There was a CityNerd video (which you may take or leave in general, but I found the anecdote interesting) in which there appeared to be one vehicle in service on the entire system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPjODKUxV5g
I assume though that they would adjust the capacity depending on time of day and whether there's an event or something going on, to some degree.
When we were in Vegas for Def Con, one of the tube stations was next to one of the Las Vegas Convention Center entrances. I'd occasionally hang out there with friends, and once every half an hour or so, we'd see a lonely Tesla weave through the traffic cone path and disappear into the nethers.
Based purely on my own observations, I'd guesstimate that station sees about 50-75 cars per day.
I just hope there is never a battery fire down there, because there appears to be no evacuation tunnel or safety procedures. I don't think you can even get the car doors open in the tunnel.
More accurately all this so Elon Musk could keep peddling the lie that boreholes and cars are the future of public transit. What’s a little fraud and environmental harm compared to such a lofty goal?
If you’re curious, this is a demo/experiment. The long term goal is tunnels so inexpensive that they can go 30 levels deep, letting us travel within cities at 200kph with no stop signs (even eliminate automobiles from the surface of cities)
This will require considerable progress in tunneling r&d, which is their primary activity
The tricky thing about environmental regulations is that they are crafted and utilized by NIMBYs to block any infrastructure development. Even if, on balance, the infrastructure is a net positive.
It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.
> Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns.
That sounds like a "real environmental hazard" to me.
This is a company owned by the same guy whose other company is dumping huge amounts of pollution into the air around Memphis, TN. And when asked they basically said “no we aren’t.”
This is so wildly ignorant that I wasn't sure what website I was on for a minute.
Clearly, anyone who says [complex, multifaceted loose grouping of kind of related things] is [extreme, polarizing claim with no evidence] is not worth listening to further.
Please explain exactly what regulations in this context were 'crafted and utilized by NIMBYs'. Please cite agency and ruling for each supposed grave offense to your anti-NIMBY sensibilities.
> It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.
Here’s an article that has some details on some of the violations [1]. The sound like things that the state legitimately should be regulating and that this would have minimal impact on growth.
It's not the boring process. It's the use of concrete curing accelerants producing toxic sludge.
Often, the accelerants would spill into groundwater and mix with concrete and other debris, creating a toxic mix of sludge, sometimes about two-feet deep, that workers would often have to trudge through. The OSHA report cited workers with permanently scarred arms and legs, and one instance in which a worker was hit in the face and seared with the chemical mix. Temperatures would regularly rise to 100 degrees as workers often toiled for 12 hour days, sometimes for six or seven days a week, at a worksite nicknamed “the plantation” by some workers, who spoke to the Nevada safety agency for its report. Workers also claimed having to ask for permission to use the bathroom.
That's the OSHA complaint. The environmental complaint comes from disposing of that sludge.
Sludge removal and treatment is a standard problem in tunneling. Usually, it's pumped out with "trash pumps" that can tolerate rocks and sand. Then it goes through some basic processing - screen out the big rocks, separate water from wet sludge, run the water through a mini sewerage treatment plant on site, squeeze more water out of the sludge, add bentonite as an absorbent to lock up toxics, and truck away the dry sludge.[2]
What it seems The Boring Company has been doing is dumping the wet sludge on a vacant lot in Las Vegas [3] and waiting for the water to run off or evaporate. The vacant lot isn't even out in the desert outside the city; it's in town, and the nearby mall is annoyed.
Reports of water two feet deep in the tunnels means they skimped on pumps and water processing. They're using a TBM, which makes a concrete tube as it digs. Most tunneling operations keep the completed tube dry.
> Leffel questioned whether a $250,000 penalty would be significant enough to change operations at The Boring Co., which was valued at $7 billion in 2023. Studies show that fines that don’t put a significant dent in a company’s profit don’t deter companies from future violations, Leffel said.
A 250k penalty? Get real. Leffel said it like it is. What a sham.
> “Given the extraordinary number of violations, NDEP has decided to exercise its discretion to reduce the penalty to two $5,000 violations per permit, which it believes offers a reasonable penalty that will still serve to deter future non-compliance conduct,” regulators wrote in the letter.
The fuck?
"You were driving so fast we gave you a discount on the speeding fine."
60 admirals got investigated. One, Admiral Gilbeau, got the first felony on active duty in modern history = 1.5 year prison, and continue collecting your $10,000 monthly pension (while in prison). There were admittedly some punishments, there was also a lot of community service, misdemeanor, $100.
"You did too much crime. Therefore, we will charge you for fewer crimes! Bulk discount!"
This is ridiculous and why we have the problems with late-stage capitalism that we do. Fines are not high enough. No jail time for environmental crimes.
