China May Build an Undersea Train To America 348
New submitter howtokilltime sends this news from the Washington Post: "China is planning to build a train line that would, in theory, connect Beijing to the United States. According to a report in the Beijing Times, citing an expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Chinese officials are considering a route that would start in the country's northeast, thread through eastern Siberia and cross the Bering Strait via a 125-mile long underwater tunnel into Alaska."
Oh, to ALASKA! (Score:5, Insightful)
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So . . . do the Chinese have the technology to get past Sarah Palin . . . ?
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I would assume their aim would be to keep going through alaska and join up with the main american rail network in canada. Just going to alaska would seem rather pointless.
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The primary reason Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. in the first place was that strategically, it would be extremely difficult for Russia to try to defend it. But the U.S. can.
That hasn't changed.
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The Asian side of the Bering Strait is in Russia. The map in the article is rather poor and dosn't show any international borders. In order to build this China would need treaties with both the Russian Federation and The USA.
Maybe if they wanted to build a tunnel to Japan they could annex North Korea...
massive project been discussed for decades (Score:5, Insightful)
Older than dirt. (Score:5, Informative)
The concept of an overland connection crossing the Bering Strait goes back before the 20th century. William Gilpin, first governor of the Colorado Territory, envisioned a vast ''Cosmopolitan Railway'' in 1890 linking the entire world via a series of railways. Two years later, Joseph Strauss, who went on to design over 400 bridges, including the Golden Gate Bridge, put forward the first proposal for a Bering Strait railroad bridge in his senior thesis. The project was presented to the government of the Russian Empire, but it was rejected.
A syndicate of American railroad magnates proposed in 1904 (via a French spokesman) a Siberian-Alaskan railroad from Cape Prince Wales in Alaska through a tunnel under the Bering Strait and across northeastern Siberia to Irkutsk via Cape Deshnev, Verkhnekolymsk and Yakutsk. The proposal was for a 90-year lease, and exclusive mineral rights for 8 miles (13 km) each side of the right-of-way. It was debated by officials and finally turned down on March 20, 1907.
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Aside from the obvious technical challenges of building two 40-kilometre (25 mi) bridges or a more than 80-kilometre (50 mi) tunnel across the strait, another major challenge is that, as of 2011, there is nothing on either side of the Bering Strait to connect the bridge to.
The Russian side, in particular, is severely lacking in infrastructure, without any highways for almost 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) (the nearest is M56) and no railroads or paved highways for over 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) in any direction from the strait.
On the American side, at least 800 kilometres (500 mi) of highways or railways would have to be constructed in order to connect to the American transport network
Bering Strait crossing [wikipedia.org]
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I've seen the project discussed for decades too, this is the first time the headline overtly states that China would consider paying for it...
Re:Rail+ ferry (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like building the railroad to the Bering Strait, and then using a ferry to cross would be the more practical approach.
Shipping by sea is cheaper than rail. I you are going to put it on a ferry, then you might as well just put it on a container ship in Shanghai or Tianjin, and ship it by sea to Seattle or Long Beach. Which is exactly what we do now. There is no way that an eight thousand mile railroad, through some of the world's most rugged terrain and harshest weather, can compete with container ships, even without the cost of building the tunnel.
Passengers (Score:2, Interesting)
For freight, you're absolutely right. When "the slow boat from China" is fast enough, cntainer ships are absolutely the most economical approach. For passengers though, a high-speed rail link between continents might make sense. For international business in 2050 it might be economical... although I am not sure how it might compete with the future versions of the Airbus A380 or Boeing 787...
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For passengers though, a high-speed rail link between continents might make sense.
Planes are cheaper than trains for distances over 400 miles. This would be twenty times that far.
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All depends on the cost of oil... with cheap oil, the ships win. Trains move cargo for less energy expended per ton-mile, but cost in the infrastructure construction.
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Trains move cargo for less energy expended per ton-mile
Citation? All the information I can find says the opposite. For US freight transport, ships use less energy [wikipedia.org]. Large ocean-going container ships should be even more efficient per ton-mile.
