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Spain, Morocco To Build Undersea Rail Tunnels
DoraLives writes "The BBC reports that Spain and Morocco 'have agreed to build a 39-kilometre rail tunnel beneath the Mediterranean Sea, to link Europe and Africa.' and that 'This plan could be put into action as early as next year...' Fairly daunting technical piece of work should they attempt it, but the prospect of an all-rail trip from Edinburgh to Tangiers is intriguing to say the least."
Let me know when I can take the train from San Francisco to Tokyo.
catapults
possibly cannons
My other sig is an import.
The future economic benefit is going to be interesting, if they can pull it off.
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Should be done by 2073
This is an excellent idea! It will boost tourism to North Africa, and hopefully spur further development and political stability in the North African nations, such as Morroco, Tunisia, Eretria, etc. Look at what the Chunnel has done for cross-traffic between England and France.
can you fly a helicopter into said tunnel, and if you can, when it explodes, will tom cruise survive said explosion?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is definitely going to help rebuild relations between Spain and Morocco. Of course, I want the whole thing to be Wi-Fi, but thats just me. ~_^
I have to wonder if the boarding security for the trains running in this proposed tunnel would at least meet that of air travel?
A big enough bomb exploding in transit would basically scrap the whole kit-and-caboodle.
I bring this up because of the fact that Morocco likely has their Muslim fanatics as well, no?
Spain and Morocco to build train tunnel under sea
Spain and Morocco plan tunnel link
Tunnel to link Spain and Morocco agreed
Tunnel link for Africa and Europe
Spain, Morocco to build tunnel under Mediterranean Sea
Spain, Morocco plan undersea tunnel
DON'T MOD THIS UP. MY KARMA IS ALREADY EXCELLENT (has been for months!)
I can't help but wonder how badly there is a need to build something like this. England to France makes sense, as you are talking about two rich nations that see a lot of bussiness with each other. This on the other hand just doesn't seem to hold as much promise for profit. Granted, I know little about the area and there might be more to it then I know, but I just can't see it being worth the horrific costs. Is there any reason why such a feat of engineering is needed when an air plane or boat are both practical solutions?
I wonder how well they have looked at this from an economics side. It seems like it would be a horrific waste of money if it is just being done for national prestige. The worry in such projects is that very few people are willing to say 'no' to such things. The companies involved in the building are of course more then happy to let the government foot the bill, and the companies on either side of coast are happy to have it put in at not cost to themselves. Of course, the people who are going to have to pick up the tab are the tax payers of the respective nations. Who is speaking for them in this project? I hope this is not just a government waste program between the two nations, as it could potentially be a very expensive one.
W00T!!!
The Channel Tunnel: UK - continental Europe, built in 1994, 37.5 kilometer submarine
The Seikan Tunnel: Japan, Hokkaido - Honshu, built in 1988, 23.3 kilometer submarine
Now a tunnel across the Mediteranian is not going to work. First off, Tangiers is not exactly what I would call a "business" destination. Nor is Spain. You have to dig pretty deep on the African continent to find anywhere a typical European traveler would be going. Perhaps I am missing a pent up demand for travel from Africa. It didn't RTFA.
The next problem is travel time. Sure a ride from spain to Morroco would be a lot quicker via Train. A trip from France to Morroco a bit less so. From Scottland to Morrocco... well, only for the folks who want to do it because they can.
Finally I would like to note that the 2 countries involved are still involved in a few territorial spats. That is not a recipe for success on a multi-billion dollar project.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
When I was over in France I saw a doco about one of the unintended consequences of the Chunnel: muslim & eastern european refuges. It's easier for them to cross in the train. (I can't remember which way they were headed! but I know it was an "issue" the news was talking about). I think they'd set up a camp for them because they had no money and nowhere else to go.
I'd think a link from Europe to Africa will be very severely subject to this problem.
Space Elevator planned:
Space Elevator 1
Space Elevator 2
Space Elevator 3
nothing on big hole to from us to china...
Why me? Why not!
BACKUP YOUR PARTITIONS
Also, does anyone know how the depth of this tunnel would compare to that of the Chunnel?
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
This would solve the long-debated African Swallow migratory problem that has been raging for decades.
It's mostly Kurdish and Afghan refugees that use the tunnel to try and get into Britain. It was a pretty huge issue there last year, when it got to a point that people would regularly be rushing the security gates to try and jump onto the freight trains.
The camp that was set up near the Chunnel, Sangatte, got closed by the French authorities earlier year, as an attempt to placate the English. They Brits contended (pretty accurately) that it was being used as a base for immigration. People would live there by day, and then try and sneak into the UK by night.
Cue The Sun...
I think it would be borring as hell (Thank Jeebus for the GBA). Although you wouldn't use it for commuting, going the whole way round ABOVE the ground would qualify as interesting.
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
But isn't this the type of attitude that led to the traffic congestion problems in most major cities? Despite a set schedule, most train/tram systems do get people to their destination with a minimal amount of time, since they tend to have the right of way or exclusive tracks that allows them to avoid traffic congestion.
-B
I lived in Gibraltar for a while.
There are a lot of ferry rides across between Spain & Morocco on a daily basis. They are usually always packed.
