10 ms·

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

316 points by maxeda 11mo ago

maxeda 11mo ago
> “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.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > 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.
  - idle_zealot 11mo ago
    Sure, but the deterrence these people are actively opposing exists to stop them from rendering the area unlivable for everyone. They know this and don't care, and are working to be allowed to ruin the world. That's what's telling.
  - fl0id 11mo ago
    it's telling that he only sees effectiveness in what he wants. these rules are there for environmental protection, and in a worst case scenario, a fine is not gonna bring back the clean soil, or whatever was done.
    - terminalshort 11mo ago
      The clean soil in downtown Las Vegas?
      - fragmede 11mo ago
        It's not like there's a canyon or river or lake nearby that is of any size or goes anywhere.
  - lucianbr 11mo ago
    Yeah, imho lots of people need reminding that billionaires are just regular joes with a very large bank account. With all the regular joe's faults. Would be useful to remember that if Musk or Bezos say something, it may have the same chance of being right as what a delivery driver would say.
    - Ekaros 11mo ago
      Or on average less empathetic and moral than regular joes... It is pretty hard to get to be billionaire without at least something average people would consider immoral.
  - majormajor 11mo ago
    Fines are usually going to be too small to matter in a world with limited-personal-liability for corporations. IMO his statement is disingenuous at that higher level. It's telling that billionaires propose things that wouldn't personally cut into their liquid assets, but instead would come out of a company that shields them from personal responsibility.
- eddieroger 11mo ago
  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.
- jvanderbot 11mo ago
  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.
- amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
  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.
  - 3D30497420 11mo ago
    And a company would rather spend multiples more fighting fines and liability than they'd actually pay in fines. Not to mention a fine won't do much for people who get sick and die.
- dpc_01234 11mo ago
  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.
  - awesome_dude 11mo ago
    Him being right, or wrong, is a bold call to make. But all he's saying is he wants to run his company the way tech entrepreneurs have been for a while - "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" which they like because it's favored toward them, and, by the time a regulator has caught up, they have made a pile of money, or lost it all and gone.
    - ETH_start 11mo ago
      For a different perspective, it's the difference between the kind of (pro-innovation) restrictions imposed on automobile companies versus those (anti-innovation) ones imposed on aircraft companies: https://fee.org/articles/how-the-faa-is-keeping-flying-cars-in-science-fiction/ https://fee.org/articles/how-the-faa-is-keeping-flying-cars-...
      - awesome_dude 11mo ago
        There's a couple of problems with that. 1. For some reason it only talks in terms of the USA, there's a whole world of manufacturers that could have stepped up to create flying cars if the market was interested. 2. There was, for a very long time, a thing called a "microlight" which allowed people to own their own snap private air craft (although not generally VTOL)
  - Avshalom 11mo ago
- freedomben 11mo ago
  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.
  - 3D30497420 11mo ago
    In some cases you are correct, however the happy middle in this case probably does not include many (most?) of their violations. One particular example: > 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 $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns. In another part, the company is accused of dumping this water directly into streets (presumably without decontamination).
    - freedomben 11mo ago
      Yes to be clear, my statement was meant very generally, not about any of these violations (which do sound pretty bad)
      - micromacrofoot 11mo ago
        then maybe this isn't the right place to make it?
    - Seattle3503 11mo ago
      I agree, this case lools like cause for concern
  - skopje 11mo ago
    >> >Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation What is an example of a regulation that was a "huge" hinderance to innovation? Looking at the past 40 years of the US technological progress and the only thing I seen hindering innovation are the tech companies themselves through monopoly, monopsony, patents, and regulatory capture. (Unless the last one is what you meant, but that's a regulation put in place by a monopoly to maintain its monopoloy and not to protect the air we breathe). EDIT: I am referring to "innovation" not "execution".
- terminalshort 11mo ago
  He's completely correct about that.
- tejohnso 11mo ago
  Yeah, of course you'd rather pay a fine when your net worth is thousands of times more than most people's, and the fines aren't scaled according to net worth. You see this from time to time with headlines like "$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.
