I love this practical Industrial tech stuff. For perspective on tunneling cost when I ran a Power T&D Utility project ten years ago a "Jack & Bore" tunnel ran around $17,000. per foot for a 42" diameter bore. That would be around $89.7mm per mile. Larger diameter tunnel for a lot less money and you get to take your equipment to the next job. Pretty darn good!
Fascinating. IMO Elon is a combination of todays John Galt and Howard Hughes. His ideas are gargantuan beyond the scope of most meer mortals. ☺️
Peter Thiel is a completely different personality and focus but none the less interesting. I've watched him since early PayPal but wasnt even aware of Musk at the time.
I feel fortunate to be able to witness some of the "brain trust" alive a this point in history.
Nice seeing you last week Great write up. Federalism is a natural defense against bureaucratic stagnation that all aging civilizations are subject to. Europe on the other hand went the other direction with the EU and is now paying for it IN spades.
ROS, your reporting is fabulous! It's so refreshing to read about the innovation that's occuring to solve some of mankinds biggest challenges. The focus on positives is healthy and has a near medicinal impact on our psyche.
I enjoy your Substack, it provides a great change of pace from the doom & gloom I get from so many other sources. Thanks for doing it!
I would raise a point about the "blight" to consider. I think the regulation is a natural response to population density, with the purpose of limiting that density. It's not surprising that people who may have originally moved to avoid population density want to limit its increase. An additional benefit is to force the development of underutilized land, improving its value and attractiveness. How many more people can be jammed into SoCal?
Second point, you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs & wealthy people. In general, they don't like being told "No". They often view any restraint on their activities as unreasonable and irrational. I'm sure that the people creating the regulations believe the same about their actions. Finding a reasonable balance is critical to maintaining a society that can live together and still improve itself.
I would suggest we develop a way to manage our regulations to provide that balance, and to ensure as efficient a process as possible. I think the Founders expected that to be the responsibility of the legislative branch, but unfortunately, that responsibility has been abandoned by our current generation of representatives.
I have a slightly different perspective. As I see it, the regulations themselves are not so much to blame as the principle of regulatory capture, where the groups, companies, or organizations that are "regulated" work to take over effective control of the regulatory agency and use it to protect their interests, rather than the interests of the public. Once a regulatory body is captured, I have seen no effective means to free it, other than to abolish it completely, and this is not easy! The new owners will fight tooth and nail to keep their power, using the original arguments for forming the agency as the basis for their argument, even though it is now effectively working against those ends.
So no legitimate concerns? Like more noise, or more traffic, or inconvenience during construction? One of the challenges with capitalism is the failure to account for the impact of indirect costs that affect neighbors.
I feel a bit scattered thinking about today’s newsletter. I hesitate to respond as I doubt my thoughts are as cogent as I’d prefer. But here goes …
One might hope that at some point ROS-inspired financial types might develop an ROS-themed ETF. That’d be something to invest in with some of the risk smoothed out by a balance of companies. I know John Mauldin’s group does research and suggests tech and other similar investment opportunities along with alternative investment possibilities for their paid newsletter subscribers.
I am not opposed to innovation and progress. I wish I could benefit from some of the expensive just-out medical developments such as TPE. But Elon Musk concerns me! One writer said His ideas are gargantuan, and I’d suggest that perhaps his ego is as well. I know blind people who left X because of the firing of the portion of the company that dealt with accessibility. Do blind people not rate?
Did Doge make the government more efficient? It seemed so chaotic from what I gleaned from reading the Tangle newsletter.
Is affording someone the possibility to become a trillionaire really a good thing?
Governments have at least to a certain extent constraints on power. These tech bros seem to do as they will. It appears an elderly Congress does not fully understand all of the ramifications of unconstrained tech and privacy issues. Absolute power and Lord Actin.
You mentioned Uber as a model for the Boring Company. So will its employees really be subcontractors with no benefits. Obviously, they won’t be expected to provide their own tunnelling machines, but is Uber an easy way to earn a living as a main hustle, not a side hustle? I’m not sure. I know the author of the recent book Enshitification would warn about this business model and mention that we are veering dangerously close to techno-feudalism. He decries the treatment of Amazon delivery drivers who are technically sub-contractors, not employees. I’m not an investigative reporter, but these issues do concern me. I hope they are exaggerated.
It is my understanding that Peter Thiel prefers businesses with high moats, meaning businesses that have managed their environments such that it is nearly impossible for competition to impact them. Surely, this structure creates powerful monopolies and duopolies. As far back as the 1890s, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to hedge against this phenomenon. Wasn’t President Theodore Roosevelt known as a trust buster, at least to some extent.
