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Need Your Help To Drill Some Tunnels Thru The Earth?

By admin Posted in: Montreal

I have this plan to drill a network of tunnels thru the Earth (and possibly the moon), the goal is to make travel quicker, easier and safer for the benefit of all, let’s face it the present situation is just not adequate for future needs. My vision involves connecting all the worlds major cities with tunnels, now of course we cannot tunnel straight thru the core for obvious reasons,that would be highly hazardous, so we will just have to tunnel around it OK. I think the best option is to build a sub-monorail network, like say for example you need to travel from Helsinki to Melbourne, or Montreal to Johannesburg, do you really want to go thru with all that tedious mucking about with airlines and unpleasant stuff and the risks that go along with that kind of thing (like terrorists or volcanic ash or lost luggage,etc.)? No? Me neither! What I want to know is how fast can my sub-monorail go without inconvenienccing the passengers with stuff like turbulence and/or G forces? Are earthquakes or flooding going to be a problem underground? I realize it would cost a lot of $ but you have to spend $ to make $ OK? Are there any possible safety issues with a project like this?
Lets say that if we get it running and charge 20% less than the airlines and get from A to B 20% faster, the advantages are huge, this technology doesn’t pollute cause it’s electric, and think of how many jobs that would create, this system could be moving 100 million passengers per year by 2050.
What do you think of my plan, can you suggest anything to improve on it, has somebody else already thought of it, can you think of a better name than ‘sub-monorail’?

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  1. duke_of_ Says

    It’s just too hot inside the Earth.
    I don’t recall exactly but the rate of increase in temperature is 1 degree Fahrenheit for about every 80 to 100 feet in depth starting about 400 feet below the surface where the temperature above that is based on average surface conditions (4 seasons, night and day).
    It is about 4,000 miles from the surface to the center of the Earth. Some of your routes would need to go hundreds of miles below the surface. Calculate the tunnel’s outside temperature based on the above paragraph and you will see that there will be extreme problems for passengers.

  2. slightly shady Says

    that’s not efficient. scramjet is pretty much is going to change everything. But I dig the premise.

  3. blamay22 Says

    You might also account for the extreme pressures that are going to crush your system and its travelers if you dig farther than a few miles deep hey

  4. Laurie Says

    hold on till i get my shovel

  5. poolplay Says

    Dream On!!!
    Perhaps someday a scheme such as this may be feasible. But right now, there are so many issues that make this a nearly impossible real world solution. I don’t even know where to start.
    Modern airliners travel at 500 to 600 miles and hour. Doing that with a ground vehicle is to say the least – far fetched.
    The cost of drilling these tunnels would be astronomical. Just check into the cost of the London/Paris tunnel. Not to mention the length of time it would take to actually drill these things.
    What if there were a mechanical break down somewhere in the middle of this 1000 mile long tunnel?
    Hate to think what the pressures and temperatures would be for a tunnel under the ocean, or beyond say a 1000 ft.
    Ventilation? A fire inside the tunnel? Do you really think these tunnels would be immune to terrorists?
    You’d still need terminals most likely at either end of these things. So you wouldn’t be doing away with the “Airport” hassle.
    Yes, earthquakes and flooding would be a problem.
    The construction would indeed create jobs. That’s good. But once you put the airlines out of business, those people would lose their jobs. Even trade off? I don’t know.
    And it wouldn’t pollute because it’s electric? I just love this one. People that love to spout green without knowing what they are talking about would be humorous if it wasn’t for the economic consequences. Electricity has to be generated, and transmitted to where it’s needed. The generation of electricity in the amounts needed to power your trains would rely on fossil fuels, or nuclear power. Solar cell, wind, etc. are just not efficient enough at this point. Let’s don’t pretend that electricity is some kind of free, pollution friendly alternative.

  6. ronwizfr Says

    Vacuum tubes, like the internal post system offices use to have.
    Let’s see NY => Paris, 6,000 km.
    I calculated that 600 seconds of acceleration at 1g, 400 seconds of coasting and 600 seconds of deceleration would do the trick. The coasting would be at 6 km/s so be sure that the walls are smooth.
    That NY to Paris in 27 minutes, not bad. Plus the time of boarding and debarking.

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