8 ms·

Norway greenlights first full-scale ship tunnel

150 points by geox 4mo ago

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
notfried 4mo ago
When an architecture company seemingly uses AI to render mockups, they really need to ensure consistency and accuracy. It's not that difficult nowadays. It was quite confusing trying to understand the differences in design between pictures and to compute why the tunnel seems so short compared to the mountain, until I realized it must have been laziness; not laziness because they are using AI, but laziness to do their job right.
- StevenWaterman 4mo ago
  I'd be very surprised if this was AI, it's too bad-looking. The lighting is all wrong, there's noticeable repeating rock textures
  - bondarchuk 4mo ago
    Yeah it looks more like photocollage creatively photoshopped. Perspective is very weird in picture 3 too, very cubist.
    - wongarsu 4mo ago
      I suspect quickly slapped together 3d renders photoshopped into actual landscape images. With very limited attention to detail when it comes to matching perspective or lighting between render and photo, or when it comes to blending them together There are more images like [1] that are just the cheap 3d renders, with less of the photoshop butchery https://newatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/archive/snohetta-stad-ship-tunnel-2.jpg https://newatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/archive/snohett...
  - eesmith 4mo ago
    And they've been around for years. You can see a copy of that last image (3rd in the gallery) from 2017 at https://web.archive.org/web/20170707052808/https://www.ship-technology.com/features/featurethe-stad-ship-tunnel-a-world-first-5798958/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170707052808/https://www.ship-... and at https://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andreassen/48480/#gallery:1 https://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andrea... . A copy of the first image in the gallery is at https://dozr.com/blog/stad-ship-tunnel https://dozr.com/blog/stad-ship-tunnel dated 2021. Edit: ahhh, 2017 and 2021 were the previous two big announcements about the tunnel. See my notes at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597546 .
    - pixl97 4mo ago
      Heh, it's kind of funny to see how many things are called AI that aren't AI, remember that when we see discussions in HN saying articles are AI or replies are AI. It's memeable in many cases. P1 "AI pictures are bad" P2 "But AI was trained on human pictures" [Human picture]
      - black_knight 4mo ago
        Soon enough thought, the AI will learn this too from us and we will have AI bots writing comments about how TFA is AI generated.
      - eesmith 4mo ago
        I think "that's AI" has acquired the more general meaning "that's fake looking", rather than specifically the use of some generative method.
- thrance 4mo ago
  > not laziness because they are using AI, but laziness to do their job right. It correlates often enough.
- tokai 4mo ago
  I don't see anything in those visualizations that makes me think AI. Its completely run-of-the-mill architect visualizations that have always been atrocious.
- duskdozer 4mo ago
  I can't see TFA due to cloudflare, but there is a unique image style used in a lot of architectural mockups of proposed buildings and things that also looks very strange and uncanny. I can't find any examples of it online right now unfortunately, but could that be what they're doing?
  - netsharc 4mo ago
    Maybe it's because they all use a standard software, this page mentions 3dsMax: https://www.aimircg.com/architectural-3d-rendering-process-zaha-hadid-architects/ https://www.aimircg.com/architectural-3d-rendering-process-z...
- bborud 4mo ago
  Of course, the tunnel will be in non-euclidian space. So it is shorter on the inside than on the outside :-)
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
mkl 4mo ago
Having no map is weird. Wikipedia has one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  Also, having read the article + the Wikipedia page, the article seems to contain more or less the same content, except slightly rewritten.
- pwg 4mo ago
  > Having no map is weird. Yes, a failure of both the journalist and the editor. Sadly, this kind of failure is all too common. I encounter articles that often omit a photo of the "thing" the article is describing. This (no photo) might have made some sense fifty years ago in the heyday of paper print where including a photo was much more work. But today, for HTML publishing, it is just an indication of failure on the part of the publisher.
  - SoftTalker 4mo ago
    50 years ago was 1976. Pretty sure there was no particular problem incuding photos or illustrations in paper journalism at that time. Maybe for very low-budget newsletters it would have been.
    - bluGill 4mo ago
      That depends. For the most modern presses (1970s modern) it was no problem but many small newspapers still used the linotype and a press that couldn't handle pictures without much effort.
    - kaptainkaveman 4mo ago
      I think USA Today (1980) was considered repulsive not just because it was colorized and a newspaper but simply because it put more space/resources into illustrations than was considered tasteful. A typical paper would reserve photographers and illustrators for front page and significant stories.
eesmith 4mo ago
Previous HN postings which had comments are: "A plan to build a ship tunnel" (2017), at http://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andreassen/48480/ http://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andreas... with 29 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13920841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13920841 "First ship tunnel to be built under Norwegian mountains" (2021), at https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/norway-ship-tunnel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/norway-ship-tunnel/in... with 25 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540805 See also gCaptain at https://gcaptain.com/worlds-first-ship-tunnel-to-bypass-dangerous-seas-in-norway/ https://gcaptain.com/worlds-first-ship-tunnel-to-bypass-dang... from 2017 and https://gcaptain.com/norway-gives-green-light-for-worlds-first-ship-tunnel/ https://gcaptain.com/norway-gives-green-light-for-worlds-fir... from 2021.