Several of your readers have raised interesting concerns.
* “you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs & wealthy people. In general, they don't like being told "No". They often view any restraint on their
activities as unreasonable and irrational. I'm sure that the people creating the regulations believe the same about their actions. Finding a reasonable
balance is critical to maintaining a society that can live together and still improve itself.”
I have been given to understand that the UAE has been criticized for its treatment of South Asian workers who do the heavy lifting in the construction and hospitality industries. Again, I do not live there. I have found your comments about living there fascinating. I do wonder how their system of laws works. The UAE is a collection of seven polities and are Muslim. Do non-citizens have similar rights to citizens. I have heard that the number of citizens of the Gulf States is a small percentage of their total population and that they are very generous to their citizens via their oil and natural gas wealth. Now, that’d be a nice thing. Louisiana, my home state, could have done something like that as Alaska has done, but for whatever thicket of reasons, it did not!
Another subscriber has posted
* “As I see it, the regulations themselves are not so much to blame as the principle of regulatory capture, where
the groups, companies, or organizations that are "regulated" work to take over effective control of the regulatory agency and use it to protect their interests,
rather than the interests of the public. Once a regulatory body is captured, I have seen no effective means to free it, other than to abolish it completely,
and this is not easy!” I agree. I wonder if a multi-party political system with ranked voting would smooth out some of the bipartisan gridlock, name calling, and posturing? Would adding more representatives to the House help. The law setting out the population to representative ratio is many decades old and was based on the 1920 census, if memory serves. Don’t we need a redo.
This Fourth Turning (think Neil Howe’s latest book) is indeed jarring.) So much legislation today often hangs on one or two votes; the thinnest of margins. I won’t even get into the gerrymandering claims each major party has made against the other party and the executive branch’s involvement. But it’s there for both sides to debate. It can at times feel like the country is riding a roller coaster with no brakes. Or that it is viewed by some as a cash register, and that others follow the dictum company over country or at the very least “The business of America is business.” Oh, it is business, but aren’t we even more than just a spreadsheet.
And on that note, I’ll sign off. Thanks for yet another interesting newsletter and affording me the opportunity to attempt to collect my thoughts and post here.
Unfortunately cars are an incredibly space inefficient way of moving people around. Trains would be much more efficient. You would need larger diameter tunnels for trains. But an even cheaper solution exists, elevated rail like the Skytrain in Vancouver.
I graduated from the University of Texas - Austin in 1982!! I'm living in Georgia now, but some of my family is still in San Antonio. I was in the Austin area about 2 years ago - a completely different world from 1982!! I drove out to see the Tesla plant just outside of Austin. Took me almost a full minute to drive the entire length of the plant! At 80 miles per hour!!
These tunnels between factories remind me of how the Industrial Revolution got started in Britain. It was the quick-to-build canals, which served effectively as conveyor belts between factories - raw materials, components and fuel in, finished goods out. Britain excelled in these small-scale supply lines, which went across country, where there were no rivers. This was unlike mainland Europe, which relied on the large rivers.
Of course, the quick efficiency of Britain's canals were their own downfall when they helped build the early railways. Something to ponder when considering the future of Tesla's tunnels.
In the cost comparisons, you should compare apples to apples.
It is easy to see why a small tunnel just fitting one car and in a very raw state is cheaper than a tunnel fitting three lanes that also big trucks can use, with air filtration and fire extinguishing systems, emergency exits and finished walls.
The Blight is real and like so many things in this world, imho, it probably runs in cycles, much like so many other "things" in this world e.g. economic debt cycles .... just saying, as a rational optimist I am waiting for the "other side" lol
Sorry, Chicago is a hard NO. Unless those are Union Laborers digging and they have a City Permit and have significant minority and female representation.
Your comments on the "blight" are spot-on. The leadership in local agencies are well intended as they create this mountain of obstacles to progress. In most cases, each regulation is an overreaction to an event that we don't want to ever happen again. It could be a developer who creates a dangerous slope on the property that leads to mudslides or someone who steals someone else's property. Good intentions often end up compounding the pain. Additionally, it often gets someone elected so I don't see it ever going away.
I love this practical Industrial tech stuff. For perspective on tunneling cost when I ran a Power T&D Utility project ten years ago a "Jack & Bore" tunnel ran around $17,000. per foot for a 42" diameter bore. That would be around $89.7mm per mile. Larger diameter tunnel for a lot less money and you get to take your equipment to the next job. Pretty darn good!
