If ridership is low, you can’t run train often. And if you can’t run it often, people will not use it. It just does not work. This one has chance to work, since essentially you can run it on demand, like Uber.
No, these pods on existing rails are potentially a TON cheaper. Even if you don't count the cost of maintaining the road (which is significantly more than maintaining rail tracks), the need for paying a driver makes most small shuttle bus services prohibitively expensive.
In this case the rails are already there but unused.
That is also several strike against this. Those rails exist but they are all in really bad shape as they were nearly universally used without maintenance until it was no longer feasible. They are also generally in bad areas where there isn't much need for more transport - we already have roads in good shape (to run a bus on). The only thing this has over a bus is you can run them fully automated - which isn't enough IMO.
I think part of what makes tracks unusable for regular trains is when the rails become too misaligned. Of course that isn't an issue for a vehicle that only requires one rail. I kind of like this idea.
The tracks are also already there, and gyroscope stabilized monorail is a 100+ year old technology, not much new to develop about it other than using modern battery technology and some basic self-driving features for it.
Here's an amazing business plan: take the old designs for a railbus. Remove chassis, design a new chassis, but make it all futuristic. Show it to the investors. They'll say "but I want a pod!" And then you say "But it is a pod. A megapod, even!" And they'll squint and go "oh I see. Let's make 1000 of them."
(And actually this is exactly what people have done in the past. Cool futuristic exterior hiding what's basically just a diesel bus with train wheels.)
Their entire goal is to commercialize it.
Its not about efficiently moving large numbers of people. That makes too much sense for this endeavor since you need a set/rigid schedule and predictable travel patterns.
These abominations, are for the convenience of the individual, in the most poorly thought out way. Rather than waiting for the 3PM, they want to advetise you can show up at 2:51 and get on the next available pod and embark, and charge a premium for no waiting and probably try to jazz up the idea that you don't have to worry about other riders ruining your trip or being a distraction.
It entirely ignores the basic engineering problem of more moving parts means more chances of failure per trip and a single pod going down at best causes the entire line to shut down and at worst a catastrophic pile up as following pods fail to slow or stop and ram into the broken down pod.
Regular trains have conductors who can contact the control station or manually slow the train if an obstruction is on the track and some trains even have engineers on the train or on call who can report to a troubled train in short order to deal with the issue. These smaller pods probably arent all going to have gps or location trackers in them to cut costs so even if the pod can accurately report problems there is no garuntee the engineers will be able to quickly and easily find or know its general location to render assistance as needed.
Id also wager enough of these pods to carry enough passengers to equal a common commuter trainer would have a lot higher maintenance requirements compared to that commuter train, so despite charging higher ticket prices the company probably won't be making any more profit than if they just managed regular trains. I'd be willing to be anyone that concerned about privacy for commuting and willing to pay higher would just find that buying or renting a car or bike was just as cost effective and less restrictive than these pods.
TL;DR this entire exercise is a solution looking for a problem and is generally worse in every way that matters.
TLDR: It's a great concept but it's about 100× more exhausting than you imagine.
I absolutely love stuff like this, and I also love cycling.
However, there is a big caveat here: I've been cycling for years and know my own power output:
Output -- Time Window -- Heart Rate
1400 W* | 60 seconds | 208 bpm
385 W | 20 minutes | 162 bpm
148 W | 6 hours | 110 bpm
*(yes, I know. My thighs are larger than some people's torsos and it scares me too)
That means that on average, around 13 and ½ hours of pedalling to charge this thing. (2 KWh is also worth $0.68¢ where I live at standard residential rates).
Pedal power is amazing for things like charging phones or powering small devices and computers though, or for something completely meta: Charging up a eBike or electric scooter (120W), to then use without pedalling later.
Which then begs the question -- if our "human/person power output" is like 150 watts constant .. and the sun provides 1.4 kW/m² of energy -- why not just lay down a 150W photovoltaic solar panel ($89) in the sun and sip on some unsweetened iced tea instead?
