Automated transport systems/VacMagLev

As noted above, trains are one of the most energy-efficient means of moving people and freight from A to B. What energy is lost is mostly due to the friction between the wheels and and the track, and the friction between the train and the air (i.e. air resistance). Magnetic levitation (MagLev) trains solve the first of these; they have no friction between the trains and the tracks because the train does not touch the track. Instead it hovers above it due to electromagnetic repulsion between the two. MagLev trains are therefore much more efficient and capable of greater speeds than ordinary trains. The second energy-drain, air resistance, can be eliminated by housing the MagLev train in a vacuum. This is called vacuum-enhanced magnetic levitation (or VacMagLev) and was pioneered by Gerard O'Neill, who said that VacMagLev would allow goods to travel “from New York to Orlando in half an hour... [using] less energy than... a liter of gasoline”[1].

Of all the new transport-technology options on the menu for 21st century man, VacMagLev is outstanding for its speed and its energy-efficiency. One proposal by Daniel Wade outlines how such technology could be used to move goods of any kind around the world at an incredible 3200km/h (2000mph) with minimal energy. A network of such pipes could be set up between the world's cities, allowing goods to be moved from anywhere to anywhere in a few hours. However, to build such a system would be a gigantic engineering project, technologically but not economically feasible in a scarcity economy.