Cool pic of Henry Liu's freight pipeline
Cool pic of Henry Liu's freight pipeline
PopSci.com picks up a Columbia Daily Tribune piece on 2009 Purpose Prize winner Henry Liu’s idea for underground tubes to carry long-distance freight.
“Forget about carrying cargo by truck, and instead imagine shuttling goods around inside a series of underground tubes. That’s the hope of Henry Liu, a 73-year-old retired civil engineer and a past winner of PopSci’s Inventions Awards for his environmentally safe green bricks.
“The inventor has received $100,000 as an “encore career” prize from a San Francisco-based organization and plans to use part of the money to push his vision for revolutionizing freight transportation, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune. The network would move boxcar-sized capsules inside underground pipes across long distances, and relies on an electromagnetic pump that Liu invented along with three former colleagues at the University of Missouri.
“The idea attracted interest from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), which ran a feasibility study in 2004. Liu showed that his system of pipelines working for New York alone could cut truck traffic by 10 billion vehicle miles, and suggested it could save on land use, cut carbon emissions and protect the cargo better from terrorist attacks.
“Liu has founded a company named Freight Pipeline to pursue his transportation idea, so we’ll be keeping an interested eye on that. But for now, he can look forward to receiving his $100,000 Purpose Prize from the Civic Ventures think tank at Stanford University this coming weekend.
- Login or register to post comments
- by David Bank
Henry Liu's legacy
Henry Liu’s untimely death last week raises questions about who will carry on his innovative work.
Those who wish to send condolence messages to Henry Liu’s family may contact Carla Roberts at the Freight Pipeline Company at: fpc_carla@yahoo.com.
Freight Pipeline Idea
Joe Wasylyk Seniorpreneur
Henry Liu is another example of senior becoming an entrepreneur in his retirement life. I am familiar with a one foot long capsule carrying ‘sales orders’ in a Dairy Plant, from the sales office to the shipping department. We have come a long way from a one foot long capsule to a boxcar-sized capsule.
In the 1970’s I worked with the Government in the Transportation department. We came up with the idea of moving hard goods through a liquid slurry pipeline. Also, the idea of an Airship moving construction materials and equipment to a construction site where truck or rail transportation was impossible or a very difficult transportation logistics option.
Joe Wasylyk
Seniorpreneur