leakycap 11mo ago
All this so a handful of passengers a week can wait for the extremely small pool of vehicles in a dusty hole
- testing22321 11mo ago
  Have you ridden the existing Vegas tunnel? 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.
  - AgentK20 11mo ago
    There were tens of thousands of riders _when you were there?_ Or there were tens of thousands of riders over the lifetime of the system? Most videos I've seen recently show a system that, while functional, typically only has a handful of vehicles running simultaneously, each with carrying capacity for one party of up to 3 people.
    - testing22321 11mo ago
      When I was there. During SEMA, the worlds biggest automotive show.
  - Moomoomoo309 11mo ago
    Tens of thousands of riders in what time period? Please, look up how many people it is capable of moving per hour, and compare that to any light rail or street car service in any city. There is no way the loop makes sense to build.
    - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
      > Please, look up how many people it is capable of moving per hour …what is it?
      - foxyv 11mo ago
        Peak ridership is about 1300/hour. About how many people you can fit in two trams. Or 10 Disneyland people movers.
ck2 11mo ago
leaving a toxic mess is a repeated part of Musk's plan with each business 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-satellites-pollution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit... imagine what he's going to do on the Moon or Mars
- add-sub-mul-div 11mo ago
  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.
  - wood_spirit 11mo ago
    Dictators discuss life-extending organ transplants https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1w9z72r6o.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1w9z72r6o.amp
  - measurablefunc 11mo ago
    They're planning to live forever. All of them are investing in longevity research & some of them are young enough to live to see a few breakthroughs that might meaningfully extend their lifespan.
  - Larrikin 11mo ago
    Xi and Putin were caught on a hot mic talking about swapping out their organs with fresh ones. I assume from their local political enemies.
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      This is getting downvoted, probably because it sounds like a loony conspiracy theory... but it isn't. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hot-mic-picks-up-putin-xi-discussing-organ-transplants-immortality-2025-09-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hot-mic-picks...
ceejayoz 11mo ago
> “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."
- 3D30497420 11mo ago
  It is even worse! "We've caught you speeding so many times that we're giving you a bulk discount."
- miltonlost 11mo ago
  "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.
  - torstenvl 11mo ago
    Do you think that isn't how it works? The guy who gets busted for possession of 1g of cocaine might get 10-30 days, depending on jurisdiction, judge, and prior record. Do you think the dealer who gets caught with 5 kilos gets between 137 and 410 years?
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      In this case, the dealer is getting an hour.
      - MrDarcy 11mo ago
        Elon is the dealer. He gets no penalty and richer from this.
    - lukan 11mo ago
      "1g of cocaine might get 10-30 days" Source please. Otherwise there is a significant difference between using and selling.
recursive4 11mo ago
800 environment violations in service of the development of modern subterranean transportation is a utilitarian trade I'll take any day of the week.
- miltonlost 11mo ago
  > modern subterranean transportation 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.
  - Ekaros 11mo ago
    Poorly made two way tunnel... Not even two tunnels so you could send traffic to both direction at same time and have actual potential for reasonable capacity.
    - 1718627440 11mo ago
      Not to defend them, but here in Germany you are not allowed to build a single two way tunnel. You always need to build two tunnels being single direction only. This is so that in case of a fire not both directions are unusable. This does not free you from the obligation to also build emergency tunnels.
- gs17 11mo ago
  > 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.
  - sleepybrett 11mo ago
    Cant wait for one of those cars to cook off it's battery pack possibly leading to the car behind it cooking off it's battery pack. And where do the humans in those cars go? Last time I looked at the press around this thing the tunnel is barely wider than the cars. Add fire and smoke and it's just a lot of dead people.
Seattle3503 11mo ago
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.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  Las Vegas does not strike me as a very friendly place for NIMBYs.
  - Ekaros 11mo ago
    Just depends on whose backyard. Haven't the casinos blocked certain possibly beneficial transport projects for long time now?
    - bobthepanda 11mo ago
      You’re thinking of the taxi industry which is the primary reason the monorail doesn’t go to the airport
  - serf 11mo ago