I think the big picture here is much more important. If tunneling technology is radically improved, we're going to see massive improvements in urban living, including:
• Cleaner air at street level because vehicle exhaust stays underground and can be filtered, which would have massive health and environmental benefits
• Quieter cities with most traffic noise eliminated
• Cooler temperatures since asphalt and vehicle heat are removed from the surface (urban heat island effect)
• More space for trees, parks, and gardens, improving urban greenery.
• Lower stress levels thanks to quieter, greener surroundings.
• Better physical health from more walkable, pedestrian-friendly spaces.
There is simply no way to make enough tunnels for personal vehicles. That is basic city planning. Building more roads increases congestion.
The only _real_ way to achieve the above goals are building bicycle friendly cities with diverse public transport options and less parking spaces. There are European cities that function more like this.
> • Cleaner air at street level because vehicle exhaust stays underground and can be filtered, which would have massive health and environmental benefits
What exhaust? These are all electric cars running in the tunnels.
> Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns.
I think we can do a little better while still reaping the improvements garnered by tunneling.
You think, in america, that someone would pay for putting all of our roads underground? No. They simply want to put a very tiny number of roads underground because even a catastrophically expensive tunneling project is cheaper than negotiating with all the people who own the actual land you would rather pave a road or rail through.
Then we should stop with amatuer hour and outsource to China, where they've lapped us in tunneling technology. It will take more than one ketamine-fueled billionaire breaking laws in Vegas to catch up.
Look at Paris or London, we don't need to improve tunnel boring. We just need to get rid of cars and build subways. The technology has been there for more than a century at this point. The Vegas Loop is a laughable solution to a problem that does not exist.
Looks like the regulations are not fit for purpose. Why would companies ever improve if its cheaper to just ignore the regulations and pay the tepid fines?
That is a very deceptive video/article (at least the first half above the paywall). It is true that a few of these sats will have to come down each day, but the video is of a booster failure/explosion, not a normal planned obsolescence sat re-entry.
And re-entry is part of the cleanup plan. All satellites responsibly launched need a plan to deal with possible orbital waste. By decommissioning in this way, we're reducing overall impact of the constellation.
Given the immense possible good worldwide internet can provide, and the virtuous cycle it creates for the US launch industry, it's really hard to take these claims seriously.
The worst thing about space exploration is that it's not fun and optimistic like it was before this specific 2020s phase of capitalism, the best thing is that this crop of billionaires will all be dead before the real cool future stuff could happen anyway.
> “Environmental regulations are, in my view, largely terrible,” he said at an event with the libertarian Cato Institute last year. “You have to get permission in advance, as opposed to, say, paying a penalty if you do something wrong, which I think would be much more effective.”
This quote is particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation, and effectively restrict certain things to only the already-massively-rich entrepreneurs. However, (IMHO) there are a lot of regulations that are important and absolutely should be enforced up front. Finding the right balance is kind of impossible, and I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but even well-intended regulations often just create roadblocks and cement incumbents in a particular space.
This might work if they have to pay for the full cost of cleanup. Unfortunately as we've seen, limited liability means the company declares bankruptcy and the taxpayers are stuck with the bill.
Fines that are too small to matter are just called permits after the fact. Hardly the penalty a fine should be, and this is hardly the first time that kind of thing has happened.
Yeah, of course you'd rather pay a fine when your net worth is thousands of times more than most people's, and the fines aren't scaled according to net worth.
You see this from time to time with headlines like "$CORP fined fifty MILLION dollars for ..." And then when you look into the details the fine turns out to be about one week of revenue and the offense resulted in early death for thousands of people over the past five years.
He is right, but also the fines need to be higher, especially for repeated violations.
Ever worked in a company where you need approval from 7 separate teams to land a simple change? Just can't get anything done, no matter how useful. This is a huge problem. People generally do not understand what serialized blocking does to performance.
On the other hand the fines cited in the article seem laughably low. I don't know how much ground water was discharged, and how big of a deal it is, but at certain pricetag even billionaires will say: well, it's cheaper to get a cistern and take that water to a water treatment facility or something.
> particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter
It’s telling that billionaires are human?
Fines being too small to matter are a phenomenon across the income spectrum. From delivery drivers dancing with New York meter maids to American tourists ignoring overseas traffic rules, the notion that inadequate fines stop deterring and become merely a nuisance is well know.
I mean, this is right out of two books: Abundance, and Why Nothing Works. Both spend maybe 1/3 of their pages detailing the excesses and legalistic nature of env reviews. They are weaponized for political reasons and cause an insane amount of delays. They are put in place for the right reasons, but are too effective at slowing projects down.
At this point we all know Musk only did this as part of his general "hyperloop" boondoggle to kill California high speed rail. Why do we have to continue to pretend this was anything other than an idiotic PR stunt?