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It's even more complicated than that thre's gage breaks, a train that runs on Chinese tracks can't run on Trans-Siberian tracks, a train that runs on Trans-Siberian tracks can't run on North American tracks, so the trains either have to be off loaded-on loaded 3 times ot the cars have to have their axles changed. After all that you end up near Nome AK and Google says, "We could not calculate directions between Nome, AK and Edmonton, AB, Canada.", remember the bridge to nowhere, we'll have to build a lot of
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No, there is two track widths. China uses standard 1435 mm. US uses 1435 mm (or whatever you call that in your strange measurements). Russia uses wider 1524 mm.
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It takes 6-8 weeks for products to come by ship from China to the US.
No it doesn't. A typical transit time is two weeks. The 6-8 week figure likely includes invoice processing, administrative overhead, and local delivery, which will be just as bad for a train, or possibly worse since it will cross more borders.
Also, sea isn't more energy efficient than rail. There's a lot less rolling resistance with rail, compared to water resistance with sea freight.
Nonsense. The containers aren't pushed through the water one-by-one. They are on large ships, where the efficiency goes up in proportion to the square root of the size. Container ships are far more efficient that rail, even when the rail is rolling on flat ground.
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If building rail line from western Alaska to connect to the continental system, no significant mountain ranges need to be crossed. Assuming the rail lands at the closest point across the Bering Straight, there is an almost flat route following the Koyukuk [wikipedia.org] and Yukon [wikipedia.org] Rivers over to the Mackenzie River [wikipedia.org]. The North American rail network reaches as far as Hay River [wikipedia.org], near the south end of the Mackenzie River.
For a shorter route, the Tanana River [wikipedia.org] could be followed past Fairbanks, and the route could continue parall
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Not at all. Channel tunnel is over 50km, while Seikan tunnel is at 240m depth.
Engineering problems you're talking about have already been solved.
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What would people rather do, use boats which are already not to pricey, or planes, again, not too pricey, or pay for a probably expensive tunnel that won't be paid off for decades even with a high price? (acceptably high price)
The tunnel makes a whole lot more sense, especially if they run trains through it. Preferably high-speed trains, but at something less than their maximum speeds. The energy cost of its use is next to nothing, as is the environmental cost of its use. Shipping is heinous.
Good on them. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Eh the Chinese are hugely nationalistic, what are you talking about. I get the feeling that some people seriously think the country is some kind of communist utopia.
Re:Good on them. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's better they build this then those giant empty cities. If it brings revenue to their 'socialist/communist' state... republic, oligarchial welfare state, whatever it is it will benefit people. Also modern marvels of engineering are cool. Regardless of who or what builds them.
I'm not really attacking China's economic model. But I am not sure really what to call it. But this could be a much better thing for a Nation like China to do then what it's been doing.
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In what way is a tunnel that connects two places nobody wants to travel between "money well spent"?
For freight, ships are both far more efficient and cheaper.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Neither.
The "nothing compares to the bandwidth of a minivan full of tapes" maxim applies here. Specifically, it applies to the length of time it takes for a cargo ship to transgress the Pacific.
Rail can move a large number of people faster than a plane can.
Rail can also move a relatively small volume of cargo faster than ships can.
They want to be able to get R&D and "latest greatest" products and similar over here ASAP so that they don't lose out to fledgeling US industry which is popping up to deal wit
Deja Vu (Score:2, Interesting)
This was an actual thing on Seaquest DSV.
Though in practicality, the bering straight crossing gets proposed every year by Russia or some other billionaire in Asia-Pacific, but never from the US side.
There are plenty of technical problems but I think the founding problem is that we, as humans, have not mastered the sea, there's no undersea colonies, therefor there is no practical reason to have an undersea transportation network. You think oil spills are a bad idea, and derailments are a fact of life, imagin
lol (Score:2)
This is a ridiculous project and will never get build. There are far cheaper and far more practical ways to get people to and from China/America.
All that being said, if they do waste lots of money building this, I'll be one of the first on it. It sounds like it would be the best train ride on earth!
