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by ken
2739 days ago
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My issue with tunneling is that we're already failing at it. In Seattle our new tunnel is 3 years behind schedule. The problem with infrastructure isn't coming up with crazy new ideas (like "skates"), or being able to use hot new technology (like fully-electric TBMs). Execution in the real world is entirely the trouble we have with existing solutions. It looks like he's trying to iterate on the parts of the problem we've solved already, and ignoring the parts of the problem that we don't know how to fix. What happens when it hits a steel pipe or a giant boulder and gets stuck for a year? What happens when these tunnels cause unexpected sinkholes, and the governor orders a halt for more ground studies? What happens when you discover 500 leaks a couple years after opening? These really happened in Seattle and Boston. The Boring Company's webpage doesn't mention the possibility of any such issues, but they're not the kind that are solved by changing methods. We already have the "error". Now we need "trials" that address these errors. |
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I'm assuming if the Boring Company is moving forward, that they have actually done the research and found that those problems are:
* rare enough not to worry about at this point in the game
* have no good possible solutions that anyone can think up right now
* don't have any obvious places where big improvements can be made
* they don't have access to the details of exactly what mistakes were made in those projects because the industry is unable or unwilling to share the information.
* there are solutions to those problems, but they require that other "seemingly solved" problems be optimized or solved differently
Not to mention that they are completely new at this as a company. Getting a few easy wins, validating that your plans and ideas are on the right track, and making sure you really know the problem before diving in headfirst sound like pretty good ideas.