Fascinating. IMO Elon is a combination of todays John Galt and Howard Hughes. His ideas are gargantuan beyond the scope of most meer mortals. ☺️
Peter Thiel is a completely different personality and focus but none the less interesting. I've watched him since early PayPal but wasnt even aware of Musk at the time.
I feel fortunate to be able to witness some of the "brain trust" alive a this point in history.
I look forward to the next installment.
Nice seeing you last week Great write up. Federalism is a natural defense against bureaucratic stagnation that all aging civilizations are subject to. Europe on the other hand went the other direction with the EU and is now paying for it IN spades.
ROS, your reporting is fabulous! It's so refreshing to read about the innovation that's occuring to solve some of mankinds biggest challenges. The focus on positives is healthy and has a near medicinal impact on our psyche.
Agreed
The mayor of Las Vegas is a Democrat. I think it would be a better article if you did not take political swipes but stayed with the facts.
This is very skimpy:
" And Prufrock’s diameter exactly matches that of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, making the parts somewhat interchangeable."
What parts can possibly be interchangeable between a rocket and a boring machine?
I enjoy your Substack, it provides a great change of pace from the doom & gloom I get from so many other sources. Thanks for doing it!
I would raise a point about the "blight" to consider. I think the regulation is a natural response to population density, with the purpose of limiting that density. It's not surprising that people who may have originally moved to avoid population density want to limit its increase. An additional benefit is to force the development of underutilized land, improving its value and attractiveness. How many more people can be jammed into SoCal?
Second point, you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs & wealthy people. In general, they don't like being told "No". They often view any restraint on their activities as unreasonable and irrational. I'm sure that the people creating the regulations believe the same about their actions. Finding a reasonable balance is critical to maintaining a society that can live together and still improve itself.
I would suggest we develop a way to manage our regulations to provide that balance, and to ensure as efficient a process as possible. I think the Founders expected that to be the responsibility of the legislative branch, but unfortunately, that responsibility has been abandoned by our current generation of representatives.
I have a slightly different perspective. As I see it, the regulations themselves are not so much to blame as the principle of regulatory capture, where the groups, companies, or organizations that are "regulated" work to take over effective control of the regulatory agency and use it to protect their interests, rather than the interests of the public. Once a regulatory body is captured, I have seen no effective means to free it, other than to abolish it completely, and this is not easy! The new owners will fight tooth and nail to keep their power, using the original arguments for forming the agency as the basis for their argument, even though it is now effectively working against those ends.
Good point, agree in general, usually takes a regime change to get new leadership and a change in direction.
Flipside, similar problem when a company gets monopoly control of a market. Very difficult to dislodge.
Au contrair - I believe 'the blight' is the result of a quest for power!
I suspect a quest for power is true of government and of technopolists as well.
Greed - AKA the quest for power, is a universal human trait. Sure, there are minor exceptions but that does not change the rule.
So no legitimate concerns? Like more noise, or more traffic, or inconvenience during construction? One of the challenges with capitalism is the failure to account for the impact of indirect costs that affect neighbors.
I find your original comment akin to putting lipstick on a pig.
I feel a bit scattered thinking about today’s newsletter. I hesitate to respond as I doubt my thoughts are as cogent as I’d prefer. But here goes …
One might hope that at some point ROS-inspired financial types might develop an ROS-themed ETF. That’d be something to invest in with some of the risk smoothed out by a balance of companies. I know John Mauldin’s group does research and suggests tech and other similar investment opportunities along with alternative investment possibilities for their paid newsletter subscribers.
I am not opposed to innovation and progress. I wish I could benefit from some of the expensive just-out medical developments such as TPE. But Elon Musk concerns me! One writer said His ideas are gargantuan, and I’d suggest that perhaps his ego is as well. I know blind people who left X because of the firing of the portion of the company that dealt with accessibility. Do blind people not rate?
Did Doge make the government more efficient? It seemed so chaotic from what I gleaned from reading the Tangle newsletter.
Is affording someone the possibility to become a trillionaire really a good thing?
Governments have at least to a certain extent constraints on power. These tech bros seem to do as they will. It appears an elderly Congress does not fully understand all of the ramifications of unconstrained tech and privacy issues. Absolute power and Lord Actin.
You mentioned Uber as a model for the Boring Company. So will its employees really be subcontractors with no benefits. Obviously, they won’t be expected to provide their own tunnelling machines, but is Uber an easy way to earn a living as a main hustle, not a side hustle? I’m not sure. I know the author of the recent book Enshitification would warn about this business model and mention that we are veering dangerously close to techno-feudalism. He decries the treatment of Amazon delivery drivers who are technically sub-contractors, not employees. I’m not an investigative reporter, but these issues do concern me. I hope they are exaggerated.
