It’s estimated that these hyperloops will be available by 2020. Because companies are thinking of implementing this technology more and more each day, it’s only reasonable to think of its impact on the environment. The possible problems could be the carbon footprint used to build the hyperloops and the effect the infrastructure will have on the ecosystem.

Ecosystem concerns

Several companies are fine-tuning routes that are built above the ground using a hollow tube which is dangling in the air on concrete pillars. In order to decrease its effect on the ecosystem, they are trying to find a way to build elevated tracks in highway medians next to already existing railroad tracks.

On the flip side, some routes need to be underground because of some cities’ current infrastructure and lack of space. The Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, along with the researchers, are one of those who are examining the effect tunneling would have on aquifers and if it’s possible for chemicals from the construction to leach into the ground and infect the waters.

Emissions concerns

Steve Carden, transport innovation lead at PA Consulting Group, explained that the hyperloop’s vacuum environment should actually provide to energy efficiency of this new technology. “Hyperloop has the potential to be a game changer. Imagine traveling at the speed of a jet plane, with the grid distribution efficiency of a train, and almost no aerodynamic drag,” he said.

The hyperloop’s goal is to be a better alternative to plane transportation. During the year of 2017 only, international flights produced 946 million tons of carbon dioxide. According to Virgin Hyperloop One, if every passenger flight, ranging 310-930 miles, was swapped with hyperloop route, the emissions of fossil fuels would drop by 58%.

More details are about to come in days ahead while we wait for the hyperloops route to eventually become reality.

Attendees have ridden the carriage and they described it as rather ‘’bumpy’’ and CNN reported it only traveled 35 mph. Musk has described it as, “like a highway system underground, basically”. The cars moving at speeds much faster than they are originally allowed on public roads, including the small ‘’offramps’’ which bring them back to street, it could actually solve traffic congestion problems.

Musk has said that his contraption is capable of driving at the speed of 150 mph which would make it feel like teleporting through the city. It’s also capable of carrying more than just Teslas and he said it applies to any autonomous, electric car available. Even though that description may only fit Teslas at this point, the vision is that the electric cars will drive alongside the tracks of high speed together with cars for pedestrians and cyclists.

Musk is expecting to connect the “Loops” to Hyperloops with capsules of high-speed but he decided to discuss that another time.

So, here are three different ways you could die in a hyperloop, and how likely are these outcomes to happen?

1) Being sucked into the void

If you have watched a movie about space, you have probably seen quite a few times a spacefarer getting sucked into the void and die. That usually happens if the spaceship’s airlock opens or it gets punctured, so that results into the space traveller getting sucked into the void forever.

Well that exact same thing could happen while you’re in a hyperloop. A hyperloop has nearly no air left in it so it’s basically a tube that came from outer space to the Earth.

Hyperloop pod is a lot like spaceship which means that a passenger inside is in a pressurized vehicle being surrounded by vacuum. And, if anything were to puncture that pod, you’d get sucked out very quickly.

If the hyperloop wasn’t moving when this would happen, because of the lack of oxygen, you would just hit the ground and suffocate. If you are in luck, you could get saved from the immediate death within six minutes to increase your chances of survival.

However, if the hyperloop was punctures while it was moving, for example 1,200 km per hour, you’d hit the ground at a speed of about 300 meters per second which makes it three football fields per second. Because of that velocity, you’d end up resembling a Jackson Pollock painting.

Tim Vleeshouwer, the head of a full-scale hyperloop development at the Deft University of Netherlands, claimed that those scenarios are highly unlikely, at least when it comes to those hyperloops they are developing.

“The walls of the passenger module will be approximately 10 centimeters [four inches] thick. That’s thicker than an airplane,” he explained.

Then, the question is asked – what if a crack or a hole happened?

Then he explained once more: ”Then the whole tube can be depressurized instantly to release the vacuum and restore normal atmospheric pressure.”

So, actually, you wouldn’t suffocate but be prepared for a lot of wind.

