<[email protected]> wrote: > > >Why would not some form of subsurface robotic tunneling for roads - in the > >future history of cheap LANR power, be almost as cheap? > > ..because the same robots could still build a surface road cheaper (and > much > faster). >
I discussed this in the book. Cost and speed are a factor of course, but there are some reasons I think they will be much less of an issue in the distant future (hundreds of years from now). Robots will eventually become dirt cheap. Energy will be virtually free starting October this year, if Rossi succeeds. We can always use extra space, and there are already proposals to build massive underground structures in major cities for storage space, factories and so on. As I describe in the book, it would be handy to have a giant indoor farm under every grocery store, to deliver fresh produce from the plant to the shelves every hour. So excavation technology will improve. People will have plenty of money in the future, and they will value quality of life issues. Surface roads and highways are ugly, dangerous, and they take up too much space. All highways and factories should be put underground, and the space above should be left for houses, schools, playgrounds, parks and so on. Cars will be able to drive much faster on either elevated roads, or subterranean roads. I figure they will go roughly 180 mph. You cannot have this on surface roads where people, animals or tree branches might block the road. It does not matter how good you make the brakes; even if you stop the wheels from turning, the car still takes a long time to stop. Obviously, these will be fully computerized cars, with no driving allowed! Putting them in an orderly artificial underground environment simplifies the problem. It also makes it easier to make under-passes, over-passes, merge lanes and so on. Finally, why not? We will have a billion robots sitting around anyway, or 10 billion if we want. Why not put them to work? - Jed
