transports freight containers from China to Europe at 1200 km/h in one day". To this end, Minister Maksim Sokolov proposed the creation of a 70 kilometre Hyperloop section linking the port city of Zarubino (on the east coast of Russia) to the mining and industrial province of Jilin in China.

 

According to Futura SciencesFor example, Hyperloop capsules could bring cars made by Chinese manufacturers to Jilin for export by ship from Zarubino. The idea would be to reduce transport times and the environmental damage caused by the heavy road traffic on this route. The information site RT.com who quotes the Minister as saying that the project is based on an agreement between Russia and China to co-finance the creation of the Hyperloop sections that will eventually form the Silk Road.

 

 

This announcement follows the investment made by the Russian investment fund Pishevar in the Californian company during its last capital opening operation. On this occasion, several rail operators, including SNCF, had shown interest in this revolutionary new mode of transportation.

Several feasibility studies are already under way in various countries such as Dubai, Finland, the United Kingdom and, of course, the United States. But apart from a test section built in Nevada, no line is actually working yet.

 

Hyperloop, a project initiated by Elon Musk, consists of a tube in which capsules move. The inside of the tube is under low pressure to limit air friction. The capsules move on a cushion of air generated through multiple openings at the base of the capsules, which further reduces friction. The capsules are propelled by a magnetic field generated by linear induction motors placed at regular intervals inside the tubes.

 

Elon Musk said, at the launch of his project in July 2012: " The system I have in mind would be something that would not crash, that would work in any weather, and that would be three to four times faster than a high-speed train...its average speed would be twice the average speed of a plane. You'd get from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in 30 minutes. It would cost you a lot less than a plane ticket or any other mode of transportation. I think it could be made self-sufficient if you put solar panels on it, you could actually generate more energy than you consume. There's a way to store the energy so that it could run 24 hours a day, seven days a week without using batteries. Yes, it's possible, absolutely. "