Hyperloop systems, in which pods would travel inside low-pressure tubes, could be a future mode of transportation: they have the potential to be as environmentally friendly as train travel, according to the first comprehensive environmental life-cycle analysis.
Global demand for fast, long-distance travel has reached again pre-COVID levels, and it is expected to continue to grow in the coming decades. The current demand is largely met with air travel, which presents significant environmental challenges like high greenhouse gas emissions. Rail systems, while environmentally preferable, are usually slower, currently face limitations in capacity, and thus require substantial infrastructure expansion to meet growing demands. The proposed mode of transportation called hyperloop presents a potential solution to an urgent need for fast, low-carbon, long-distance travel.
Researchers at the Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have evaluated the potential environmental impacts in the first comprehensive environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of a hyperloop system. For this, they teamed up with partners at ecoinvent, a Zurich-based organization that compiles material and energy inventories to support environmental assessments and provides the world’s leading LCA database, and EuroTube, a non-profit research organization in Dübendorf near Zurich working to develop a hyperloop system. Together, they came to the conclusion that the hyperloop concept is indeed promising: Hyperloop transit could be as fast as a plane and as clean as a train, but only if two specific conditions are met.
Only 5% of the climate impact of a flight
Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system featuring end stations and pods traveling on tracks within low-pressure tubes made of either concrete or steel. The pods use magnetic levitation to glide along the tracks in a near-vacuum environment, minimizing friction and aerodynamic drag. This proposed system can carry passengers and cargo. Research and technology development for hyperloop systems is ongoing, and there is currently no hyperloop system in service. Likewise, comprehensive assessments of their environmental impact were lacking.
The new study now fills this gap. It is a first-of-its-kind environmental LCA of a hyperloop system and was recently published in the journal Resources, Environment and Sustainability. In their study, the scientists compare proposed hyperloop systems to high-speed trains and aircraft within a European context. Their finding: hyperloop does have a strong potential as an energy-efficient, low-carbon, high-speed transportation option.
For example, in terms of climate change impacts, hyperloop systems emit only 5% of the greenhouse gases a conventional aircraft would on the same journey. Similarly, compared with e-kerosene flights, the hyperloop wins by a large margin, having only a fourth of the climate impact a very short-haul flight powered with such carbon-neutral fuel would have.
The researchers’ analysis demonstrates that the climate impacts of a hyperloop transport service over its entire life cycle would be similar to those of trains. This conclusion hinges on two specific conditions:
1. The occupation rates of hyperloop have to be similar to those of current long-distance trains, though preferably higher.
2. The electricity supply for hyperloop operation has to be associated with low greenhouse gas emissions. To be precise, the hyperloop system must use an electricity mix with similarly low emissions as that which the Swiss Federal Railways are expected to use in the same future scenario.
A first-of-its-kind environmental life cycle assessment