> "This system, when it's fully built out, will save the equivalent of 6.6 passenger miles of CO2 out of the air annually," Fangman said.

That's not much. Hope it does not cost too many tens of billions of $.

For those who disagree, and think nuclear should power the world, how happy are you with Iran's nuclear power program, and how many would be happy with other belligerent countries starting a nuclear power program?

e.g.

The history of nuclear power in North Korea is closely related to the country's development of nuclear weapons.

North Korea began researching nuclear technology in the 1950s, with the Soviet Union providing assistance. In the 1980s, North Korea began construction on a 5 megawatt experimental nuclear power plant at Yongbyon, with the intention of using it to generate electricity. However, the plant was not completed until 1986, and it was not connected to North Korea's power grid.

In the late 1980s, it was discovered that North Korea had been using its nuclear power program as a cover for a secret nuclear weapons development program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducted inspections of North Korea's nuclear facilities in 1992 and 1993, and discovered evidence of a nuclear weapons program.

In 1994, North Korea signed an agreement with the United States known as the "Agreed Framework," in which it agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons program and to allow IAEA inspections in exchange for assistance in building two modern, proliferation-resistant nuclear power plants. However, North Korea later withdrew from the agreement and resumed its nuclear weapons program.

In 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, and it has conducted several more nuclear tests since then. North Korea has also continued to develop its nuclear power program, and it has constructed several additional nuclear power plants at Yongbyon. However, these plants are not believed to be connected to North Korea's power grid and are thought to be primarily used for research and development purposes.

Same for Pakistan:

Pakistan began researching nuclear technology in the 1950s, with the goal of developing a domestic nuclear power program. In 1972, Pakistan signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which commits signatory countries to not develop nuclear weapons.

However, in the late 1970s, Pakistan began secretly developing a nuclear weapons program, with the assistance of other countries such as China and North Korea. Pakistan conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1998, in response to nuclear tests conducted by India.

When they promised a launch a week in the beginning of the year that seemed unlikely, but they managed to exceed even that ambitious target.

BTW, do these satellites have inter-satellite lasers or not? It seemed unclear from what I have been reading.

> Most trips you take in a car are from one location to a second location and then back. Home to work, work to home. Home to store, store to home. You'll have to go backwards in your flying car too.

What PT advocates do not seem to get is that everyone works and lives in different places.

> Adding another dimension to travel doesn't make it better, and when progress fails to make something better, then that is not good progress.

There are plenty of environmentalists who think technology which enables more people to live is bad progress, so I don't think I will leave it up to you to decide what good or bad progress is.

In the paper they compare it to the size of an oil rig or cruise ship, and propose a cost of construction of $600 million.

> Or else I can say hey, singularity, cities won't be necessary anymore because we can live in underground pods and interact in Web 5.0.

Obviously - the person who brought this topic here was an idiot obviously.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you want is a medium density, larger urban area kinda like Greater Tokyo or NYC, with everyone free to drive wherever they want with manageable traffic.

No one would call Tokyo on NYC medium density. NYC has the highest PT use in USA. Its obviously a terrible example of a livable city, as is Tokyo, famous for its PT crush.

Polycentric development is what's needed to give people the room they need to breathe.

In the future we will need less farmland, and we should reclaim that for living space.

> The relevant conclusion is that the wealth that pays for public transit is attributable to all laborers, of which bosses are a minority.

I mean, since your method of attributing value appears to be useless, maybe that conclusion is also severely flawed.

Like I said, the closely monitored environment in San Diego has not shown any ill effects.

So in the end, work is irrelevant as a measure of who deserves wealth, since everyone works.

So you know, maybe rail users should stop feeling entitled to subsidized travel.

Two main complaints - one is that the energy required (about 5kwh per person per day) usually comes from fossil fuels, and the other is brine damaging the ocean.

The first is easily solved with solar and, with care, the second is not as big an issue as environmentalists claim - San Diego's massive salination plant (which supplies 7% of their water) has been running for 7 years and has not damaged the ocean at all.