Nope (Score:3, Informative)
Newly compiled Russian and U.S. seismological data support an independent Bering block in motion relative to the North American plate. This motion is likely to be driven by the westward extrusion of southwestern Alaska, resulting from compression in southern Alaska due to subduction of the Pacific plate and terrane accretion. Seismicity extends from central Alaska, through the Bering Strait, and into Chukotka. In eastern Chukotka several southwest trends are evident, some of which continue through the Koryak Highlands to Kamchatka. The seismicity outlines the Bering block, which includes most of the Bering Sea, Chukchi Peninsula, Seward Peninsula, and parts of western Alaska. Focal mechanisms, young basaltic volcanism, and normal faults in western Alaska and Chukotka indicate that the Bering Strait is under northeast-southwest extension. This, in conjunction with thrust faulting in the Koryak Highlands, indicates that the Bering block is rotating clockwise relative to the North American plate.
http://geology.gsapubs.org/con... [gsapubs.org]
Also the Aleutian islands are quite active, that entire area is active.
Ring of Fire. (Score:2)
A Pipe Dream (Score:2)
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That is one heck of a pipe they are talking about. I won't be using such a tunnel and I'll bet that it would be a financial blunder and practical nightmare. Does any American actually want such a tunnel?
I wouldn't get into it, but I would prefer that my goods come through a tunnel on a train that will have to be running some kind of relatively clean fuel (if not on electricity) by definition given the environment, than on a container ship powered by a diesel engine running on bunker fuel.
I mean, I'd prefer they didn't have to come from China at all, but that's a whole other discussion.
I have to ask why? (Score:2)
Planes are faster, cheaper, and safer for passenger traffic at that distance.
Possibly they want the underwater tunnel for cargo trains? Then you're competing with container ships which are themselves very cheap though possibly not as fast.
The only way a train beats a plane is if the tunnel is a vacuum. And that radically complicates the engineering especially if you're putting it under the ocean.
And that doesn't even address the political problems.
Tensions with china are increasing and then you have this tr
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Planes are faster, cheaper, and safer for passenger traffic at that distance.
As fossil fuels become more and more expensive, the price of air travel is going to go up. Way up.
Makes sense to being looking at other options today, assuming they'd roll out in 50 - 75 years.
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Entirely theoretical.
the people predicting spikes in oil prices have been wrong for about 100 years... which is about as long as they've made those claims.
The current spike in prices has more to do with politics then it does with resource scarcity. Remove the extra taxes put on oil over the last 10 years and relax the regulations on the oil industry back to what they were ten years ago and you could have 2 dollar a gallon gas.
Or maintain the taxes and regulation and pay upwards of 2.50 in nothing but govern
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This place really has gone downhill. People used to be careful not to expose their lack of a high school education but now it just does not seem to matter.
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You think a trans Atlantic train from China to Seattle is cheaper then a commercial airliner?
And you think I am ignorant?
Either you don't know what our air network costs per passenger or you don't know what the rail network costs per passenger.
There is a reason Amtrak for example gets government subsidies but most airlines do not.
Passenger rail over long distances is not competitive with airplanes for price or speed.
And doing it from china to the United States is moronic for PASSENGER traffic.
For freight, i
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Airplanes are very safe statistically.
About 1.5 million people in the US alone travel by air EVERY SINGLE DAY.
And of those people how many of them are killed due to a safety issue on the plane or pilot error etc?
We have a serious air crash about once every 5 to 10 years and those tend to claim something between 100 and 400 lives.
The cruise industry loses more people to the flu then the airlines lose to anything as a percentage of travelers.
I don't understand why people are mindlessly against airplanes. They
Stops at Alaska (Score:2)
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so the Chinese start high speed rail companies in the USA, what's the problem? we're far too lazy and stupid to be hooking up the big cities in our country this way, should have done it in the 90s
No Thanks (Score:2)
I rather like the status quo where they need a usable navy to get to resources that they will eventually want to take by force. They're about out of fresh water and other key resources aren't far behind.
Under the sea floor or on it? (Score:2)
Could they build a tunnel as a long conduit on the sea floor, perhaps giving it some flexibility to deal with the seismic activity in that area?
Learn from history for once! (Score:2)
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what's the problem, among the invaders will be hot asian chicks (and for you gay fellers hot asian studs)
I say bring it on
I think its safe to say (Score:3)
It better be Mag-Lev (Score:2)
I don't think the entire line needs to be a mag lev train but the connection between continents should be. The trip under the straight should be a short as possible with a little noise as possible.
