One Possible New Kind of Next-Gen Infrastructure--and Implications for American Strength

Seen on Barry Ritholtz's site--you can learn a lot by clicking around!--a magnetic levitation superconductor track, built, for fun, as a Mobius Strip.  That's a little car in front of the man; the car is zipping along a quarter-inch or so above the mag-lev.  But the car can also go below the track--the same field holds it up against gravity.  Pret-ty cool.

We can look at this and see whole new kinds of roadways, cheaper, faster, more energy efficient--all around better.

We might note that a key component of this track is yttrium barium copper oxide.  Yttrium, of course, is one of those rare earth elements that are essential to much of our modern economy.  We won't have American Strength unless we have secure sources of these materials.