2) A pileup accident

This would happen if a pod ahead of you would hit breaks for some reason and decided to stop. Wouldn’t that be quite a fender bender?

Considering that the Delft team’s plan is to have pods filled with 50 people, departing every 30 seconds – which is two pods per minute – this risk is rather realistic. The accident would be fatal for all 100 passengers involved.

Vleeshouwer says that his team has pretty good brakes. He said that if the pod were to fail, the brakes would stop the pod behind in 20-25 seconds. He calls it a“brick wall” scenario.

That means, if someone is 30 seconds behind another pod in front of them, and it takes 25 seconds for it to stop, that only leaves 5 seconds for the first pod to send ‘’FAILURE” message to a server, and then to the other person and the rest of the network.

This definitely wouldn’t be a good feeling. It has to slow down from 300 mps to 0 in that time frame. All the smartphones, cellphones, cups of coffee would just end up slamming into the front wall of the pod. If one’s pod were to stop, then all the other pods behind it would have to stop which would lead to a chain reaction of emergency braking. Doesn’t sound like fun time at all.

3) An act of terror

This seems to be the perfect hyperloop catastrophe: a destroyed section of track and a hyperloop approaching at terrifying speed.

Well, this scenario has already been done in Mission:Impossible and James Bond movies, but it brings a lot of attention to people who have never heard about hyperloops.

The vision of Delft’s team for Europe is that one half of it will be underground and the other ground above which would leave it exposed to terrorism.

And, sadly, there isn’t a way to protect it.

However, Vleeshouwer says: “[The tubes] will be placed on pillars five to six meters above the ground. So it’s not very easily reachable.”

They also plan to run the hyperloop tracks alongside already existing traffic infrastructure, think of high-speed rail lines or highways. So, they will be easier to keep an eye on because they will be more visible.

However if a section of the track is destroyed on purpose then it would surely be fatal for one unlucky pod and 50 other passengers – not that it makes it any better.

And, the rest of the pods would stop moving in order to reduce more accidents.

Although, is this possible outcome that different than the risk you’d be taking while riding an old train?

So, the question is: Should you ride the hyperloop?

If those three risks make you a bit nauseous, you don’t have to worry, the pods will have their own restrooms.

But, when you think about it, humans are traditionally generally very distrusting when it comes to new transportation systems.

Vleeshouwer mentioned how at first, people were scared of trains 200 years ago. It was because of the belief that human head would explode if you’d travel faster than 30 kmph.

People also used to think that cows would end up producing sour milk near train lines because of the noise. Similar fears occurred about airplanes as well 100 years ago as well.

“People were like, ‘Why do we want to travel faster, why do we want to travel further? And I think that’s the same with the hyperloop. [But] it provides so many opportunities, and it would be a pity if we didn’t research the possibilities,’’ says Vleeshouwer.

However, it’s not entirely true. The suburbs are popular these days. According to the statistics of Brookings Institution, the growth of U.S. city rates have fallen by half, meanwhile, those of outer suburban counties have quadrupled in 2012. Millennials, now that they have children, are now moving to suburban areas and not because the urban areas have started being more expensive. Multiple studies have shown that people over 40 actually prefer neighborhoods of lower-density and fenced-in yards.

But, of course, there’s a price to pay while living in the suburbs. The wealthiest regions in the country often subject their locals to the longest commutes. In the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 100 thousand people are seen as ‘’supercommuters’’ which means it takes them more than half an hour each way to go to work. Having no housings, including America’s rather old railways and commuter rail lines, being shot out of a train canon doesn’t really sound like that bad of an idea.

While Musk is getting ready to show off some equipment on Tuesday in a test tunnel which his Boring Co. has made beneath Los Angeles County, there’s been quite a lot of gossip about his plan to ease traffic in L.A. Although, if the project truly is successful, its effect will be felt from much farther away. Developments in transit technology have tended to drive people away from each other rather than get them closer. If hyperloops prove to be more than expensive pipe dream, just like self-driving cars, they could urge the latest growth of suburban migration. However, the Boring Company refused to comment on this story.