nairboon 4mo ago
That's kind of cool. Norway also has roundabouts in tunnels. I guess they like tunnels.
- varjag 4mo ago
  Most of the Norway's Western coast (basically the extent of the country) is mountainous so building infrastructure there inevitably involves blasting the rock. At the same time the country is huge, bigger than Germany or the UK. So naturally a lot of tunnels. This one a bit special: most of the boat traffic through it are meant to be ferries so it is to be commissioned and managed by the National Road Authority. At the same time it's quite unique if only due to enormous cross-section and can't share many usual national design solutions for the tunnels. For instance my company was asked a quotation for a PA system for it and it's really a challenge. So it's no wonder that it's delayed so much: it requires a lot of bespoke solutions.
  - lb1lf 4mo ago
    To stress how prolific tunnels are - if I drive from my home near Aalesund on the northwestern coast to the family seat at Voss (a bit inland from Bergen), some 360km/220mi or so, more than 1/4 of that distance is in tunnels. Can't remember how many, but dozens.
    - varjag 4mo ago
      I think if you drive just the Bergen-Voss-Nordheimsund-Bergen circuit (some 200km?) that alone is 60 tunnels, and many of them are longer than what most countries have.
      - fpoling 4mo ago
        A few years ago I counted 42 tunnels on 100 km between Voss and Bergen center.
  - Epa095 4mo ago
    Are you in the lisp company? If so, how is it? Hard to get people? Or is it a geek-magnet?
bigpeopleareold 4mo ago
The first time I heard about this was last week when I was listening to the economic issues that the article mentions on NRK "political quarter" (NRK is the national broadcaster) with the word "waste" being thrown around a lot. This article from VG debates the cost and puts it into contrast what could have been done instead: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/q6k3ko/skipstunnelen-er-historisk-men-er-det-verdt-det https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/q6k3ko/skipstunnelen-er-historis... ... it's been contentious as I understand.
- vintermann 4mo ago
  It's also a bit of a farce. The largest party in government (Labour) has repeatedly said no, this is stupid, it's too expensive, it's not worth it. Their junior partners, however, want it. And then one of the "fiscally responsible" opposition parties signaled that they would support the tunnel. So to avoid the junior partners splitting off and agreeing on a budget with the opposition, Labour now supports the tunnel too. No doubt it will cost a ton and be derided as a boondoggle/used as justification for austerity by the conservative wing which indirectly made it happen.
  - internet_points 4mo ago
    There's also a bit of east/west rivalry going on. Politicians and newspapers based in the east deride it, those in the west cheer it on. (Compared to the yearly budget the per-year cost doesn't seem like a big deal, but I don't know enough to have a strong opinion.)
philipwhiuk 4mo ago
I'm not hugely sure I see the point - it doesn't link to anywhere major. Is Måløy to Åheim a major route?
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 4mo ago
  From Wikipedia: > The Stad Ship Tunnel (Norwegian: Stad skipstunnel) is a planned canal and tunnel to bypass the Stad peninsula in Stad Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The peninsula is one of the most exposed areas on the coast, without any outlying islands to protect it from the weather. The section has traditionally been one of the most dangerous along the coast of Norway. > The surrounding waters, known as the Stadhavet Sea, is the most windswept part of the nation's coastline and is stormy around 100 days of the year, leading to ships often waiting days to pass through.[6][7] Currents, created by the area marking the meeting point of the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea further complicate navigation: Since World War Two ended, 33 deaths have occurred in maritime accidents within the Stadhavet Sea.[5] The official Visit Norway website has claimed Vikings would drag their boats over the peninsula to avoid crossing the dangerous patch of sea.
  - VorpalWay 4mo ago
    "Stadhavet Sea", since havet means "the sea" (in both Swedish and (as far as I know) Norwegian), that is a terrible phrasing on English Wikipedia. It should be either just "Stadhavet" or "the Stad sea". Though, to be fair, there are a lot of places with silly names like that. From what I have heard "Sahara Desert" translates to "Desert desert" for example. I seem to remember there is even a place that translates as "hill hill hill" somewhere in UK, using three different languages.
    - vidarh 4mo ago
      > I seem to remember there is even a place that translates as "hill hill hill" somewhere in UK, using three different languages. You might be thinking of Torpenhow. It's not clear the etymology actually supports the "hill hill hill" (I thought it did). But there are enough silly names like that for a Wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam... Quite a few of the English ones are incidentally down to either Norse or Germanic influence. E.g. most island names ending in "-ey" (compare -øy) that has gotten "island" added, like Canvey island.
dgellow 4mo ago
Only 4 years of work to be ready? That sounds pretty optimistic (crying in German)
- Semaphor 4mo ago
  Reading the Wikipedia page (including the originally projected end date of 2026), it sounds a bit worse. Probably not Germany bad, but I wouldn't bet on the 4 years either.
- ews 4mo ago
  not 40 years? seriously ??? (cries in Californian)
  - SoftTalker 4mo ago