    sort of? vegas and the surrounding areas are totally inundated with gated communities, I bet you'd get a LOT of nimbyism in those areas. As far as the strip itself goes , well that's controlled by the corporate casino post-mafia folks. I think most of that stuff gets negotiated in backrooms.
- 3D30497420 11mo ago
  From the article: > 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.
ETH_start 11mo ago
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.
- sleepybrett 11mo ago
  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.
  - ETH_start 11mo ago
    It really depends on the legal framework governing land use, e.g. do cities have the right to use the land beneath properties. And of course how affordable tunneling becomes.
- willk 11mo 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. I think we can do a little better while still reaping the improvements garnered by tunneling.
  - ETH_start 11mo ago
    Name me any massive infrastructure development projects that didn't include some environmental damage and worker injuries. Every major infrastructure project has come at the cost of human life. Activity is inherently risky, but inactivity is also risky. We can't live without action.
sleepybrett 11mo ago
move fast and fuck the planet, I guess.
thegreatpeter 11mo ago
Isn't this old news? Didn't they figure out and address this almost 2 years ago? https://www.ktnv.com/news/workers-allege-chemical-burns-from-elon-musks-underground-tunnel-in-osha-report https://www.ktnv.com/news/workers-allege-chemical-burns-from...
herval 11mo ago
"move fast and break things"
ww520 11mo ago
Meanwhile California is rolling back environmental laws for development. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/california-dismantles-landmark-environmental-law-to-tackle-housing-crisis-44486b30 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/california-dismantles-landmark-e...
abvdasker 11mo ago
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?
- leetharris 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - abvdasker 11mo ago
    > If only it weren't for those few tweets, it would be successful and done by now. Not what I said. I said he did it to try and kill high speed rail, not that he was solely responsible for its failure. And Musk did a whole lot more than tweet. Just because you are ignorant of the significant evidence that this was (and remains) Musk's goal doesn't mean it isn't true. Ashlee Vance wrote about this way back in 2015: https://x.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 https://x.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 . Just this year he used his involvement in DOGE to cut federal funding for what remains of the project: https://gizmodo.com/musks-doge-takes-aim-at-california-high-speed-rail-and-anything-else-that-isnt-nailed-down-2000535424 https://gizmodo.com/musks-doge-takes-aim-at-california-high-...
    - terminalshort 11mo ago
      If he did it for that reason, which he didn't, we all owe him a big thank you for trying to stop that boondoggle before it started.
  - preisschild 11mo ago
    Can you Musk defenders literally not read? That is not what he wrote...
  - tomhow 11mo ago
    > Ah yes, the hyperloop is what killed California high speed rail. If only it weren't for those few tweets, it would be successful and done by now. Please avoid sneery swipes like this on HN. The guidelines ask us to do better than this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Animats 11mo ago
What's really going wrong: [1] 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-subjected-workers-to-toxic-sludge-that-left-their-arms-and-legs-permanently-scarred.html https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/elon-musks-boring-company-subje... [2] https://www.blackrhinosep.com/application/tunneling-slurry-separation-plant https://www.blackrhinosep.com/application/tunneling-slurry-s... [3] https://lasvegas.citycast.fm/explainers/boring-company-drilling-dump-leads-to-permit-questions https://lasvegas.citycast.fm/explainers/boring-company-drill...
jvanderbot 11mo ago
I am absolutely amazed at the vitrol this has conjured up. Straight up thoughtless condemnation of anything associated with Elon.
- Sohcahtoa82 11mo ago
  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.
  - jvanderbot 11mo ago
    Scrolling down the thread brings up statements about all environmental reviews, all satellite launches, and says that starlink is going to destroy humanity by ruining the atmosphere. You're right that it's easy to mistake any statement like mine as being a blanket defense of Elon and dismissing valid criticisms, but this discussion as a whole has gone far afield of cement accelerators and chemical burns.
mystraline 11mo ago
If I were to damage the environment like this, I'd be fined millions, and probably jailed as well. 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.
IT4MD 11mo ago
So, meaningless fine, then back to doing it again.
Stevvo 11mo ago
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?
hashstring 11mo ago
> 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.
- inemesitaffia 11mo ago
  Valuation isn't money.
  - hashstring 11mo ago
    Here’s another truism: losing a few pennies is unlikely to alter future behaviour. This fine is a sham.