If you are going to go off the deep end, you could as easily say all wealth is the result of the person telling them what to do.

It's much more sensible to recognize the system inherent in the labels - labourer implies boss and vice versa.

Found the paper.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24314-2

The 210x100 m size of the intake is arbitrary, chosen so they can generate enough water for 500,000 people. It can be larger or smaller.

They said the main reason for the design is that it avoids generating brine from desalination.

Otherwise it is cost competitive, but not cheaper, than desalination, with the water costing around $2.20 per 1000 liters of water. (desal water is $2-$5/1000L)

Somehow I think removing moisture from above the ocean will promote evaporation in that area, which will also increase the local salinity, but I may be wrong lol.

Trains are not even 2-dimensional travel, its one dimensional.

That means it's going backwards. Progress is about increasing, not decreasing, our options.

> Also the cost of self-driving cars is relevant, because that was your response to the whole working-while-commuting point.

Are you forgetting which sub you are on? Why is the current price of self-driving, which is not practically available yet, relevant?

> I'm just under no illusions that it's somehow an efficient and effective commute method for everybody in a dense city like Manhattan/Paris/Tokyo.

The issue is not driving, it's the density of the city. The solution is not promoting even greater and greater density by laying on denser and denser transport. It is promoting development outside of the city, so people can travel in security and comfort using personal transport. Why put people through commuter hell so they can promote the growth of Paris?

And people love driving btw (and if you think this is a biased source, read a paper all about why people love car culture here).

> Try running a multi-billion dollar business without janitors. Or cashiers. Or stockers. See how that goes in reality.

There are probably plenty of businesses which run like that, especially with work from home these days.

And as automation increases, are you just going to attribute more of the revenue to the remaining workers, or will you admit the capital can create money without workers?

Well, let's just say I agree we are not smart enough to have flying cars without true AI, so the two are inextricably linked.

It's a zoning issue. They need to move the businesses out of the centre of the town. Obviously. Decentralize business and the people will follow.

Laying on PT into town is just feeding the cancer. The surrounding regions are the ones which need the support, but Paris is clearly greedy.

> ai isn't going to do all of that for you.

Why? Axiomatically this will not happen if we have to rely on humans. Everyone is talking about the future and you are talking about the present. Did you forget which sub you are in?

In any real implementation like this, the system will be completely automated and you would not own or control the vehicle.

The problem is other people. (Flying) cars solve that.

Because when the risk is higher (such as falling from the sky) you will have multiple levels of redundancy.

The average person, not millionaire, owns a car, and for the average person having a personal vehicle at their beck and call is worth much more than a few hundred euro per month extra, and enables further savings such as living further from the city where housing is cheaper.

> -Self driving cars won't come free.

This is completely irrelevant.

> -It takes more than a year for the "invisible hand" to materialize. 4% is also pretty consequential, especially from a congestion perspective.

4% is irrelevant to congestion, as quieter roads will induce more people to drive, and congested trains due to free travel will cause people to return to their own cars.

> Money is just a way to value time, and even if you're an out of touch multimillionaire, it's easy to understand why people want a more stress-free transportation matrix.

PT is a source of stress and people are willing to give up money to escape it.

> A survey, carried out by French jobs website RegionsJob, has revealed that a whopping 76 percent of Parisians and people living in the Paris region are willing to take a pay cut to avoid the hassle of their daily commute.

https://www.thelocal.fr/20180312/most-parisians-would-take-pay-cut-to-shorten-their-commute/

Sorry, Marx, we are talking about reality, not your communist manifesto.

Please keep your sexual preferences out of this thread lol. Fetishes lol.

> The future we should strive for is one of advanced systems and ever higher level of service for the average citizen.

Exactly, and that means PERSONAL, not public transport.

PT is for poor people. Can you please get of it. FFS we are talking about the far future, not you recession babies.

With energy super abundance, why not?

(Solar energy superabundance is where we overbuild solar x 7 for reliability and then use than 6x excess energy for other things. )