    I guess one advantage of building a lot of tunnels is you learn how to build tunnels and become able to do it reliably and affordably (at least as affordably as something like tunneling through solid rock can be done).
- bborud 4mo ago
  Ask a Norwegian to dig a tunnel and they will turn into a gopher on meth. We are the undisputed champions of tunnels in terms of tunnel density. Show us a piece of rock and we'll put a big hole in it. However. Ask a Norwegian to fix a piece of road and you will be staring at a hole in the ground for 4 years while people will take turns leaning on a shovel in that hole while surrounded by at least 4 different categories of supervisor or inspector. But to inject some realism: if they say 4 years they can probably do it in 5. And it'll take another year or so to fix fuck-ups that in retrospect will look stupid and thoughtless, but which are realistically unavoidable. We'll whine about it. A lot. And each week the whole country will be experts on something new. Like evil-sounding compounds for stopping water ingress or how to insulate wires. And then suddenly it starts working.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4mo ago
    > Ask a Norwegian to dig a tunnel and they will turn into a gopher on meth. We are the undisputed champions of tunnels in terms of tunnel density. Show us a piece of rock and we'll put a big hole in it. You're saying the the general sense from the old germanic language cultures that dwarves and their ilk were somehow Scandanavian is rooted is a well-dug reality?
swiftcoder 4mo ago
That's a pretty metal approach to navigation. Despite being missing from the AI rendering, I really hope they are going to put big breakwaters around the tunnel entrances - the last thing you want is a storm swell entering your tunnel...
- dredmorbius 4mo ago
  Both entrances to the tunnel are from relatively sheltered bays / inlets. Swells would be fairly modest generally, though wave mitigations might still well be a concern. See map: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel#/media/File:Stad_ship_tunnel_original.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel#/media/File:S...>. That said, I'm not finding any discussions of the hydrodynamics of the tunnel, other than this: "Ship Manoeuvring Study of a Vessel Transiting a Ship Tunnel", by Andrew Ross, Anne Bruyat, Leiv Aspelund, Vahid Hassani, and Abushet Simanesew (2024) <https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/proceedings-abstract/OMAE2024/87837/V05BT06A024/1202507 https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/proceedings-abst...>.
Someone 4mo ago
FTA: Norway will start building the first full-size ship tunnel in the world And “Full-size” means what? Sea-faring? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_tunnel lists several tunnels that ships can pass through, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rove_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rove_Tunnel, to me, seems to have supported decently sized ships.
- ceejayoz 4mo ago
  There's no solid definition of "boat" versus "ship", but those are clearly a different scale.
  - notahacker 4mo ago
    Yeah, some of the ones mentioned are about 14' wide...
  - emil-lp 4mo ago
    A ship can carry a boat, but a boat cannot carry a ship.
    - ceejayoz 4mo ago
      And some ships can carry a ship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Blue_Marlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Blue_Marlin
      - roughly 4mo ago
        Ahhh, the ship-shipping ship. There’s some great photos of it shipping ships.
  - msandford 4mo ago
    I always thought it had to do with which way the vessel leaned while turning. Boats will lean into the turn, ships out. I guess that really only tells you if that's a displacement hull or planing hull, though.
fuoqi 4mo ago
I wonder how much would it cost to build a tunnel as an alternative to the Panama canal to fundamentally resolve the drought issues. 1.8 km is comparable to ~80 km (probably a shorter tunnel will suffice) and dimensions are also similar (at least for the old Panamax).
- eesmith 4mo ago
  Looks like the Norway tunnel is through hard gneiss. That rock formed 100s of millions or a billion years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveconorwegian_orogeny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveconorwegian_orogeny Norwegians know how to tunnel through it, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B8mlafjord_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B8mlafjord_Tunnel and https://trid.trb.org/view/512421 https://trid.trb.org/view/512421 . The Panama Canal famously had to deal with a lot of mud, clay, and unstable rock, causing many landslides during and after construction. The geology of Panama is quite complex and the isthmus is only 4 million or so years old. "The geology of Panama includes the complex tectonic interplay between the Pacific, Cocos and Nazca plates, the Caribbean Plate and the Panama Microplate" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Panama Looks like Panama City is working on a monorail tunnel to go under the Panama Canal for Line 3. https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/references/referencesdetail/panama-metro-line-3/ https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/references/referencesdetail/... mentions the complex geology for the TBM has "Heterogeneous ground; La Boca Formation: Sandstone, siltstone, tuff, mudstone, pyroclastic rocks; Tucue Formation: Basalts and andesits; Panama Formation: Tuff, sandstone, agglomerate". That's quite of bit of soft and crumbly rock.
jmspamerton2 4mo ago
boondoggle
christophilus 4mo ago
It will be interesting to see if it’s ever completed. I imagine dealing with ship fumes in a tunnel will be a challenge. And, I’m curious what the plan is when a ship runs into the sides or breaks down halfway through. Super cool project nonetheless. I hope it succeeds.
- Jblx2 4mo ago
  >I imagine dealing with ship fumes in a tunnel will be a challenge. Maybe the tunnel will be limited to electric ferries? This is Norway after all.