316 points by maxeda 11mo ago

maxeda 11mo ago

> “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.

JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
> 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.
- idle_zealot 11mo ago
  Sure, but the deterrence these people are actively opposing exists to stop them from rendering the area unlivable for everyone. They know this and don't care, and are working to be allowed to ruin the world. That's what's telling.
- fl0id 11mo ago
  it's telling that he only sees effectiveness in what he wants. these rules are there for environmental protection, and in a worst case scenario, a fine is not gonna bring back the clean soil, or whatever was done.
  - terminalshort 11mo ago
    The clean soil in downtown Las Vegas?
    - fragmede 11mo ago
      It's not like there's a canyon or river or lake nearby that is of any size or goes anywhere.
- lucianbr 11mo ago
  Yeah, imho lots of people need reminding that billionaires are just regular joes with a very large bank account. With all the regular joe's faults. Would be useful to remember that if Musk or Bezos say something, it may have the same chance of being right as what a delivery driver would say.
  - Ekaros 11mo ago
    Or on average less empathetic and moral than regular joes... It is pretty hard to get to be billionaire without at least something average people would consider immoral.
- majormajor 11mo ago
  Fines are usually going to be too small to matter in a world with limited-personal-liability for corporations. IMO his statement is disingenuous at that higher level. It's telling that billionaires propose things that wouldn't personally cut into their liquid assets, but instead would come out of a company that shields them from personal responsibility.
eddieroger 11mo ago
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.
jvanderbot 11mo ago
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.
amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
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.
- 3D30497420 11mo ago
  And a company would rather spend multiples more fighting fines and liability than they'd actually pay in fines. Not to mention a fine won't do much for people who get sick and die.
dpc_01234 11mo ago
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.
- awesome_dude 11mo ago
  Him being right, or wrong, is a bold call to make. But all he's saying is he wants to run his company the way tech entrepreneurs have been for a while - "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" which they like because it's favored toward them, and, by the time a regulator has caught up, they have made a pile of money, or lost it all and gone.
  - ETH_start 11mo ago
    For a different perspective, it's the difference between the kind of (pro-innovation) restrictions imposed on automobile companies versus those (anti-innovation) ones imposed on aircraft companies: https://fee.org/articles/how-the-faa-is-keeping-flying-cars-in-science-fiction/ https://fee.org/articles/how-the-faa-is-keeping-flying-cars-...
    - awesome_dude 11mo ago
      There's a couple of problems with that. 1. For some reason it only talks in terms of the USA, there's a whole world of manufacturers that could have stepped up to create flying cars if the market was interested. 2. There was, for a very long time, a thing called a "microlight" which allowed people to own their own snap private air craft (although not generally VTOL)
- Avshalom 11mo ago
freedomben 11mo ago
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.
- 3D30497420 11mo ago
  In some cases you are correct, however the happy middle in this case probably does not include many (most?) of their violations. One particular example: > 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 $112,000 by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water in the tunnels, muck spills and burns. In another part, the company is accused of dumping this water directly into streets (presumably without decontamination).
  - freedomben 11mo ago
    Yes to be clear, my statement was meant very generally, not about any of these violations (which do sound pretty bad)
    - micromacrofoot 11mo ago
      then maybe this isn't the right place to make it?
  - Seattle3503 11mo ago
    I agree, this case lools like cause for concern
- skopje 11mo ago
  >> >Many regulations are terrible and serve as a huge hindrance to innovation What is an example of a regulation that was a "huge" hinderance to innovation? Looking at the past 40 years of the US technological progress and the only thing I seen hindering innovation are the tech companies themselves through monopoly, monopsony, patents, and regulatory capture. (Unless the last one is what you meant, but that's a regulation put in place by a monopoly to maintain its monopoloy and not to protect the air we breathe). EDIT: I am referring to "innovation" not "execution".
terminalshort 11mo ago
He's completely correct about that.
tejohnso 11mo ago
Yeah, of course you'd rather pay a fine when your net worth is thousands of times more than most people's, and the fines aren't scaled according to net worth. You see this from time to time with headlines like "$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.