Bain & Co. analysts, who are basically amazed by the possibility of new transit technologies, go as far as to say that now is the time to discuss what ‘’post-urban’’ U.S. economy will look like. Louise Braverman, New York architect, indeed, made an art exhibit, calling it “Hyperloop Suburb” which was on display in Venice, Italy, in 2018. “In architecture-land, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re living in the suburbs? That’s horrible!’ ” Braverman says. But the clients kept asking her about the suburbs, so she mocked up an environmentalist vision of dense communities filled with parkland and cultural centers, with self-driving cars spackling in the gaps, making it look like The Jetsons set on a farm.

Even though a lot of money has been raised by a handful of startups, Musk’s concept of hyperloop still sounds fanciful like its first pitch more than half-decade ago. However, it can’t be said there’s no real progress. Apart from California’s test tunnel, the Boring Company is halfway through a federal environmental assessment, planning to build a transit system that connects downtown of Chicago and O’Hare Airport, calling it “the Loop system”

Short-distance travels don’t require the full 760-mph treatment. This Chicago project will top out at 150 mph. But Musk has said that it could eventually lead to a larger transit network. Virgin Hyperloop One project with 100 miles from Mumbai to the Indian city of Pune has no stops along the way but the company says they could easily be added.

The authors of the book Infinite Suburbia predict that by 2030, 500 thousand square miles, which is a land mass the size of Peru, the suburbs will be all around the world, as all types of people migrate together to urban peripheries. Silicon Valley may want to connect the major cities, but a lot of people just want a lawn.

“There is a big interest in Hyperloop in Saudi Arabia. I think when the right time comes, we will restart talking to Saudi Arabia about their plans and how Hyperloop can fit in those plans,” ,” Ahmed bin Sulayem told CNBC’s Dan Murphy in an interview Monday.

Sulayem is a group chairman and chief executive of Dubai-headquartered port operator DP World, which is a major investor in Virgin Hyperloop One. He became Richard Branson’s successor shortly after the British billionaire left his role as chairman of the firm.

Branson left the position last month, saying that the company would need a “more hands-on” chairperson, and that it would be hard for him to continue in the role because of the constraints resulting from his work in philanthropy and Virgin Group’s different kinds of business units.

When the executive left the company, it was followed uncertainty around whether Virgin Hyperloop One would continue to conduct business with Saudi Arabia, which would make him owe to Branson distancing himself from the country after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Branson suspended negotiations over a proposed $1 billion investment in Virgin’s space companies, Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, after Khashoggi’s death.

A Financial Times report last month added to that uncertainty. It was said that Saudi Arabia had cancelled a planned deal to conduct a feasibility study with Virgin Hyperloop One. However, CNBC contradicted that later, saying the firm was still in talks with the Saudis to reach a deal.

For Sulayem’s part, he said that any talks over a Saudi deal with Virgin Hyperloop One would likely come after the completion of a project in India. He said it was better to concentrate on “a project we have in hand” in India, and then look to push expansion into other markets.

“We had good discussions with Saudi Arabia and they had interest in utilizing Hyperloop. This is something we’re going to discuss with them hopefully in the next few months,” said Sulayem.

Multiple firms are trying out their own versions of hyperloop technology. The technology, which involves pods that are propelled through low-pressure tubes at ultra-fast speeds, was first envisioned by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk in 2013.

Musk’s SpaceX and The Boring Company are working to implement hyperloop systems in the U.S., while Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and TransPod are also competing to build their own versions of the technology.

Sulayem also said the firm’s technology was “very interesting” and “could transform really the way people travel en masse.”

“The company has I think a good opportunity today because they have completed more than anyone else in this field and hopefully India will be the first one,” Sulayem added. The company is also trying to find to build its hyperloop transportation system in the United Arab Emirates. It also released a deal with DP World earlier this year to create a hyperloop that transports cargo at ultra-fast speeds.

Meanwhile, Branson told CNBC last month that rides on the company’s hyperloop would cost “no more than a high-speed trainline ticket.”