150 points by geox 4mo ago

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

When an architecture company seemingly uses AI to render mockups, they really need to ensure consistency and accuracy. It's not that difficult nowadays. It was quite confusing trying to understand the differences in design between pictures and to compute why the tunnel seems so short compared to the mountain, until I realized it must have been laziness; not laziness because they are using AI, but laziness to do their job right.

StevenWaterman 4mo ago
I'd be very surprised if this was AI, it's too bad-looking. The lighting is all wrong, there's noticeable repeating rock textures
- bondarchuk 4mo ago
  Yeah it looks more like photocollage creatively photoshopped. Perspective is very weird in picture 3 too, very cubist.
  - wongarsu 4mo ago
    I suspect quickly slapped together 3d renders photoshopped into actual landscape images. With very limited attention to detail when it comes to matching perspective or lighting between render and photo, or when it comes to blending them together There are more images like [1] that are just the cheap 3d renders, with less of the photoshop butchery https://newatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/archive/snohetta-stad-ship-tunnel-2.jpg https://newatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com/archive/snohett...
- eesmith 4mo ago
  And they've been around for years. You can see a copy of that last image (3rd in the gallery) from 2017 at https://web.archive.org/web/20170707052808/https://www.ship-technology.com/features/featurethe-stad-ship-tunnel-a-world-first-5798958/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170707052808/https://www.ship-... and at https://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andreassen/48480/#gallery:1 https://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andrea... . A copy of the first image in the gallery is at https://dozr.com/blog/stad-ship-tunnel https://dozr.com/blog/stad-ship-tunnel dated 2021. Edit: ahhh, 2017 and 2021 were the previous two big announcements about the tunnel. See my notes at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48597546 .
  - pixl97 4mo ago
    Heh, it's kind of funny to see how many things are called AI that aren't AI, remember that when we see discussions in HN saying articles are AI or replies are AI. It's memeable in many cases. P1 "AI pictures are bad" P2 "But AI was trained on human pictures" [Human picture]
    - black_knight 4mo ago
      Soon enough thought, the AI will learn this too from us and we will have AI bots writing comments about how TFA is AI generated.
    - eesmith 4mo ago
      I think "that's AI" has acquired the more general meaning "that's fake looking", rather than specifically the use of some generative method.
thrance 4mo ago
> not laziness because they are using AI, but laziness to do their job right. It correlates often enough.
tokai 4mo ago
I don't see anything in those visualizations that makes me think AI. Its completely run-of-the-mill architect visualizations that have always been atrocious.
duskdozer 4mo ago
I can't see TFA due to cloudflare, but there is a unique image style used in a lot of architectural mockups of proposed buildings and things that also looks very strange and uncanny. I can't find any examples of it online right now unfortunately, but could that be what they're doing?
- netsharc 4mo ago
  Maybe it's because they all use a standard software, this page mentions 3dsMax: https://www.aimircg.com/architectural-3d-rendering-process-zaha-hadid-architects/ https://www.aimircg.com/architectural-3d-rendering-process-z...
bborud 4mo ago
Of course, the tunnel will be in non-euclidian space. So it is shorter on the inside than on the outside :-)
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

