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Russia plans $65bn tunnel to America
- Dramatize 15y agoMakes you wonder how they will deal with shifting tectonic plates?
- ceejayoz 15y agoI'd imagine California and Japan have given a decent amount of experience with that.
- hugh3 15y agoEarthquake resistance, yes. But building a tunnel right across the middle of a spreading mid-oceanic ridge? Nobody has ever done that before and it seems problematic.
- archangel_one 15y agoAccording to this, they're actually both on the same plate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg Are you sure it's spreading there?
- hugh3 15y agoOops, I stand corrected. No mid-oceanic ridge there.
- blhack 15y agoYou don't built it underground, you build it floating in the water (anchored to the sea floor). Build stretch into the tunnel, and then expand it every $foo years as needed.
- brianbreslin 15y agoice would be a huge issue in this. thats the big impediment to bridge building in the arctic north.
- ahi 15y agoambiguity above. underwater but not underground. So beneath the ice but above the mud, silt, and rock so no tunneling problems.
- blhack 15y agoNot to mention the fact that Canada is sitting on what is considered to be the largest oil reserve in the world. This is also a very smart long-term strategic move to run a pipeline from Canada to Eurasia and Africa.
- hugh3 15y agoThis is also a very smart long-term strategic move to run a pipeline from Canada to Eurasia and Africa This is what I don't get. Isn't there plenty of oil in Eurasia? And plenty of demand for oil in the Americas? Do the Russians really expect that in the future the flow of oil will go in that direction?
- blhack 15y agoWell they could be playing the long-hand on this. Oil is obviously a finite resource, and very soon, (when oil becomes much more scarce than it is now) whoever controls the oil will control a large portion of the world's economy. If Russia (I assume you're talking about Siberian oil here?) has a ton of oil, it would make sense for them to sit on it and wait for the rest of the world to deplete their own supplies before drilling.
- mahyarm 15y agoIf some university somehow invents batteries that have the same weight/energy ratio and charge time as a diesel engine system (accounting for the energy efficiency difference), wouldn't most of the oil dependence go away?
- gvb 15y agoPretty big double "if" - it may not even be physically possible. Energy density of diesel: 45.4 megajoules / liter Energy density of a lithium battery: 1.30 megajoules / liter "Same weight/energy ratio" (using volume as a proxy for weight since the lithium battery does not have a energy density by weight listed) is 40x. "Charge time" of a diesel engine is probably also 40x (to pick a number) faster than battery charging (e.g. several minutes vs. several hours). Multiply the two together and you have three orders of magnitude between the two "ifs". Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
- tesseract 15y ago[2007] The first hard part is building the tunnel. The second hard part, as alluded to in the article, is that there is essentially no infrastructure (highways, railroads) within 2000 miles of the Russian terminus, and the Alaskan side is not exactly a thriving metropolis either.
- tesseract 15y agoAlso I don't have the numbers in front of me so it would be cool if anyone can back this up, but I believe transport by ship is cheaper per container-mile than both rail and highway transport. Is there a reason that balance would drastically change in the near future?
- jonknee 15y agoHarder to transmit electricity and data with ships (not that you need a road for that either though, but the article seemed to hit on the non-transport benefits quite a bit).
- tesseract 15y agoUndersea cable technology is fairly mature for data transmission, and rapidly advancing for power transmission (HVDC). You don't need a tunnel for either of those. That leaves the oil pipeline - which I am having trouble understanding the benefits of, because both Russia and Alaska+Canada have oil reserves, as well as more ready access to large oil markets (Europe and the continental US, respectively) that do not first require piping the oil across each other's territory.
- caf 15y agoHVDC has already been used for longer distances - for example BassLink.
- electromagnetic 15y agoYou're speaking of the 3 largest countries in the world and saying having oil reserves in one part is economic for supplying the entire country.
- hugh3 15y agoDoes anyone have a good handle on freight costs? If I wanted to send a container of stuff from (say) China to the US, would it be cheaper to send it in a ship, or go round the long way through a Bering Strait tunnel (assuming such a thing actually already existed)?
- jleader 15y agoI suspect that ship would beat train hands-down on costs, but train could still win for time-critical uses.
- analyst74 15y agofreight cost is tricky to compare, but considering Trans-Siberian Railway is competing with the long-way sea route, and is mainly winning on speed and safety thanks to pirates. * I think shipping via ship is going to be way cheaper than the to-be-built tunnel, unless, maybe if you are shipping from Siberia to Alaska? *reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway#Developments_in_shipping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway#Developm...
- hugh3 15y agoRight. In that case I really can't see much use for this tunnel.
- ChrisNorstrom 15y agoThe plan alone worries me greatly for the wildlife in Alaska, it's one of the world's last refuges for untouched nature and the last thing we need is to send any sort of human traffic in that direction. If I were the richest person in the world I would probably buy up as much land as possible and keep civilization away from it. Keep it wild for future generations.
- meric 15y agoI thought you had noble intentions when you said "... last refuges for untouched nature and the last thing we need is to send any sort of human traffic in that direction.". but when you mentioned "...for future generations.", turned out not.
- timerickson 15y agoPerhaps he meant for future generations to admire from a distance?
- meric 15y agoIf only. (Humor always turns into something else online. Oops.)
- ChrisNorstrom 15y agoYes I meant to save the wildlife for future generations to admire not to bulldozer and pave over. In the US we have 30% federal owned land reserved for things like parks and wild life areas but a lot of it is areas that no one really wanted (desert) or areas where there aren't any people anyway. Future generations shouldn't have to travel to another state to get to a nature reserve.