While what we can generate is negligible. If, for example you had these in all gyms, that's generating something. Not a lot, but more than nothing. Also all houses should have batteries and being able to remove the cost of a phone charge from what you suck from the grid would be nice.
It's a really good business idea that I've had more than once -- a self sustaining "green gym".
Members would leave their electronic devices in special hardened lockers, plug them in, and then go to work out, and the power from central battery bank would then charge everything that's in the lockers.
I also had an idea for credit system where the more power you generated the cheaper your monthly bill/subscription would be for the gym (only a few bucks here and there), or some kind of perks, like a free t-shirt once a year if you generated over 1 MWh (1000 kWh) or whatever.
The power generated by such a place would probably be negligible but it would give people the same emotional high as other pro-social tasks.
I saw a report on a gym with the idea that the exercise equipment would power the gym. It wasn't a good business model. They brought the reporter in and only turned on some of the lights - they had to be super stingy with electricity to get anywhere near net positive energy generation.
I think the power output of the earlier commentor is probably for a "basic" fit person. But what about those huge bodybuilding hulks? How much is the power output when they're pulling maximums for a day?
In the best scenario, there'd actually br extra electricity to sell back to the grid, and the gym might be free for some of the "power-users".
However I think as the earlier dude points out, stable power output isn't that high and probably way more reliable to just put down solar panels, and a whole gym worth of generative weight lifting equipment would probably cost quite a lot.
It's still unlikely to pencil out to do this given the opportunity cost of actually going through the effort of building, buying and connecting these things, to be honest.
I'm fascinated by the idea but it's important to remain realistic.
Personally, I think the best application of this concept is probably direct use of the mechanical energy, without converting the energy to electricity at all. See the bicimaquinas-concept: http://www.mayapedal.org/index.en
One of the wonderful things about bicycles is how extraordinarily efficient they are - very little energy is required in relation to how much transportation work you get out of it. This works against us in the case of power generation, though - little power going in means little power going out.
There's not enough focus on direct energy usage or storage in general. If you want thermal energy, collect and store thermal energy. If you want mechanical energy, use that directly (and I guess compressed air and hydraulic head count as mechanical energy storage).
What I think would be cool for an exercise bike is to just have a power takeoff of some sort. Lots of bikes use a flywheel already, but even if they didn't, but you could hook up a PTO to a flywheel or a charger so that in a pinch, you could charge your phone or whatever. Probably wouldn't want to use it if you had a better option, but nice to have in an emergency. Like those wind up flashlights.
Pedal power is **amazing** for things like charging phones or powering small devices and computers though, or for something completely meta: Charging up a eBike or electric scooter (120W), to then use without pedalling later.
Skip that step and get a chainless digital drive bike. Same concept but you charge it as you ride.
Haha, I wish -- they call it the hour record for a reason!
I've got explosive short-term speed, but it doesn't last, and I get dropped within 20 minutes, as my power output dips below the optimized pros who can do 400W constantly for entire Tour stages.
If you look at the "about us" section on their site, I don't see anyone with human performance expertise (though who knows if any of them are hobby cyclists with a huge depth of knowledge). The seat and pedal design is definitely geared more towards aesthetics than performance, too. I probably wouldn't want to do more than a hundred watts on there.
I definitely appreciate that the portability and aesthetic quality is a major design consideration for them, though. I see this more as a battery pack that you can pedal, than a bike that stores power.
Before anyone complains about energy density of these being less than lithium, the applications where these are used would reduce the demand for lithium, making lithium cheaper and/or more available for other purposes where sodium-ion wouldn't work.
For anyone wondering how the density actually compares, it seems that sodium batteries are a bit more than half the energy density of the best lithium batteries, but are a less mature technology so that may improve over time.
Judging from that graph, it looks like the sodium ion batteries are about as energy dense as Li-ion was in 2020, which is far from useless. Li-ion may still be the best but at a point, there's "good enough" for many applications (eg cellphones) if the price is low enough.