leakycap 11mo ago

All this so a handful of passengers a week can wait for the extremely small pool of vehicles in a dusty hole

testing22321 11mo ago
Have you ridden the existing Vegas tunnel? 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.
- AgentK20 11mo ago
  There were tens of thousands of riders _when you were there?_ Or there were tens of thousands of riders over the lifetime of the system? Most videos I've seen recently show a system that, while functional, typically only has a handful of vehicles running simultaneously, each with carrying capacity for one party of up to 3 people.
  - testing22321 11mo ago
    When I was there. During SEMA, the worlds biggest automotive show.
- Moomoomoo309 11mo ago
  Tens of thousands of riders in what time period? Please, look up how many people it is capable of moving per hour, and compare that to any light rail or street car service in any city. There is no way the loop makes sense to build.
  - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
    > Please, look up how many people it is capable of moving per hour …what is it?
    - foxyv 11mo ago
      Peak ridership is about 1300/hour. About how many people you can fit in two trams. Or 10 Disneyland people movers.

ck2 11mo ago

leaving a toxic mess is a repeated part of Musk's plan with each business 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-satellites-pollution/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit... imagine what he's going to do on the Moon or Mars

add-sub-mul-div 11mo ago
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.
- wood_spirit 11mo ago
  Dictators discuss life-extending organ transplants https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1w9z72r6o.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1w9z72r6o.amp
- measurablefunc 11mo ago
  They're planning to live forever. All of them are investing in longevity research & some of them are young enough to live to see a few breakthroughs that might meaningfully extend their lifespan.
- Larrikin 11mo ago
  Xi and Putin were caught on a hot mic talking about swapping out their organs with fresh ones. I assume from their local political enemies.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    This is getting downvoted, probably because it sounds like a loony conspiracy theory... but it isn't. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hot-mic-picks-up-putin-xi-discussing-organ-transplants-immortality-2025-09-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hot-mic-picks...

ceejayoz 11mo ago

> “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."

3D30497420 11mo ago
It is even worse! "We've caught you speeding so many times that we're giving you a bulk discount."
miltonlost 11mo ago
"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.
- torstenvl 11mo ago
  Do you think that isn't how it works? The guy who gets busted for possession of 1g of cocaine might get 10-30 days, depending on jurisdiction, judge, and prior record. Do you think the dealer who gets caught with 5 kilos gets between 137 and 410 years?
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    In this case, the dealer is getting an hour.
    - MrDarcy 11mo ago
      Elon is the dealer. He gets no penalty and richer from this.
  - lukan 11mo ago
    "1g of cocaine might get 10-30 days" Source please. Otherwise there is a significant difference between using and selling.

recursive4 11mo ago

800 environment violations in service of the development of modern subterranean transportation is a utilitarian trade I'll take any day of the week.

miltonlost 11mo ago
> modern subterranean transportation 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.
- Ekaros 11mo ago
  Poorly made two way tunnel... Not even two tunnels so you could send traffic to both direction at same time and have actual potential for reasonable capacity.
  - 1718627440 11mo ago
    Not to defend them, but here in Germany you are not allowed to build a single two way tunnel. You always need to build two tunnels being single direction only. This is so that in case of a fire not both directions are unusable. This does not free you from the obligation to also build emergency tunnels.
gs17 11mo ago
> 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.
- sleepybrett 11mo ago
  Cant wait for one of those cars to cook off it's battery pack possibly leading to the car behind it cooking off it's battery pack. And where do the humans in those cars go? Last time I looked at the press around this thing the tunnel is barely wider than the cars. Add fire and smoke and it's just a lot of dead people.

Seattle3503 11mo ago

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.

ceejayoz 11mo ago
Las Vegas does not strike me as a very friendly place for NIMBYs.
- Ekaros 11mo ago
  Just depends on whose backyard. Haven't the casinos blocked certain possibly beneficial transport projects for long time now?
  - bobthepanda 11mo ago
    You’re thinking of the taxi industry which is the primary reason the monorail doesn’t go to the airport
- serf 11mo ago
  sort of? vegas and the surrounding areas are totally inundated with gated communities, I bet you'd get a LOT of nimbyism in those areas. As far as the strip itself goes , well that's controlled by the corporate casino post-mafia folks. I think most of that stuff gets negotiated in backrooms.
3D30497420 11mo ago
From the article: > 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.