mkl 4mo ago

Having no map is weird. Wikipedia has one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel

embedding-shape 4mo ago
Also, having read the article + the Wikipedia page, the article seems to contain more or less the same content, except slightly rewritten.
pwg 4mo ago
> Having no map is weird. Yes, a failure of both the journalist and the editor. Sadly, this kind of failure is all too common. I encounter articles that often omit a photo of the "thing" the article is describing. This (no photo) might have made some sense fifty years ago in the heyday of paper print where including a photo was much more work. But today, for HTML publishing, it is just an indication of failure on the part of the publisher.
- SoftTalker 4mo ago
  50 years ago was 1976. Pretty sure there was no particular problem incuding photos or illustrations in paper journalism at that time. Maybe for very low-budget newsletters it would have been.
  - bluGill 4mo ago
    That depends. For the most modern presses (1970s modern) it was no problem but many small newspapers still used the linotype and a press that couldn't handle pictures without much effort.
  - kaptainkaveman 4mo ago
    I think USA Today (1980) was considered repulsive not just because it was colorized and a newspaper but simply because it put more space/resources into illustrations than was considered tasteful. A typical paper would reserve photographers and illustrators for front page and significant stories.

eesmith 4mo ago

Previous HN postings which had comments are: "A plan to build a ship tunnel" (2017), at http://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andreassen/48480/ http://newatlas.com/stad-ship-tunnel-interview-terje-andreas... with 29 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13920841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13920841 "First ship tunnel to be built under Norwegian mountains" (2021), at https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/norway-ship-tunnel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/norway-ship-tunnel/in... with 25 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540805 See also gCaptain at https://gcaptain.com/worlds-first-ship-tunnel-to-bypass-dangerous-seas-in-norway/ https://gcaptain.com/worlds-first-ship-tunnel-to-bypass-dang... from 2017 and https://gcaptain.com/norway-gives-green-light-for-worlds-first-ship-tunnel/ https://gcaptain.com/norway-gives-green-light-for-worlds-fir... from 2021.

nairboon 4mo ago

That's kind of cool. Norway also has roundabouts in tunnels. I guess they like tunnels.

varjag 4mo ago
Most of the Norway's Western coast (basically the extent of the country) is mountainous so building infrastructure there inevitably involves blasting the rock. At the same time the country is huge, bigger than Germany or the UK. So naturally a lot of tunnels. This one a bit special: most of the boat traffic through it are meant to be ferries so it is to be commissioned and managed by the National Road Authority. At the same time it's quite unique if only due to enormous cross-section and can't share many usual national design solutions for the tunnels. For instance my company was asked a quotation for a PA system for it and it's really a challenge. So it's no wonder that it's delayed so much: it requires a lot of bespoke solutions.
- lb1lf 4mo ago
  To stress how prolific tunnels are - if I drive from my home near Aalesund on the northwestern coast to the family seat at Voss (a bit inland from Bergen), some 360km/220mi or so, more than 1/4 of that distance is in tunnels. Can't remember how many, but dozens.
  - varjag 4mo ago
    I think if you drive just the Bergen-Voss-Nordheimsund-Bergen circuit (some 200km?) that alone is 60 tunnels, and many of them are longer than what most countries have.
    - fpoling 4mo ago
      A few years ago I counted 42 tunnels on 100 km between Voss and Bergen center.
- Epa095 4mo ago
  Are you in the lisp company? If so, how is it? Hard to get people? Or is it a geek-magnet?

