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Kerensa
hunter
Username: Kerensa
Post Number: 448
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 20, 2007 - 7:31 pm: |     |
Could this be true? Perhaps they do want to scare us Europeans?
"Moscow is promoting a new "megaproject" to link Asia with North America by train, pipeline, and fiber-optic cable across the Bering Strait. But skeptics suspect it may be just a bluff to scare Europe about the future of Russian oil and gas supplies.
Russian ministers have unveiled a grandiose plan to dig a tunnel under the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska in a bid to improve oil and gas transport between Russia and the United States. The ambitious project would also open up the intriguing possibility of a rail connection from New York to Europe over Asia.
The Russian government told reporters in Moscow this week that it will back a $65 billion scheme by a consortium of Russian companies to build the longest tunnel in the world -- which will be an estimated 102 kilometers (63 miles) in length -- to link Russia's vast energy resources to markets in North America. The plan includes a high-speed train line, oil and gas pipelines, and a fiber-optic cable network.
A new rail corridor through British Columbia would connect the tunnel to America's main rail network, while a corridor through Siberia would connect it to Russia's. The tunnel would raise the prospect of a continuous train ride spanning three-quarters of the world -- from New York to London over Canada and Russia.
The plan will be presented to US and Canadian officials next Tuesday, at a Moscow conference called "Megaprojects of Russia's East."
"The project would give Russia's east the chance to become a leading industrial region of the country and one of the most important transit hubs of the world economy," said a statement bearing the logos of Russia's pipeline monopoly Transneft, electricity utility RAO United Energy Systems and the Russian Trade Ministry, among others.
There's just one hitch: A number of powerful people appear to have been left totally out of the loop. "I've never heard of this plan," said Sergei Grigoryev, vice-president of Transneft, according to the London Times. "We need to first develop fields in East Siberia."
Energy p-ker with Europe?
(I am not allowed to put the "o" into p-ker. I don't think it is a "bad" word, is it?
Some experts called the idea a bluff to scare European countries into signing long-term contracts with Russia for oil and natural gas.
"Russia has been saying to Europe, 'Listen, if you don't like us, we've always got China to sell our gas to,'" said Derek Brower, who covers the energy industry for the London magazine Petroleum Economist. "(But) it's even difficult for Russia to supply China, the fastest-growing energy market in the world, let alone to talk about what sounds like the most absurdly expensive and technologically difficult project to deliver. It just sounds completely outrageous to me."
One US supporter of the project is Alaska's former Governor Walter Joseph Hickel, who will co-chair the conference in Moscow. But the Washington's Federal Railroad Administration isn't directly involved in talks, agency spokesman Warren Flatau told Bloomberg.
High-level Canadian officials were also in the dark. "We are not aware of any Canadian government representatives that have been contacted with respect to this proposal," said Brooke Grantham, a spokesperson for Canada's office of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, according to the Vancouver Sun.
The proposed tunnel would be twice as long as the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France. But it's not a new idea: Czar Nicholas II first raised the prospect of a Bering Strait rail link in 1905, 38 years after his grandfather sold Alaska to America for $7.2 million. World War I -- and the Russian Revolution -- put the project on ice, however.
msm/ap
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Annie
storyteller
Username: Annie
Post Number: 2029
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 20, 2007 - 8:55 pm: | |
Thanks for posting that, Kerensa! (BTW, could you please reference your source?) Sounds like an intriguing possibility. Speculations about the oil and gas implications aside, it would be good for international relations and private travelling options.  I wonder how feasible a tunnel twice the length of the Chunnel and much farther north (meaning colder, although if the Bering Strait doesn't freeze solid, I guess the temperature underwater can't be below 0°C) would be?
Oh and yes, 'p0ker' is blocked, not because it's "bad" per se, but due to the amount of spam sent to the board involving that word. We don't normally block actual English words, but in this case, the normal usage frequency and actual usage necessity of the word is negligible compared to the amount of work simply blocking it saves us.
Chess is the purest form of debate, unadulterated by a topic. |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1916
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 4:08 am: | |
Thanks Kerensa. It is being widely reported here, though the cost was 20 billion for the tunnel itself. A bridge was also touted.
I doubt they would go thru BC, Alberta would be far easier to build a railway - and Canada isn't too keen about development in the fragile ecosystems of the north - this is a long way off. I don't have enough info to make an informed opinion, but the idea is certainly intriguing - and perhaps a way for us to export our energy to Russia, when she runs out! 
Scott
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Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Kerensa
hunter
Username: Kerensa
Post Number: 449
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 7:02 pm: | |
Sorry Annie and Scott. Here is the link
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,478448,00.html
I wonder if they will do it. Russia is very big it will take them ages to deliver all the equipment. And it will be very expensive for them, I think. Where will they get the money from? |
Thales
gatherer
Username: Thales
Post Number: 140
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 3:13 pm: | |
... and even if they build it, the longest tunnel would still be in Finland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A4ij%C3%A4nne_Water_Tunnel
A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives. |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1924
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007 - 4:43 am: | |
Wow Thales, that is quite amazing. It is a continuous tunnel (it seems so from the description) that utilises no natural rock formations and natural gullies?
Well Kerensa, I suspect they will just steal it from some rich oil company like they did with Yukos. And foreign bankers are clamouring to finance their projects anyway. I suspect the Canada and the US will have the final say and pay for half of it, if it is ever constructed. It would be interesting, then I could drive to Europe, if I wanted to!
Scott
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
Thales
gatherer
Username: Thales
Post Number: 141
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007 - 8:54 am: | |
"It is a continuous tunnel (it seems so from the description) that utilises no natural rock formations and natural gullies?"
AFAIK that is correct. In Finland bedrock is old, stable, solid and close to the surface, an ideal environment for tunnels, building of which is relatively cheap here. A new 13 km railroad tunnel exclusively for freight trains is just being built, and the main reason seems to be that it's easier than building a new railroad through a densely populated area.
A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives. |
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