I would happily take a slight reduction in EV range if it meant the battery was significantly less expensive and the number of charge/discharge cycles would last the life of the car. Someone else said that with a rated 50,000 cycles, one charge cycle per day would last 137 years.
They aren't rated for 50,000 cycles. The ones I have seen are rated between Lithium Cobalt Oxide and Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries. They don't even come close to Lithium Titanate in charge cycles.
Not sure, but i get 420km range and it's dropped less than 5% after 110,000km, does 0-100 in 5 seconds. To be honest that's more than quick enough for me.
If it's nerfed a bit i definitely don't notice it.
Sodium based batteries have reached at least 247 Wh/kg in the lab at least. While lithium in the lab does have much higher instances, that isn't far off from current commercially available Li-ion EV batteries.
While such sodium batteries are not commercially available, it at least shows their potential to reach close to current EV batteries (around ~270 Wh/kg).
Sodium batteries are commercially available as of early this year. I've seen Hakadi and Sriko tested independently on Youtube -- they're the real deal (sodium has a unique charging curve), but they have the same/similar organic electrolyte as LFP cells (I believe Natron uses PBA on both anode and cathode plus water-based electrolyte).
The linked batteries all appear to have energy densities of about 130 Wh/kg or less.
I wasn't denying sodium batteries are not commercially available/viable, just pointing out that while currently available sodium batteries have lower energy density than lithium ion batteries, in the lab, sodium batteries have the ability to reach similar energy density to currently commercially available lithium ion batteries.
The linked batteries are plenty useful for many purposes. I would gladly use them for home energy storage, electronics, or recreation vehicle use. I'm generally wary of lithium battery safety in outdoor, or high heat environments, and look forward to safer options becoming more available/common.
These aren't going to shine as "I want to power my rc plane" batteries, but as someone else said, "[a house-powering battery] can be as large as it needs to be and buried in the back yard"
I'd love a giant sodium battery in a bunker that gathers energy from my wind/solar setup and powers everything without needing to connect to the US power grid.
As long as I can service my own windmill and panels with extra parts (I'm a big believer in both "have a backup" and "two is one and one is none" so always keep 3 spares of things around) I'm set on power during events that would shut down the neighbors.
The lower cost (and battery cost has been lowering drastically for many years based on my own RC dealings) will allow for mass-storage at low prices.
Opponents of renewable energy are running out of excuses, so they have to grasp at straws.
If you built dense cities, like this you massively reduce land usage of cities. It also removes the need for cars and allows for easier sharing of many other resources. This means dense cities have a much lower carbon footprint then other forms of living. London for example has per capita emissions of 3.3t. Skyscrapers are not the best solution for density, but they work and in this case thats mid density housing.
This is a good way to have some greenery in a place, where planting a tree is difficult. This is a 6m wide street with shops on both sites, which is mainly used by pedestrians. If you plant a tree on the sites of the street, it does not get enough light. In the middle of the street it ends up blocking trucks from resupplying the shops, which is also not an option.
If you build dense cities, you don't need to build car infrastructures. You rely on walk, bike and public transport. You have plenty of space for trees and green spaces everywhere.
I grow up next to an old medieval town. I'm not a stranger to how these towns are build. There are a lot of places where you can plant trees in the streets. Of course, the streets will be narrower with the place for just the pedestrians, bikes, and emergencies services. It's a fully car free town in this case. Your link is perfect. You have Pl. de España on the right where you could plant a small forest on it.
You see all the terrasses. They could have trees in the middle.
For this purpose of reducing the temperature, you have this project where they will keep a central bus stop but plant many trees to cover it.
And then you can widen it to fit more people abreast. Then lengthen it to fit more people front to back. Then hook them together because a lot of people are going to the same destination... The new becomes old again.
Its kinda cool how by making it mono-rail, they can use a single track rail to have pods moving in both directions, and the rail could still be used during the night for regular cargo trains.