The SinoAmerican Union (Score:2)
On one hand, you can look at this and wonder why anyone would want to undertake the incredible expense of a sub oceanic tunnel across the Bering Strait. What, with Anchorage already housing one of the world's busiest international airports, particularly for cargo aircraft.
However, completion of such a tunnel would have profound, long-reaching consequences, both negative and positive:
Chinese manufactured goods would presumably have shipping time cut in half. Even given the considerable distances, a 2km lon
Re:What an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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I was wondering how this might get financed....
The answer is:
WALMART.
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Funny)
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Because only morons would build them in the middle of fucking nowhere, like the South Pole, or the Behring Strait.
I would be careful tossing around words like "moron" if you don't even understand that the location of a route is secondary to the end points.
We send ships across the ocean too, and soon now, the Northwestern Corridor too.
My question is what purpose it would solve. By the time the route is finished, there won't be any way for the US to import anything from China. Food exports from USA to China, perhaps, as an attempt to pay the interest on what is owed?
There's also the minor problem of Mother Russia - the
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Russia is interested, at least as much as China. This would massively increase trade between continents. Train freight is far cheaper than shipping. If I remember correctly, they have an offer for several billion USD for any entity that would agree to build such a tunnel.
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Yeah i bet they sure are...
This is a really, really dumb idea...sort of like putting your mailbox on a 4000ft tall pole so it can get "air mail" better
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Informative)
Train freight is far cheaper than shipping.
No, water is always the cheapest way to ship things long distance. In fact it's not unusual for container ships from China to use NY harbor (just take a look from the Narrows) in spite of the much longer distance than shipping to the West Coast and then shipping cross-country by rail.
The problem is the proverbial "slow boat to China" (or from China these days). A trans-Pacific cargo ship generally takes around 3 weeks. You could steam faster, but the fuel consumption would rise dramatically.
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Re:What an idea (Score:4, Informative)
Not according to this chart [blogspot.ca]
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There are even elements within the Russian political scene who would like to 'take back' Alaska from the U.S.
Then they can go straight to Hell.
The U.S. did not "take" Alaska, they bought it, fair and square. Any contingent that wants to "take back" what they sold fairly for hard cash is a gaggle of criminals, by Russian, American, and international law.
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Ukraine didn't "take" Crimea either, it was assigned to their jurisdiction when both were completely subservient to the USSR, and then amicably* left with them when the republics separated. That doesn't seem to be stopping Putin now; neither does international law. Our missiles probably would, though.
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, I didn't know that Alaska was bought from the Russians. I see on wiki that it was bought for $7.2 million. Which is $119 million in 2014. Which makes Alaska worth about 1/25th the value of Beats by Dr Dre.
Funny old world.
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Ukraine didn't "take" Crimea either, it was assigned to their jurisdiction when both were completely subservient to the USSR, and then amicably* left with them when the republics separated. That doesn't seem to be stopping Putin now; neither does international law. Our missiles probably would, though.
However (see my other comment in this thread), Crimea is close and accessible, while Alaska is remote and in fact on another continent. Crimea is relatively easy for them to take and then defend. Alaska would be very difficult for Russia to either take or defend; that was largely why they sold it in the first place.
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Funny)
Come on now, it's not that remote. Putin said he could see Alaska from his house.
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It was actually a fair price back then. At the time of purchase, Alaska was a frozen wasteland whose biggest known natural resources were fur pelts and hairy men.
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Informative)
>My question is what purpose it would solve. By the time the route is finished, there won't be any way for the US to import anything from China. Food exports from USA to China, perhaps, as an attempt to pay the interest on what is owed?
Your post displays a lack of knowledge of how the trade deficit works.
In a nutshell, we don't borrow money from China. We buy goods and services from China, and we use US Dollars for the transaction.
China can then spend those US dollars in the American economy - perhaps to buy American goods in exchange - but they choose instead to put those greenbacks into US treasuries, which is the single safest investment in the world. Other countries would sell those greenbacks on the currency markets to obtain their native currencies, causing currency prices to fluctuate accordingly, but China has decided to keep their exchange rates at artificial levels that advantage them and disadvantage the rest of the world, especially the United States. But I digress.
