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Considering the pollution and congestion on our roads, could it be time for the return of pneumatic tubes for deliveries? A British project called Foodtubes proposed that a network of high-speed pipelines be built underneath the United Kingdom to deliver food shipments from source to city.
The food would sail along in small capsules at upwards of 60 miles per hour. As many as 900,000 capsules could be in circulation in the nearly 2,000 miles of air pressure pipe, all of which would be controlled by smart grids that would keep food from crashing into each other. To give some semblance of order, the capsules would generally be organized into little trains of about 300 linked capsules, each spaced about a meter apart.
Now, this idea might seem a little nutty – I’ll admit it seems rather fanciful. But the people behind Foodtubes point out the UK transports 180 times more water than food everyday, and all of that is done using pipelines with minimal pollution and no traffic jams.
Up to 200,000 food-carrying trucks could be taken off British roads, which would save 40 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
Coming soon to a seaport near you: a robot dubbed the "cargo-screening ferret" that will detect drugs, weapons, explosives and even illegal immigrants hidden in cargo containers.
Recent advances in both laser and fibre optic technology now make it possible to detect tiny particles of different substances. The EPSRC-funded project team is developing sensors which incorporate these technologies and that are small enough to be carried on the 30cm-long robot, in order to detect the specific ‘fingerprint’ of illegal substances at much lower concentrations than is now possible.
When placed inside a steel freight container, the ferret will attach itself magnetically to the top, then automatically move around and seek out contraband, sending a steady stream of information back to its controller.