ETH_start 11mo ago

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.

sleepybrett 11mo ago
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.
- ETH_start 11mo ago
  It really depends on the legal framework governing land use, e.g. do cities have the right to use the land beneath properties. And of course how affordable tunneling becomes.
willk 11mo 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. I think we can do a little better while still reaping the improvements garnered by tunneling.
- ETH_start 11mo ago
  Name me any massive infrastructure development projects that didn't include some environmental damage and worker injuries. Every major infrastructure project has come at the cost of human life. Activity is inherently risky, but inactivity is also risky. We can't live without action.

sleepybrett 11mo ago

move fast and fuck the planet, I guess.

thegreatpeter 11mo ago

Isn't this old news? Didn't they figure out and address this almost 2 years ago? https://www.ktnv.com/news/workers-allege-chemical-burns-from-elon-musks-underground-tunnel-in-osha-report https://www.ktnv.com/news/workers-allege-chemical-burns-from...

herval 11mo ago

"move fast and break things"

ww520 11mo ago

Meanwhile California is rolling back environmental laws for development. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/california-dismantles-landmark-environmental-law-to-tackle-housing-crisis-44486b30 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/california-dismantles-landmark-e...

abvdasker 11mo ago

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?

leetharris 11mo ago
[flagged]
- abvdasker 11mo ago
  > If only it weren't for those few tweets, it would be successful and done by now. Not what I said. I said he did it to try and kill high speed rail, not that he was solely responsible for its failure. And Musk did a whole lot more than tweet. Just because you are ignorant of the significant evidence that this was (and remains) Musk's goal doesn't mean it isn't true. Ashlee Vance wrote about this way back in 2015: https://x.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 https://x.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 . Just this year he used his involvement in DOGE to cut federal funding for what remains of the project: https://gizmodo.com/musks-doge-takes-aim-at-california-high-speed-rail-and-anything-else-that-isnt-nailed-down-2000535424 https://gizmodo.com/musks-doge-takes-aim-at-california-high-...
  - terminalshort 11mo ago
    If he did it for that reason, which he didn't, we all owe him a big thank you for trying to stop that boondoggle before it started.
- preisschild 11mo ago
  Can you Musk defenders literally not read? That is not what he wrote...
- tomhow 11mo ago
  > Ah yes, the hyperloop is what killed California high speed rail. If only it weren't for those few tweets, it would be successful and done by now. Please avoid sneery swipes like this on HN. The guidelines ask us to do better than this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Animats 11mo ago

What's really going wrong: [1] 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-subjected-workers-to-toxic-sludge-that-left-their-arms-and-legs-permanently-scarred.html https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/elon-musks-boring-company-subje... [2] https://www.blackrhinosep.com/application/tunneling-slurry-separation-plant https://www.blackrhinosep.com/application/tunneling-slurry-s... [3] https://lasvegas.citycast.fm/explainers/boring-company-drilling-dump-leads-to-permit-questions https://lasvegas.citycast.fm/explainers/boring-company-drill...

jvanderbot 11mo ago

I am absolutely amazed at the vitrol this has conjured up. Straight up thoughtless condemnation of anything associated with Elon.

Sohcahtoa82 11mo ago
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.
- jvanderbot 11mo ago
  Scrolling down the thread brings up statements about all environmental reviews, all satellite launches, and says that starlink is going to destroy humanity by ruining the atmosphere. You're right that it's easy to mistake any statement like mine as being a blanket defense of Elon and dismissing valid criticisms, but this discussion as a whole has gone far afield of cement accelerators and chemical burns.

mystraline 11mo ago

If I were to damage the environment like this, I'd be fined millions, and probably jailed as well. 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.

IT4MD 11mo ago

So, meaningless fine, then back to doing it again.

Stevvo 11mo ago

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?

hashstring 11mo ago

> 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.

inemesitaffia 11mo ago
Valuation isn't money.
- hashstring 11mo ago
  Here’s another truism: losing a few pennies is unlikely to alter future behaviour. This fine is a sham.