The US treasuries that China owns can't be all called in at once. They can be sold on the open market, which technically could cause US treasury rates to rise, making borrowing more expensive for the United States, but in all likelihood they would not impact those rates by very much. The important thing here is that China can't roll up to the US Treasury with a briefcase (well, okay - trucks) full of bonds that haven't matured yet and expect to cash in. It doesn't work that way. While the US does pay interest on those treasuries, the interest rates are quite low right now.
There's a lot more to this - but suffice to say, macroeconomics is not microeconomics - things you need to take care of at a household level often don't mesh with what governments have to do in order to keep the books balanced. It's a common misconception that the US national debt is necessarily a bad thing.
What American goods would China buy? (Score:4, Insightful)
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There has been talk of building bridges or tunnels across that span for at least a century.
Though ships are cheaper than planes, they are more expensive than trains. A railway across the Bering Strait would instantly become a big hit with shipping between North America and Eurasia. After all the USA gets a lot of products from Ch
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You've got Korea, which is sort of somewhere. Then you've got Kamchatks, which is nowhere. Then the strait. Than there's Alaska, which is another bunch of nowhere before you get to Seattle[1].
How is it not in the middle of nowhere? It's certainly a long way from anywhere that counts as somewhere.
[1] Well, there's that Canadian place that Heart come from.
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You're joking but a geospecialist could easily hold a government for randsom if they had an earthquake machine [wikipedia.org].
works just like fracking (Score:2)
funny how Deep Injections Fracking wells do essentially the same thing as a theoretical earthquake machine
remember the "US Navy Flood Map"?
http://earthshiftx.com/wp-cont... [earthshiftx.com]
Now correlate to where fracking has been alllowed...
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Informative)
Both sides of the Bering strait are part of the north american plate.
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Both sides of the Bering strait are part of the north american plate.
True, but if we're going by plate tectonics then a tunnel from China to northern Japan [livescience.com] could be considered a tunnel to North America as well.
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http://emotibot.net/pix/459.gi... [emotibot.net]
Re:What an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States already lost a war against terrorism by instituting ridiculous laws, spying and harassment because the government was scared. That is exactly the goal of terrorism.
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By what objective standard did the terrorists "win"? Their goal was to eject the US from the Mideast and unite the Muslim world under something like Sharia law. I see no progress on that front.
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You just listed the long term goal. The immediate goals of a terrorist act is to cause terror and to provoke a disproportionate reprisal. The reprisals helps further radicalize people and help recruit more members. I think they succeed on all 3 short term goals. As for the long term goals, the war isn't over yet.
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If you want to talk short term, they have made no progress towards their long term goals. Radicals do undermine democracy, but they can strengthen a dictatorship as moderate people fear the radicals and side with the dictatorship. You see this right now in Egypt and Syria. The result of these dictatorships harms the cause of the terrorists. They probably have more representation in Turkey than they do in these other countries that they've been working so hard in, because their assumptions are flawed. They m
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political breakup: Score 0.5 - our political polarization is damn close to a breakup.
But has nothing to do with Afghanistan. We were having government shutdowns in the 90s. Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, etc. Fun times.
ideological downfall
Again, when you look at what the US did during the cold war (Cuba, Shah of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, etc), I fail to see how we have changed in this respect.
economic bankruptcy
That was due to a housing bubble, bad government debt policies, and shoddy deregulation. The US could afford - in financial terms - to occupy Afghanistan pretty much perpetually. Even if you disagree, most of the co
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If you believe that terrorists simply want to strike fear in our hearts, and have no larger goal in mind, well... let's just say that we disagree.
Re:What an idea (Score:4, Informative)
sigh, the mission accomplished was a gaff in that the mission WAS accomplished, for that ship that he was on.
False. In the speech accompanying the picture Bush claimed "major combat operations" in Iraq were over. He was wrong. And that was the context of the banner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
on the other hand obama did in fact make a statement saying terrorism is over
Also false.
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well perhaps the channel tunnel between England and France is a better comparison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
(about 31 miles long) the seikan tunnel in japan is about 33 miles long and deeper. 4 to 5 times longer doesn't seem impossible to engineer.
