"Well, yeah, you could do it that way. But in doing so you have made the road extremely expensive."
not true. the way we are doing things now is much more expensive. much much more. magnets are pretty cheap actually. especially strontium.
people nowadays have to pay taxes for roads and road maintenence, so things would be no different. the money to build the roads would come from the same place it always has.
"But the bigger issue is whether there would be enough neodymium or strontium on earth to pave even all the roads in the US."
the cool thing about that is, any magnetic material can be used to build the roads. theres more than plenty magnetic material around to repave every road in the world.
"Expensive MagLev schemes are not the only way to fix the smog problem."
nope, not the only way, but sure is the best way in my opinion.
"It is actually the cleanest vehicle on the road...the exhuast from it is literally cleaner than the SoCal air it ingests!! Not to mention that I pay the equivalent of about $1.40 per gallon!! "
heh. imagine a car that costs $0.00 per gallon, has no emissions, and never needs a tuneup. $1.40 per gallon is nice and all, but no matter the cost of the vehicle, it will eventually pay for itself, much like the solar panels on your home.
"Can you back that up with evidence and analysis?"
yes i can. would you like me to bombard several links?
so your suggestion is once we use up all the oil, lets use up all the natural gas? what then? people will be forced to decide on an alternative. alternatives that have the lowest maintenence cost will then win.
"How is your effort going to get into school, ruthless?"
ill be moving onto the msu campus soon.
"Once you start loading-up on the engineering courses you will also have to take a course or two in engineering economics. That is what will help you evaluate, just because you CAN do something, whether or not it makes financial sense to do it full-scale."
heh. i wonder what they are teaching folks in economics classes! all economics boil down to is risk vs reward. in this case its risk<reward. how do ya like that math.
its my opinion that you need to take a refresher course. :D
" would be enormous. Hence why you do not see anyone trying to do it...they would not have customers because the customer would rather pay less for a staged vehicle to get their payload into space."
thanks, you just proved my point. people always want what costs less. people want healthier things. and people really, really want to drive around and never feel a pothole again, not to mention being able to hover around. this is a consumers dream, and if done right, can make a huge profit. instead of wasting money on gas every day, they would instead buy new cars every year or two.
"True, that is one of the points in favor of this idea. But you would still have to show a "Return On Investment" (ROI). It is the only way an engineering project can get green-lighted because nobody is going to throw their money down a hole unless at least a meager profit can be made."
i can see the money able to be made from this. i can see the health benifits from this. i can see the safety benefits from this. i can see the comfort benefits from this. most importantly, i can see how the world could change from greed to care with a single idea. can you?
ill leave you with this thought. when i first held an ipod nano in my hand, i looked at it and realized all that was involved in making it and it made me feel like the future was now. the technology was amazing, yet simple. its amazing how many people have one now. 10 years ago, there were none. now theres something to ponder on.