It looks monorail at first but if you look closer its not.
I also wouldn’t want to be the forgetful dumb person that forgot how late it was before taking this thing home because those cargo trains ain't gonna stop.
It is a monorail, the outrigger is just for testing purposes. It's gyro stabilized. The tech has been around for more than 100 years, developers always wanted higher capacity which is problematic.
It actually is monorail. It looks like the stabilizing arm is for when the vehicle is off and not moving. It uses a gyroscope while moving for stabilization
Not if it is strictly time separated. Like I wrote, I could see these pods operate exclusively during the day and regular/cargo trains operate exclusively during the night. Or any other such time based system.
That isn't acceptable. One person who for whatever reason is out late (emergency at work, or invited to a party) will be screwed when they can't get back home and tell everyone else.
While you are not wrong, you should always strive to perfection. Running train transit 24x7x365 is low hanging fruit (modern fully automated trains exist - note that the topic here is trains not buses). You do need to do something about maintenance, so I'll let you get by with 30 minute headways overnight, while during the day you should be running every 5 minutes.
Man I wish our trains ran anywhere near that constantly. They stop the public transit around midnight in my city, but that doesn't stop it from being tremendously useful during the rest of the time. You learn to plan for it, and advocate for improvements whenever you can
Battery technology is changing all the time, but it's only highly visible when we switch fundamental systems. NiMH batteries had a number of improvements that increased energy density and charge cycles, but most users only saw they were NiMH batteries. The same applies to Li-ion batteries. Overall, rechargeable batteries have gotten 6 to 10 times as energy dense and cost has been reduced to about 5% per Ah over the last 30 years. This didn't happen because research wasn't leaving the lab.
All good points. The main takeaway here should really be about what this particular breakthrough offers, which is an abundant, more environmentally-friendly source material that could be used to replaceLi-Ion in a lot of use cases. And maybe most/all uses with its own improvements over time.
And also that advanced materials science is hard. Yes, there will be a lot of apparent dead ends as well as a lot of dead ends that lead to new paths of research when coupled with as-yet unperformed research. It may be cool to say, "Yet another piece of research that won't leave the lab," but all comments like that (and the upvotes they receive) indicate is the complete lack of understanding those users have about the field in question.
Thank you. I try to keep that same message out there. Yeah, headlines make outlandish claims all the time, but they're all based on something, and every single one you heard in the last 20 years have added up to a revolution.
Definitely. This technology has showing up in a YouTube channel I've been watching for a while. Just Have A Think on YouTube does a pretty excellent job of tracking these kinds of advancements.
He did a video on NA batteries 3 months back, which was a follow-up to a 202(2?) video.
The people below are not getting shaded by or seeing the vegetation tho? If you need shade you can just use the canvas without the plant life and all the other stuff needed to sustain it up there. Actually if this system is intended for narrow streets like this it seems completely unnecessary as the buildings already shade the street. Otherwise if you want plant shade use trees or malleable plants like wines instead of inventing ways to put plants in places they aren't meant to be.
This is totally dumb. I wouldn't want one attached to my building. How heavy are they? I'm guessing it doesn't snow there? How do you weed it when it invariably gets infested with weeds. The irrigation system is sure to break, how do you service that? This will look like absolute shit in a year.
I make canvas and awnings. Shade sails are almost always really stupid. Big bucks for very little bang. Most of the day you end up with a wee thong shadow halfway up the wall
I had an office with a few of these canvas triangles high up above us below a bunch of high windows and it was beautiful! The way the window shadows hit the canvas and the way they shaded each other made beautiful diffused light and interesting shadow shapes.
If somebody had put vegetation on them the whole experience would've been worse.
At first, I thought maybe it used heat to drive a refrigeration cycle (like the gas-powered refrigerators), but it's got a solar-powered compressor that freezes ice packs in the walls combined with some hefty insulation. Still cool, but yeah, also uses electricity.
Solarpunk technology
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