bigpeopleareold 4mo ago

The first time I heard about this was last week when I was listening to the economic issues that the article mentions on NRK "political quarter" (NRK is the national broadcaster) with the word "waste" being thrown around a lot. This article from VG debates the cost and puts it into contrast what could have been done instead: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/q6k3ko/skipstunnelen-er-historisk-men-er-det-verdt-det https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/q6k3ko/skipstunnelen-er-historis... ... it's been contentious as I understand.

vintermann 4mo ago
It's also a bit of a farce. The largest party in government (Labour) has repeatedly said no, this is stupid, it's too expensive, it's not worth it. Their junior partners, however, want it. And then one of the "fiscally responsible" opposition parties signaled that they would support the tunnel. So to avoid the junior partners splitting off and agreeing on a budget with the opposition, Labour now supports the tunnel too. No doubt it will cost a ton and be derided as a boondoggle/used as justification for austerity by the conservative wing which indirectly made it happen.
- internet_points 4mo ago
  There's also a bit of east/west rivalry going on. Politicians and newspapers based in the east deride it, those in the west cheer it on. (Compared to the yearly budget the per-year cost doesn't seem like a big deal, but I don't know enough to have a strong opinion.)

philipwhiuk 4mo ago

I'm not hugely sure I see the point - it doesn't link to anywhere major. Is Måløy to Åheim a major route?

tuwtuwtuwtuw 4mo ago
From Wikipedia: > The Stad Ship Tunnel (Norwegian: Stad skipstunnel) is a planned canal and tunnel to bypass the Stad peninsula in Stad Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The peninsula is one of the most exposed areas on the coast, without any outlying islands to protect it from the weather. The section has traditionally been one of the most dangerous along the coast of Norway. > The surrounding waters, known as the Stadhavet Sea, is the most windswept part of the nation's coastline and is stormy around 100 days of the year, leading to ships often waiting days to pass through.[6][7] Currents, created by the area marking the meeting point of the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea further complicate navigation: Since World War Two ended, 33 deaths have occurred in maritime accidents within the Stadhavet Sea.[5] The official Visit Norway website has claimed Vikings would drag their boats over the peninsula to avoid crossing the dangerous patch of sea.
- VorpalWay 4mo ago
  "Stadhavet Sea", since havet means "the sea" (in both Swedish and (as far as I know) Norwegian), that is a terrible phrasing on English Wikipedia. It should be either just "Stadhavet" or "the Stad sea". Though, to be fair, there are a lot of places with silly names like that. From what I have heard "Sahara Desert" translates to "Desert desert" for example. I seem to remember there is even a place that translates as "hill hill hill" somewhere in UK, using three different languages.
  - vidarh 4mo ago
    > I seem to remember there is even a place that translates as "hill hill hill" somewhere in UK, using three different languages. You might be thinking of Torpenhow. It's not clear the etymology actually supports the "hill hill hill" (I thought it did). But there are enough silly names like that for a Wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam... Quite a few of the English ones are incidentally down to either Norse or Germanic influence. E.g. most island names ending in "-ey" (compare -øy) that has gotten "island" added, like Canvey island.

dgellow 4mo ago

Only 4 years of work to be ready? That sounds pretty optimistic (crying in German)

Semaphor 4mo ago
Reading the Wikipedia page (including the originally projected end date of 2026), it sounds a bit worse. Probably not Germany bad, but I wouldn't bet on the 4 years either.
ews 4mo ago
not 40 years? seriously ??? (cries in Californian)
- SoftTalker 4mo ago
  I guess one advantage of building a lot of tunnels is you learn how to build tunnels and become able to do it reliably and affordably (at least as affordably as something like tunneling through solid rock can be done).
bborud 4mo ago
Ask a Norwegian to dig a tunnel and they will turn into a gopher on meth. We are the undisputed champions of tunnels in terms of tunnel density. Show us a piece of rock and we'll put a big hole in it. However. Ask a Norwegian to fix a piece of road and you will be staring at a hole in the ground for 4 years while people will take turns leaning on a shovel in that hole while surrounded by at least 4 different categories of supervisor or inspector. But to inject some realism: if they say 4 years they can probably do it in 5. And it'll take another year or so to fix fuck-ups that in retrospect will look stupid and thoughtless, but which are realistically unavoidable. We'll whine about it. A lot. And each week the whole country will be experts on something new. Like evil-sounding compounds for stopping water ingress or how to insulate wires. And then suddenly it starts working.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4mo ago
  > Ask a Norwegian to dig a tunnel and they will turn into a gopher on meth. We are the undisputed champions of tunnels in terms of tunnel density. Show us a piece of rock and we'll put a big hole in it. You're saying the the general sense from the old germanic language cultures that dwarves and their ilk were somehow Scandanavian is rooted is a well-dug reality?