It is my understanding that Peter Thiel prefers businesses with high moats, meaning businesses that have managed their environments such that it is nearly impossible for competition to impact them. Surely, this structure creates powerful monopolies and duopolies. As far back as the 1890s, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to hedge against this phenomenon. Wasn’t President Theodore Roosevelt known as a trust buster, at least to some extent.
Several of your readers have raised interesting concerns.
* “you talk to a lot of entrepreneurs & wealthy people. In general, they don't like being told "No". They often view any restraint on their
activities as unreasonable and irrational. I'm sure that the people creating the regulations believe the same about their actions. Finding a reasonable
balance is critical to maintaining a society that can live together and still improve itself.”
I have been given to understand that the UAE has been criticized for its treatment of South Asian workers who do the heavy lifting in the construction and hospitality industries. Again, I do not live there. I have found your comments about living there fascinating. I do wonder how their system of laws works. The UAE is a collection of seven polities and are Muslim. Do non-citizens have similar rights to citizens. I have heard that the number of citizens of the Gulf States is a small percentage of their total population and that they are very generous to their citizens via their oil and natural gas wealth. Now, that’d be a nice thing. Louisiana, my home state, could have done something like that as Alaska has done, but for whatever thicket of reasons, it did not!
Another subscriber has posted
* “As I see it, the regulations themselves are not so much to blame as the principle of regulatory capture, where
the groups, companies, or organizations that are "regulated" work to take over effective control of the regulatory agency and use it to protect their interests,
rather than the interests of the public. Once a regulatory body is captured, I have seen no effective means to free it, other than to abolish it completely,
and this is not easy!” I agree. I wonder if a multi-party political system with ranked voting would smooth out some of the bipartisan gridlock, name calling, and posturing? Would adding more representatives to the House help. The law setting out the population to representative ratio is many decades old and was based on the 1920 census, if memory serves. Don’t we need a redo.
This Fourth Turning (think Neil Howe’s latest book) is indeed jarring.) So much legislation today often hangs on one or two votes; the thinnest of margins. I won’t even get into the gerrymandering claims each major party has made against the other party and the executive branch’s involvement. But it’s there for both sides to debate. It can at times feel like the country is riding a roller coaster with no brakes. Or that it is viewed by some as a cash register, and that others follow the dictum company over country or at the very least “The business of America is business.” Oh, it is business, but aren’t we even more than just a spreadsheet.
And on that note, I’ll sign off. Thanks for yet another interesting newsletter and affording me the opportunity to attempt to collect my thoughts and post here.
Best
Unfortunately cars are an incredibly space inefficient way of moving people around. Trains would be much more efficient. You would need larger diameter tunnels for trains. But an even cheaper solution exists, elevated rail like the Skytrain in Vancouver.
I graduated from the University of Texas - Austin in 1982!! I'm living in Georgia now, but some of my family is still in San Antonio. I was in the Austin area about 2 years ago - a completely different world from 1982!! I drove out to see the Tesla plant just outside of Austin. Took me almost a full minute to drive the entire length of the plant! At 80 miles per hour!!
Love what you guys are doing!! Keep it up!
Michael Polansky
These tunnels between factories remind me of how the Industrial Revolution got started in Britain. It was the quick-to-build canals, which served effectively as conveyor belts between factories - raw materials, components and fuel in, finished goods out. Britain excelled in these small-scale supply lines, which went across country, where there were no rivers. This was unlike mainland Europe, which relied on the large rivers.
Of course, the quick efficiency of Britain's canals were their own downfall when they helped build the early railways. Something to ponder when considering the future of Tesla's tunnels.
In the cost comparisons, you should compare apples to apples.
It is easy to see why a small tunnel just fitting one car and in a very raw state is cheaper than a tunnel fitting three lanes that also big trucks can use, with air filtration and fire extinguishing systems, emergency exits and finished walls.
Love this!
The Blight is real and like so many things in this world, imho, it probably runs in cycles, much like so many other "things" in this world e.g. economic debt cycles .... just saying, as a rational optimist I am waiting for the "other side" lol
Sorry, Chicago is a hard NO. Unless those are Union Laborers digging and they have a City Permit and have significant minority and female representation.
Your comments on the "blight" are spot-on. The leadership in local agencies are well intended as they create this mountain of obstacles to progress. In most cases, each regulation is an overreaction to an event that we don't want to ever happen again. It could be a developer who creates a dangerous slope on the property that leads to mudslides or someone who steals someone else's property. Good intentions often end up compounding the pain. Additionally, it often gets someone elected so I don't see it ever going away.