The criticisms of what the Boring Company has built are completely valid. I suggest you actually read them and consider them rather than just blatantly disregarding them because they might be interpreted as criticism of Elon.
> in service of the development of modern subterranean transportation
It's not really that, it's a weird parody of "modern subterranean transportation". They could do interesting things with it, but right now it's just private roads. It isn't more efficient than a subway, it isn't more flexible, but it's likely more dangerous.
Looks at Hyperloop. Looks at London subway. Looks at NYC subway. Looks at literally any other subway Yeah, a poorly-made tunnel with cars that fit 2-3 people at a time while requiring each car to have their own driver is very modern and definitely worth environmental violations.
leakycap|4 months ago
daemonologist|4 months ago
I assume though that they would adjust the capacity depending on time of day and whether there's an event or something going on, to some degree.
kstrauser|4 months ago
Based purely on my own observations, I'd guesstimate that station sees about 50-75 cars per day.
cedws|4 months ago
EA-3167|4 months ago
leetharris|4 months ago
[deleted]
testing22321|4 months ago
Tens of thousands of riders when I was there and not a spec of dirt. Very far from perfect, but a long way from useless.
paulsutter|4 months ago
This will require considerable progress in tunneling r&d, which is their primary activity
Seattle3503|4 months ago
It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.
3D30497420|4 months ago
> Workers have complained of chemical burns from the waste material generated by the tunneling process, and firefighters must decontaminate their equipment after conducting rescues from the project sites. The company was fined more than $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns.
That sounds like a "real environmental hazard" to me.
doawoo|4 months ago
Something tells me it’s not NIMBYism.
idiotsecant|4 months ago
Clearly, anyone who says [complex, multifaceted loose grouping of kind of related things] is [extreme, polarizing claim with no evidence] is not worth listening to further.
Please explain exactly what regulations in this context were 'crafted and utilized by NIMBYs'. Please cite agency and ruling for each supposed grave offense to your anti-NIMBY sensibilities.
tzs|4 months ago
Here’s an article that has some details on some of the violations [1]. The sound like things that the state legitimately should be regulating and that this would have minimal impact on growth.
[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-boring-company-...
maxnevermind|4 months ago
ceejayoz|4 months ago
micromacrofoot|4 months ago
delfinom|4 months ago
Its also outrageous that companies have to pay for workman's comp insurance /s
miltonlost|4 months ago
Animats|4 months ago
It's not the boring process. It's the use of concrete curing accelerants producing toxic sludge.
Often, the accelerants would spill into groundwater and mix with concrete and other debris, creating a toxic mix of sludge, sometimes about two-feet deep, that workers would often have to trudge through. The OSHA report cited workers with permanently scarred arms and legs, and one instance in which a worker was hit in the face and seared with the chemical mix. Temperatures would regularly rise to 100 degrees as workers often toiled for 12 hour days, sometimes for six or seven days a week, at a worksite nicknamed “the plantation” by some workers, who spoke to the Nevada safety agency for its report. Workers also claimed having to ask for permission to use the bathroom.
That's the OSHA complaint. The environmental complaint comes from disposing of that sludge.
Sludge removal and treatment is a standard problem in tunneling. Usually, it's pumped out with "trash pumps" that can tolerate rocks and sand. Then it goes through some basic processing - screen out the big rocks, separate water from wet sludge, run the water through a mini sewerage treatment plant on site, squeeze more water out of the sludge, add bentonite as an absorbent to lock up toxics, and truck away the dry sludge.[2]
What it seems The Boring Company has been doing is dumping the wet sludge on a vacant lot in Las Vegas [3] and waiting for the water to run off or evaporate. The vacant lot isn't even out in the desert outside the city; it's in town, and the nearby mall is annoyed.
Reports of water two feet deep in the tunnels means they skimped on pumps and water processing. They're using a TBM, which makes a concrete tube as it digs. Most tunneling operations keep the completed tube dry.
[1] https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/elon-musks-boring-company-subje...
[2] https://www.blackrhinosep.com/application/tunneling-slurry-s...
[3] https://lasvegas.citycast.fm/explainers/boring-company-drill...
hashstring|4 months ago
A 250k penalty? Get real. Leffel said it like it is. What a sham.
inemesitaffia|4 months ago
ceejayoz|4 months ago
The fuck?
"You were driving so fast we gave you a discount on the speeding fine."
3D30497420|4 months ago
fvrghl|4 months ago
araes|4 months ago
Fat Leonard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal "Lets take the entire United States Seventh Fleet to the South Pacific for prostitutes and classified material handovers."
60 admirals got investigated. One, Admiral Gilbeau, got the first felony on active duty in modern history = 1.5 year prison, and continue collecting your $10,000 monthly pension (while in prison). There were admittedly some punishments, there was also a lot of community service, misdemeanor, $100.
miltonlost|4 months ago
This is ridiculous and why we have the problems with late-stage capitalism that we do. Fines are not high enough. No jail time for environmental crimes.