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Channel Tunnel
Just because some people can't build a decent tunnel doesn't mean no one can do it Right
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CrossRail [crossrail.co.uk] also seems to be going okay.
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Why is the Boston Big Dig so 'bad'? I ask this honestly, because I don't know much about the big dig at all, and since I know very well in Holland there are many, many tunnels for both rail and cars that are more or less equal to the engineering required in Boston IMHO. Amsterdam for example has 2 or 3 such tunnels for cars, and at least 2 more for trains & subways. And Amsterdam is only a fraction of The soggy below sea-level Netherlands. In my mind, if the Dutch can pull it off handily enough, why can
Re:A nice idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is the Boston Big Dig so 'bad'? I ask this honestly, because I don't know much about the big dig at all, and since I know very well in Holland there are many, many tunnels for both rail and cars that are more or less equal to the engineering required in Boston IMHO.
More or less because it was done in America where the government always goes with the lowest bidder, meaning corners get cut (the epoxy issue) and runs into the fact that, Americans as a whole (albeit less so in the huge metropolitan areas like NYC), actively avoid public transit.
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In america our public transit is abysmal as in turns a 30 minute car ride into a 15 minute car ride, 2.5 hours on a train and a 10 minute taxi ride. We do idiotic things like turn 2 lanes of highway into 1 lane of high occupancy only and let buses in, so you can not pass and are stuck behind a bus and we lost 25% of the highways caring capacity to do it. Oh and all mass transit goes through Rhode island because the needed two more votes and a couple hours added on wont detract at all.
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Re:A nice idea... (Score:5, Informative)
Personally traveling to and through Boston is a 100x better than it used to be because of the Big Dig. Not to mention it reconnected two parts of the city that the original above ground highway effectively severed from each other, allowing for an insane amount of development in the seaport area since (http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/07/rise-seaport-district-boston/). The entire area has been transformed.
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A ring build system with computer controlled placement and setting of grout is now better understood.
Grouting can be very well timed via computer controlled additives as needed reducing water ingress issues.
The Qinghai–Tibet Railway had permafrost issues that had to be solved.
It really depends on what rock types they find, if grouting gets too difficult.
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Check out the new Seattle waterfront tunnel project. It's only 2 miles and currently has no political problems. But it's stuck and racking up the bucks!
Re:Yes yes, of course (Score:5, Informative)
Please, extremely long tunnels already exist such as the one between Hokkaido and Honshu.
Re:Yes yes, of course (Score:5, Funny)
If you need a long tunnel, you just join two short ones together with duct tape. If you need a longer one, use three, and so on. Hence the mathematical term, proof by induction.
Kids today, with all their fancy-pants book-learnin'. If we'd listened to all the people who'd said it couldn't be done there's be no fusion power stations or cities on the moon.
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you're thinking small, China could make money building high speed rail system for us, since we're too ignorant and stupid to do it ourselves
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China, just like the USA, makes high quality as well as low quality items. Note they have high speed rail, we don't, because we're stupid
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China ... makes high quality as well as low quality items.
Really? Where are they hiding the high quality stuff?
Note they have high speed rail, we don't
They have hi-speed rail because it's very heavily subsidized. The same is true of France's famed TGV. As much as I like hi-speed rail, I think there is a limit to how heavily subsidized it should be.
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What's America's high speed rail network like?
First, this isn't about high speed rail - it would mostly be for freight. Second, I'd gladly take a French or Japanese hi-speed train than a Chinese one. Last time I checked, China and the US aren't the only two places in the world.
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Oops, didn't read the 2nd link. It is for high speed rail - which makes it even dumber than I thought.
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Alaska is not for sale!
Of course it isn't - we already bought it.
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If by "finest engineering projects", you mean "huge government financed engineering megaprojects", you're right: we have neither the engineering skill nor political will to engage in those anymore. Good riddance.
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I see, so you're a luddite who thinks we'd be better off without the cheap energy from Hoover Dam, the Rural Electrification Project and universal phone service were wastes of money, the Port of New York is no use, the Panama Canal was a waste, and so on and so on.