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Obama green lights tunnel project connecting Russia to Alaska
The hard part? Money and politics. Not engineering
By
Rik Myslewski in San Francisco •
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Posted in
Government,
24th August 2011 05:39 GMT
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In a couple of decades, you may be able to board a train at London's St Pancras Station, chug through the Chunnel traveling east, and – eventually – end up at New York City's Grand Central Station, having never disembarked.
Yes, that 65-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait separating Siberia and Alaska,
first proposed in 2007, is back on again. And this time its chances of actually being built are strengthened by a 500-mile link from the existing Trans-Siberian line to the Eastern Siberian city of
Yakutsk, scheduled for completion in
2013.
The tunnel – twice the length of the English Channel–spanning Chunnel – was given the green light this week at a conference attended by delegates from Russia, the US, UK, and China, held in that very town of 200,000, fondly known as "The Coldest City on Earth".
At the conference, the project was blessed by top Kremlin officials,
according to World Architecture News, including Aleksander Levinthal, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's deputy federal representative for the far east – of Russia, that is.
Well, tunneling west under the Atlantic to link London and New York would be simply silly (source: Mail Online)
The entire rail-and-tunnel project's price tag has risen a bit in the years since it was first proposed – from a projected £32bn in 2007 to £60bn today ($53bn, $99bn), according to World Architecture News.
Actually "first proposed" isn't quite accurate. In 1905 – the year, by the way, of the Potemkin Mutiny – Tsar Nicholas II suggested that such a rail link be built. World War One put a crimp in that dream, as did the 1917 Russian Revolution and Nicholas II's 1918 execution.
This time out, however, the Kremlin appears to be serious – although Alaskans and residents of the other 49 states and Canada's 10 provinces and three territories may need some convincing. The goal of the railway, after all, wouldn't be merely to offer sub-zero tourism, but to open up trade routes through which Siberia's immense cache of raw materials could flow to the US.
But seeing as how the Russian Bear has used – and likely will use again – its trade powers to press its influence on countries to its west, Canadian and US leaders might not be keen on developing a dependency on its neighbor across the Bering Strait.
Still, if all were kept on the up-and-up, the implications of such a rail link
could be substantial.
According to Inhabitat, the tunnel's highly efficient rail line could carry 100 million tons of freight per year.
World Architecture News cites unnamed "experts" who are confident that the link could carry 3 per cent of the world's freight, and generate £7bn ($11.5bn) in revenues per year, leading to a quick return on investment.
Of course, who exactly would make that investment, especially in these turgid economic times, is as big if not bigger a stumbling block than the project's political implications.
And the engineering challenge? Tunneling deep under the sea and traversing Big Diomede and Little Diomede Islands in some of the world's most remote and inhospitable territory?
That task will be a walk in the park compared to tunneling into financiers' pockets and through politicians' power plays. ®
Russia to start $10-$12B tunnel project to connect Siberia and Alaska
Shane McGlaun, Aug 24th 2011
Discuss [11]
The Bering Strait is the point where Russia and the US are at their closest.
The Strait runs between Siberia and Alaska and the distance between the two continents is only about 65 miles at the Strait. This was one of the places during the Cold War when tensions between Russia and the US were at their highest that saw the militaries of both countries at the ready in case one or the other attacked.
With the Cold War long behind us, a new plan to connect Russia and the US via a long railway tunnel underneath the waters of the Bering Strait has been green lighted. The project is projected to cost $10 – $12 billion for the 65-mile long tunnel construction alone with the complete project expected to run in the $65 billion range. The tunnel is expected to take about 15 years to complete and when finished it would allow travel by rail from London all the way to New York City.
The thought of one of those high-speed trains zipping you across the world is very interesting. One of the most interesting notions of the tunnel is the commerce it would allow with the ability to transport millions of pounds in goods between Europe and the US each year by rail, which is the cheapest way to transport all sorts of goods today. The tunnel will use wind power and tidal power along the length and that power generated could be shot back to Europe and the US.
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