ETH_start|4 months ago
• Cleaner air at street level because vehicle exhaust stays underground and can be filtered, which would have massive health and environmental benefits
• Quieter cities with most traffic noise eliminated
• Cooler temperatures since asphalt and vehicle heat are removed from the surface (urban heat island effect)
• More space for trees, parks, and gardens, improving urban greenery.
• Lower stress levels thanks to quieter, greener surroundings.
• Better physical health from more walkable, pedestrian-friendly spaces.
olelele|4 months ago
The only _real_ way to achieve the above goals are building bicycle friendly cities with diverse public transport options and less parking spaces. There are European cities that function more like this.
This is anathemic to the US of course.
jmuguy|4 months ago
PhotonHunter|4 months ago
What exhaust? These are all electric cars running in the tunnels.
willk|4 months ago
I think we can do a little better while still reaping the improvements garnered by tunneling.
sleepybrett|4 months ago
codyb|4 months ago
I can see several things I find _concerning_ about them...
standardUser|4 months ago
Then we should stop with amatuer hour and outsource to China, where they've lapped us in tunneling technology. It will take more than one ketamine-fueled billionaire breaking laws in Vegas to catch up.
thrance|4 months ago
AlienRobot|4 months ago
Stevvo|4 months ago
mystraline|4 months ago
But oh poor Musk (being the richest in the world) has to have his fine reduced.
Fine you say? Cool. That tells everyone that this is just a payment to continue as normal and to include this extra fee.
And that if this crime is a fine, then its only for the lower class.
ck2|4 months ago
it's always privatize the profits, socialize the costs
he's doing the same thing with Starlink which is going to vaporize many thousands of toxic satellites out of LEO into the atmosphere
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
imagine what he's going to do on the Moon or Mars
jvanderbot|4 months ago
And re-entry is part of the cleanup plan. All satellites responsibly launched need a plan to deal with possible orbital waste. By decommissioning in this way, we're reducing overall impact of the constellation.
Given the immense possible good worldwide internet can provide, and the virtuous cycle it creates for the US launch industry, it's really hard to take these claims seriously.
add-sub-mul-div|4 months ago
maxeda|4 months ago
This quote is particularly telling of a billionaire's mindset when the fines are too small to matter.
freedomben|4 months ago
amanaplanacanal|4 months ago
eddieroger|4 months ago
tejohnso|4 months ago
You see this from time to time with headlines like "$CORP fined fifty MILLION dollars for ..." And then when you look into the details the fine turns out to be about one week of revenue and the offense resulted in early death for thousands of people over the past five years.
dpc_01234|4 months ago
Ever worked in a company where you need approval from 7 separate teams to land a simple change? Just can't get anything done, no matter how useful. This is a huge problem. People generally do not understand what serialized blocking does to performance.
On the other hand the fines cited in the article seem laughably low. I don't know how much ground water was discharged, and how big of a deal it is, but at certain pricetag even billionaires will say: well, it's cheaper to get a cistern and take that water to a water treatment facility or something.
JumpCrisscross|4 months ago
It’s telling that billionaires are human?
Fines being too small to matter are a phenomenon across the income spectrum. From delivery drivers dancing with New York meter maids to American tourists ignoring overseas traffic rules, the notion that inadequate fines stop deterring and become merely a nuisance is well know.
terminalshort|4 months ago
jvanderbot|4 months ago
thegreatpeter|4 months ago
https://www.ktnv.com/news/workers-allege-chemical-burns-from...
abvdasker|4 months ago
qingcharles|4 months ago
leetharris|4 months ago
herval|4 months ago
sleepybrett|4 months ago
IT4MD|4 months ago
jvanderbot|4 months ago
Sohcahtoa82|4 months ago
ww520|4 months ago
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/california-dismantles-landmark-e...
recursive4|4 months ago
gs17|4 months ago
It's not really that, it's a weird parody of "modern subterranean transportation". They could do interesting things with it, but right now it's just private roads. It isn't more efficient than a subway, it isn't more flexible, but it's likely more dangerous.
Sohcahtoa82|4 months ago
I suggest you actually look into what the the Boring Company's roads in Las Vegas actually are.
What you image as subterranean transportation isn't even what BC is striving for.
tokai|4 months ago
regularjack|4 months ago
miltonlost|4 months ago
Looks at Hyperloop. Looks at London subway. Looks at NYC subway. Looks at literally any other subway Yeah, a poorly-made tunnel with cars that fit 2-3 people at a time while requiring each car to have their own driver is very modern and definitely worth environmental violations.
GuinansEyebrows|4 months ago
sgerenser|4 months ago