swiftcoder 4mo ago

That's a pretty metal approach to navigation. Despite being missing from the AI rendering, I really hope they are going to put big breakwaters around the tunnel entrances - the last thing you want is a storm swell entering your tunnel...

dredmorbius 4mo ago
Both entrances to the tunnel are from relatively sheltered bays / inlets. Swells would be fairly modest generally, though wave mitigations might still well be a concern. See map: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel#/media/File:Stad_ship_tunnel_original.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_Ship_Tunnel#/media/File:S...>. That said, I'm not finding any discussions of the hydrodynamics of the tunnel, other than this: "Ship Manoeuvring Study of a Vessel Transiting a Ship Tunnel", by Andrew Ross, Anne Bruyat, Leiv Aspelund, Vahid Hassani, and Abushet Simanesew (2024) <https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/proceedings-abstract/OMAE2024/87837/V05BT06A024/1202507 https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/proceedings-abst...>.

Someone 4mo ago

FTA: Norway will start building the first full-size ship tunnel in the world And “Full-size” means what? Sea-faring? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_tunnel lists several tunnels that ships can pass through, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rove_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rove_Tunnel, to me, seems to have supported decently sized ships.

ceejayoz 4mo ago
There's no solid definition of "boat" versus "ship", but those are clearly a different scale.
- notahacker 4mo ago
  Yeah, some of the ones mentioned are about 14' wide...
- emil-lp 4mo ago
  A ship can carry a boat, but a boat cannot carry a ship.
  - ceejayoz 4mo ago
    And some ships can carry a ship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Blue_Marlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Blue_Marlin
    - roughly 4mo ago
      Ahhh, the ship-shipping ship. There’s some great photos of it shipping ships.
- msandford 4mo ago
  I always thought it had to do with which way the vessel leaned while turning. Boats will lean into the turn, ships out. I guess that really only tells you if that's a displacement hull or planing hull, though.

fuoqi 4mo ago

I wonder how much would it cost to build a tunnel as an alternative to the Panama canal to fundamentally resolve the drought issues. 1.8 km is comparable to ~80 km (probably a shorter tunnel will suffice) and dimensions are also similar (at least for the old Panamax).

eesmith 4mo ago
Looks like the Norway tunnel is through hard gneiss. That rock formed 100s of millions or a billion years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveconorwegian_orogeny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveconorwegian_orogeny Norwegians know how to tunnel through it, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B8mlafjord_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B8mlafjord_Tunnel and https://trid.trb.org/view/512421 https://trid.trb.org/view/512421 . The Panama Canal famously had to deal with a lot of mud, clay, and unstable rock, causing many landslides during and after construction. The geology of Panama is quite complex and the isthmus is only 4 million or so years old. "The geology of Panama includes the complex tectonic interplay between the Pacific, Cocos and Nazca plates, the Caribbean Plate and the Panama Microplate" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Panama Looks like Panama City is working on a monorail tunnel to go under the Panama Canal for Line 3. https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/references/referencesdetail/panama-metro-line-3/ https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/references/referencesdetail/... mentions the complex geology for the TBM has "Heterogeneous ground; La Boca Formation: Sandstone, siltstone, tuff, mudstone, pyroclastic rocks; Tucue Formation: Basalts and andesits; Panama Formation: Tuff, sandstone, agglomerate". That's quite of bit of soft and crumbly rock.

jmspamerton2 4mo ago

boondoggle

christophilus 4mo ago

It will be interesting to see if it’s ever completed. I imagine dealing with ship fumes in a tunnel will be a challenge. And, I’m curious what the plan is when a ship runs into the sides or breaks down halfway through. Super cool project nonetheless. I hope it succeeds.

Jblx2 4mo ago
>I imagine dealing with ship fumes in a tunnel will be a challenge. Maybe the tunnel will be limited to electric ferries? This is Norway after all.