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New York to London… in 54 Minutes?

There are plenty of reasons to hate flying.

The fear of crashing is a big one, of course. It doesn’t matter how many times an aerophobic individual hears that it’s safer to fly than to drive. The thought of something going wrong at 40,000 feet – no matter how small the chance – still leaves people riddled with anxiety.

But even if you’re not afraid of flying, there are plenty of reasons to hate the experience:

  • Getting through security

  • Worrying whether your carry-on luggage will be flagged for being 1/100th of an inch larger than mandated

  • The threat of delays

  • The possibility of sitting by someone obnoxious

  • The discomfort of standard airline seating

Most of those problems get worse when it comes to international travel. A flight from New York City to London, for instance, means seven hours straight of questionable peace of mind.

So how amazing would it be to slash that time down to just 54 minutes? Especially when it also means you can choose your seat…

Move if you want to…

And not have to worry about weather patterns adding hours or worse to your travel time?

That’s the idea behind building a transatlantic tunnel to connect the U.S. and U.K. To some degree, it’s somewhat like the Channel Tunnel (the Chunnel) that connects France and England… only a little bit longer.

The Chunnel only spans 23.5 miles, whereas the proposed path between Britain and its former New York colony is a whopping 3,400 miles.

It also wouldn’t involve anyone driving, with trains working off vacuum tube technology. Essentially, because travel happens in an environment void of almost any friction, objects can move exceptionally fast.

That’s amazing… if it can actually be done.

The idea has been floating around for years. But nothing has ever come of it, and for good reason. It would cost an estimated $19.8 trillion, roughly equivalent to China’s annual GDP.

But cometh the hour; cometh the man. And Elon Musk believes he could be the one to get it done.

If Anyone Could Get a Transatlantic Tunnel Going, It’s Probably Elon Musk

I don’t know what prompted talk of a transatlantic tunnel this time. But when someone on X posted earlier this week how a “proposed $20 trillion tunnel would get you from New York to London in 54 minutes,” Elon Musk came back with this:

The @boringcompany could do it for 1,000x less money.

The Boring Company is a Musk-owned company that “creates safe, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels.” Its mission is to “solve traffic, enable rapid point-to-point transportation, and transform cities.”

And, if its ultimate head honcho’s latest comment is any indication, it has no problem wading into deeper waters, too.

The Boring Company, admittedly, has limited success stories so far. Started as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, it was soon spun off as its own corporation. But since inception, it’s only completed three projects:

  • A test tunnel in L.A. that’s remained a test tunnel ever since

  • The Hyperloop Test Track, which isn’t yet open to the public

  • The fully operational Las Vegas Loop at the Las Vegas Convention Center

That latter project, to quote the Boring Company, “is an all-electric, zero-emissions, high-speed underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported to their destination with no intermediate stops.”

It’s an impressive feat, but considering how it is still just one project… and one that spans less than two miles… I don’t blame anyone for thinking Elon Musk might just be full of it. And I wouldn’t put it past a CEO to talk up his own company.

Then again, this is the same guy whose other company, SpaceX, launched a 400-foot-tall rocket just two months ago… then caught it as it came back to Earth. That engineering feat, which has never been done before, could go on to save the space industry billions – maybe even trillions – in resources going forward.

So, if anyone can pull off a 3,400-mile underwater tunnel for just $19.8 billion, it’s probably going to be him.

A Transatlantic Tunnel Would Be Very Disruptive

At first glance, it seems impossible. And who knows? Maybe it is.

But human beings have done seemingly impossible things before. The Transcontinental Railroad was once considered impossible… or nearly so. Sending humans into space used to be science fiction. Go back far enough, and flight itself was considered a pipe dream.

So, let’s speculate a bit. If it can be done, what does that world even look like?

In that case, there would be a whole lot of disruption to a whole lot of industries.

Take the travel industry. According to aviation data provider Cirium, a group of major airlines – including American, British, United, and Virgin Atlantic – fly a combined 72 flights per day between New York City and London. If we put the average one-way price at $300, that’s $7.88 million lost in ticket prices right there.

Hardly a death knoll for an industry that had $263.3 billion in operating revenue last year. And this also assumes that absolutely everyone would prefer to travel “under the sea” rather than above it.

Then again, I imagine that people in France might happily take the Chunnel to use the transatlantic channel if it meant saving themselves some time and frustration. So there would probably be a hit to Paris to NYC flights as well. The same could be said for Scotland and Ireland – both of which offer nonstop options to New York. And on the U.S. side, cities like Newark, New Jersey; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, would doubtlessly see drops in direct flights to London. Maybe Boston, Massachusetts, too, since there’s fairly easy train access to JFK.

One way or the other, this new travel resource would mean less jobs needed for pilots and flight attendants between NYC and London… along with all the ground crew positions that would become less necessary. Boeing and Airbus would no doubt lose some profits from a transatlantic high-speed train system as well.

Then there’s oil. As best I can tell, a jetliner uses about 36,000 gallons of fuel going from NYC to London. Multiply that by 72 flights and again by 365 days, and you get more than 946 million gallons per year.

If we then factor in the current national average of $2.39 per gallon, that’s up to $2.26 billion in evaporated profits.

And how about the integrated freight and logistics industry, a product-moving category that involves transporting other company’s product via large vehicles. Trains and trucks, of course, are limited to land. But I imagine that a quick, fuel-efficient route between two entire continents would dramatically challenge the shipping and aviation aspects of business like United Parcel Service (UPS), FedEx (FDX), and Moller Maersk.

Of course, this is all still theoretical. Nobody has signed a single document or paid a single dollar toward making a transatlantic tunnel. And even if Musk did get started on it today, it would take years – maybe even decades – to complete.

All the same, I can’t help wondering where it goes from here. If the world’s richest man really does want to get involved, we could see the start of something powerful begin before the 2020s end.

Regards,

Brad Thomas
Editor, Wide Moat Daily

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What are your thoughts on the talks of a transatlantic tunnel? Do you agree with Brad that it will create some challenges to things already in place? Write us at feedback@widemoatresearch.com.