- hugh3 15y agoAlaksa is really really big. Rail lines aren't really all that wide. Compute the fraction of Alaska and Siberia's land from which you'd be able to see or hear the trains going past and it's... quite small.
- nivertech 15y agoRussia's biggest problem is centralized major cities: Moscow and St Petersburg, everything else is a "province". US major cities are spread geographically: Boston, NYC, DC, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, SF, LA. Seattle was the gateway to Alaska. What's a gateway to Siberia? Vladivostok? Does Vladivostok has something comparable to Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing?
- timf 15y agoThat article is four years old. The project was greenlighted by the Kremlin last week, according to this: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3764606/Plans-for-Russia-NYC-train-link.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3764606/Plans-for-...
- aasarava 15y agoThe project may have been blessed by some official at the Kremlin, but no doubt it would need to be approved -- and even partly financed -- by the US and Alaskan governments to actually happen. It would be nice if reporters even bothered to ask if anyone in office on this side of the ocean had even heard of the Kremlin's renewed interest in this. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44212283/ns/world_news-europe/ http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44212283/ns/world_news-europe/
- gritzko 15y agoA regional news agency says the project is in "research stage", not greenlighted yet. http://vostokmedia.com/n113027.html http://vostokmedia.com/n113027.html
- mbreese 15y agoFunny, it used to be a $65B project (The Times, 4 years ago)... now it's a $100B project (The Sun, this week).
- Anechoic 15y agoThat doesn't sound too surprising based on the typical price of construction materials between then and now, (oil for example has increased by about 35% since then). There may have also been project changes and/or additions that also contributed to the higher estimate.
- avree 15y agoBased off rising cost of materials and inflation, that sounds about right.
- maxxxxx 15y ago
- AshleysBrain 15y agoAny particular reason this article from 2007 has been resubmitted now? Has a deal been struck at last? Any developments? Or...?
- danvoell 15y agoDoes it start at Sarah Palin's house?
- SeanLuke 15y agoGiven Russia's history in high-tech construction (and particularly tunnels, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefortovo_tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefortovo_tunnel) I'm surprised that an oligarch-financed tunnel would get a positive response from the US.
- seagaia 15y agoThis is AWESOME. Well, at a naive and fleeting glance it is. I'm sure it has political, environmental, etc. etc. implications. And it got the green light. I'm wondering how big the tunnel is. I would assume it would have to fit many many trains at once, I mean one or two tracks would probably be a waste...
- pedalpete 15y agoThe smart part of this equation is in placing Russia as a central connection of goods through Europe/Asia/North America. Much like Eremites is trying to do in being an air transport hub between Asia and Europe.
- prawn 15y agoI think you mean "Emirates." An eremite is a religious recluse.
- brianbreslin 15y agoThere is a pending battle over oil rights under the arctic shelf, russia's stake is potentially trillions of barrels of natural gas and billions of oil in that section of the world. As cold weather and deep sea drilling options expand, they will have to build out more stuff in this section of Siberia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the_Arctic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the_Ar...
- nostromo 15y agoA lot of commenters are mentioning that the distance is greater than the distance by sea -- but the difference isn't as much as you might think. Look at the shortest route between LA and Beijing and you'll see that you already go over Siberia and the coast of Alaska. http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=LAX-PEK http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=LAX-PEK
- wisty 15y agoLet me guess - some people don't understand cartographic projections? The shortest distance between two points is not a strait line on a map[1], especially when you are a long way from the equator. [1] For most maps. Gnomic maps (image - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gnomonic_projection_SW.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gnomonic_projection_SW.jpg) are designed to show the shortest distance as a straight line. I think the Dymaxion Map aka Fuller Map (image - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dymaxion_map_unfolded.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dymaxion_map_unfolded.png) is also OK.
- hugh3 15y agoWell, it's easy to understand cartographic projections without necessarily having an intuitive grasp of 'em.
- profquail 15y agoThe shortest distance between two points is not a strait line on a map You're right. The shortest distance between two points lies on a 'great circle': https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Great_circle https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Great_circle
- peteretep 15y ago> a strait line on a map Pun intentional, right? ;-)
- ximeng 15y agoFor those with WebGL, this is helpful to visualise: http://data-arts.appspot.com/globe http://data-arts.appspot.com/globe
- beej71 15y agoIn Soviet Russia, the tunnel bores you!
- pnathan 15y agoInteresting! As someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, this sounds really cool. Maintained, it could really open up some economic expansion in that part of the world.
- zavulon 15y agoI can only imagine what (and who) will be smuggled via that tunnel.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoThat was my first thought. Then again, it wouldn't be anything that isn't already coming in via ships.
- hugh3 15y agoIt's worth noting that the Bering Strait end of Alaska is as far from Seattle as Mexico City is from... well, Seattle.
- radishroar 15y agoAny good Palin jokes?
- strait 15y agoNo, but as I sit here I can feel Putin burrowing his head into Alaska's groundspace.
- zubairov 15y agoAbsolutely crazy idea. I lived there in Siberia, there not even a railways available. The reasonable-price logistics is only possible 2 month a year. This idea is a political hype. Such kind of idiotic projects appear shortly before elections and pass away shortly after.
- ctdonath 15y agoSeems one can make a decent living from proposing mega-projects with price tags so vast and political inspiration so great it's not hard to to convince someone to commission a multi-year "study" at a "paltry" cost big enough to keep a small team living comfortably. Another example project was construction of a billion-dollar indoor ski resort near Atlanta. Somebody was making a good buck "studying" that one ... until the nearby lake, proximity chosen to supply water for making snow, dried up.