Hyperloop To Be Crowdfunded & Crowdsourced?

October 1st, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing the Hyperloop? Well, if this happened, it would certainly go down in the history books as a major crowdfunding milestone and a major crowdsourcing milestone. Personally, I don’t think I would bet on it happening, but some notable people clearly think it’s possible, and the approach is actually about as good as could be, imho.

Marco Villa, former director of mission operations for SpaceX, is one of two fundraisers looking to raise enough money for the $6 billion Hyperloop that SpaceX, Tesla, and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk designed with members of the Tesla and SpaceX teams. Prior to the unveiling of the preliminary design, Musk noted that he didn’t have time to pursue this idea — maybe in a few years if no one picked it up, but certainly not at the moment. But he put the design out there for others to adopt, improve, and perhaps try to implement… of course, if the money needed could be raised for such a massive project.

Dr Patricia Galloway, former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers and current president of Pegasus Global Holdings Inc (a Washington-based energy and infrastructure adviser), is the other main fundraiser now working on the project. Again, not exactly a person to take lightly. She and Marco are currently raising funds on JumpStartFund, a startup that just went into public beta on August 22 and took on the Hyperloop as its flagship project.

Along with working on the theoretical design more, the next step is creating a company for the Hyperloop. “We want to be the ones that actually make things happen,” Dirk Ahlborn, CEO and co-founder of JumpStartFund, said in an interview last Wednesday. “So of course we need to create a corporation. Whoever decides to dedicate more time to this than just logging onto the platform deserves to be part of this company.”

As reported before, the initial aim of the Hyperloop is 800 mph travel in individual capsules. Definitely a big leap above anything we have today. Transporting 7.4 million people a year between San Francisco and LA in 30 minutes for $20 a pop would theoretically result in the system paying for itself in about 20 years. For more details, check out this article: Elon Musk Has Unveiled The Hyperloop Details.

Granted, the initial draft was very rough. Many aspects of it have been criticized — financial and technical aspects. Nonetheless, if Marco Villa and Dr Patricia Galloway are on board… perhaps it’s still something to watch. And Ahlborn has noted that everything is still open to being changed. This is now a collaborative project with everything on the table for discussion. JumpStartFund is looking to make “everything” about the Hyperloop crowdsourced, an option that really could make a monumental technological project more possible.

“The whole concept is always going to be on the platform,” Ahlborn noted. “Everything is going to be very transparent, and we intend to reserve a percent of future revenues for people that work with us on the platform.” This even includes coming up with a name for the new company. Interesting that just as US democracy is faltering, such a democratic entrepreneurial process is sprouting.

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Tags: Dirk Ahlborn, Hyperloop, JumpStartFund, Marco Villa, Patricia Galloway, SpaceX, startups

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Bob_Wallace

Nope, looks like not crowd-sourced. Looks like it might be running next year.

“But, whereas Musk has previously mentioned he’d like to see it in California, it’s now being reported that the project will see the light of day in the State of Israel.

The project will be the the result of a collaboration between Israel’s Ministry of Transportation, Better Place, and Japanese Taigo. The loop will cost some $10 billion, and its first route will run from Tel Aviv to Eilat, in seven minutes, no less!

While the exact details of the route could not be published, Geektime learned that the beta period of the project will see an actual driver supervise the train, with this ending in November 2015 and the route becoming completely automatic. The Hyperloop is based on pods that hold 10 passengers, with 10 pods leaving the station every 30 seconds (meaning 100 passengers every 30 seconds), taking 7:06 minutes to travel to Eilat, and 7:07 to travel back.

No more one-hour flights, no more 6-hour drives.”

http://www.shalomlife.com/business/22694/the-first-hyperloop-will-take-place-in-israel-2015/
JamesWimberley

Hyperloopy.
jack marchand

dual mode maglev inventor == jack marchand
Shamil Ayntrazi

THE FOLLOWING COMPLEMENTS HYPERLOOP ACROSS RIVERS, LAKES AND SEAS.

Greetings,

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The COEE extracts offshore renewable energy; Wave, Tidal, Wind and Solar. The COEE construction unit is a building block for offshore wind farms, wind turbine floating foundations and Floating Bridges.

The Floating Bridge provides Floating Foundations support for offshore wind turbine
farms and support for electric power and control cables to the shoreline and for maintenance.

The Floating Bridge is used for access to oil/gas rigs and for support of oil/gas
pipelines, electric power and control cables to the shoreline.
The Floating Bridge provides access to and between islands, across rivers, at
reservoirs behind dams, for offshore wind turbine farms; for transport, installation and maintenance.

The system accepts standard wind turbines as provided by others. The wind turbine
support being modified to fix to the floating wind turbine structure.

OUTPUT
a. A coee construction unit measuring
16.5×12.5 meters can provide energy output per year per meter of sea front in
excess of the following depending on sea and wind states:

i. Wave energy 45,503 KW-H
ii. Tidal energy 6,636 KW-H
iii. Solar Energy, 200 sqm 10,910 KW-H

Total per meter sea front 63,089 KW-H

Wind Turbine Rating Output KW-H Total KW-H

a. 0.75 MW W. Turbine 31,250 KW-H 94,339
b. 1 MW W. Turbine 28,571 KW-H 91,660
c. 3 MW W. Turbine 64,286 KW-H 127,375
d. 7 MW W. Turbine 123,529 KW-H 186,618
e. 10 MW W. Turbine 142,587 KW-H 205,675
For a sale price of 10 US cents per KW-H would provide a minimum rate of return on capital investment – ROI way above 12% excluding government incentives, tax breaks and bridge toll where the floating bridge is used for vehicular transport.

It is worth for Clients and Consultants to request an Alternate Bid based on the Coordinated Offshore Energy Extraction and Floating Wind Turbine Foundations and Bridges. This way they will have a real estimate and an estimate of KW-Hours produced per year.

The COEE and FB system does not require R&D neither Prototype testing. The engineering calculations can be easily developed and verified, and all equipment are available on the market with proven performance records.

Best
regards

Shamil
Ayntrazi, PE

Email: sayntrazi@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.renewableenergypumps.com

15496 Village Woods Drive,
Eden Prairie, Minnesota,
MN 55347,
Attached:
a. COEE and FB combined
Tony

The Hyperloop looks to be an exciting option for fast distance traveling, but similar to current public transportation options like San Jose’s light rail system or Caltrain, it relies on the public to travel to and from specific destinations. Our BiModal Glideway would be a better solution as it would provide the same high speed distance travel, but allow drivers the freedom to go from door to door during their commute.