Ferries run from Algeciras to Tangiers and Ceuta
Ferries also run several days a week from Gibraltar to Tangiers (not to Ceuta, I dont' think.. Spain hates Gib)
There is definately money to be had, anyway....
The economic value of such a tunnel would outshine any "spat" over territory...
What are they fighting over, anyway, Ceuta?
(Ceuta is a spanish protectorate/territory/colony/whatever in morocco, basically across the straight from Gibraltar.)
Commercia shipping is probably one of the largest reasons. Right now, the only way to get stuff from North Africa to ship it over the water. That's slow.
This would also give shippers a reason to bring more goods through Spain, as opposed to shipping around Spain (once you have the stuff loaded onto a ship.. might as well use that to your advantage.. why bother with spain at all?)
From Gibraltar or Algeciras to the coast of Morocco is about 15 miles, on a clear day you can see the Rif mountains in Morocco... if you are elevated at all, you can see the beaches and houes of Morocco.
A bridge or tunnel is not THAT rediculous, though given the fact that it's open ocean, and all that implies, it's no easy task.
I want a train tunnel along the Great Circle arc from New Brunswick, Canada, to Great Britain, passing through Greenland and maybe Iceland. Then I want a 600MPH train to shoot me from NYC to London, thence through the Chunnel to Paris and points east. I'd love to drive my motorcycle into a cargo car in Brooklyn, and hop back on in the Alps.
--
make install -not war
Where did you get that?
I mean I'm no authority on it.. but Morocco is not really one of the "terorrist hotspots" of the muslim world..
The King has been very adamant about keeping muslim fundamentalists out of the country. The chiefly muslim population of Morocco are indeed very muslim, wear traditional garb, etc, but are not fundamentalist weirdos.. they respect others, other religions, and generally don't hate westerners.
Aside from being poor, Morocco was a neat place to visit, and the people were surprisingly well educated about world politics and geography, considering the poverty levels.
You mean the question of whether the coconut was strung on a vine between them? I thought the experts had agreed that the vine could be clutched beneath the dorsal guiding feathers?
Because of the curvature of the Earth the shortest path between San Francisco and Tokyo goes as high as 48 N. So going through the Bering strait wouldn't be too much of a detour, and connecting Japan to mainland Asia isn't laughably hard. Check a map, or better yet, a globe.
This is going to be a 39km tunnel and if you have an accident in the middle then you have problems getting emergency services in and other people out. The other people tend not to react all that sensibly either when they see flames and realise thay are 15km from an exit.
Dunno how popular it is in comparison to various other destinations, but when I lived briefly in Germany (11th grade) I know that several classmates liked to go to Morocco on vacation. Specifically, to go there to smoke hash, cheaper than it apparently was in Amsterdam.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
The ministry said that a joint Spanish and Moroccan committee of officials had already agreed a preliminary three-year plan of works to start as early as next year, with an estimated initial cost of $30m.
Er, "m" in Europe/Africa is 1e6, right? I can't imagine what sort of "preliminary three-year plan of works" in such an Herculean effort could be done for a mere $30 million.
Look at the big dig in Boston -- a relatively easy task (shorter by far, at least) with initial estimates of $4billion (I think) and 40-50% overruns, I can't imagine much more than breaking ground on either end of this proposed gargantuan tunnel getting done for $30m.
everything in moderation
I initially thought this was a cool idea, but then I had the sinking suspicion that Renfe must be involved. They almost certainly will be. For those you haven't lived/are living in Spain, Renfe is also known as the World's Worst State-Run Railway. Actually, my travels aren't extensive enough to state that with certainty, but it's gotta be in the top 5. Let's see, in the past year (and just off the top of my head) Renfe has managed to: run a pair of trains into each other because somebody literally fell asleep at the switch; trap like 30 AVE workers in an underground tunnel for three days; build a section of the Barcelona-Madrid AVE track over a dangerous sinkhole, mandating millions in costly repairs; exceed the overall timeframe and budget for the Barcelona-Madrid AVE by years and millions of euros, respectively, etc. etc. etc. (Hi ha algu aqui de Catalunya? Que pasa amb l'AVE ara?) If someone were to invite me to ride to Morocco with them on this underground tunnel, I would politely take the ferry.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
So post it as AC instead of asking to not be modded up. That way the post can be modded up to be seen, and your karma will remain unaffected, as you desire.
See how easy that is?
everything in moderation
So man redundant links and not a one has a picture of where the tunnel will be located. :(
Can anyone find one? This is the best detail I could find.
(Does anyone else get the impression that almost the only maps available online are all stolen from the CIA World Factbook? Information Superhighway my ass...)
I am all for high-speed trains. The technologically is great. Wish passenger trains were more useful in the US.
But, have they considered the social impact of this?
I mean isn't the EU having a real tough time dealing with asylum seekers and integrating Muslims into their culture? Look at the French "no head scarves" ban, as an example. While this would make tourism to North Africa easier and improve the economies of those countries, is the EU ready to handle allowing more people (and the percentage of them that will either be illegal immigrants or asylum seekers) to come into the EU? I doubt it. The EU keeps Turkey out of the EU, in large part because Turkey is a Muslim country, and therefore not European enough (despite removing all references to Christianity from the now failed EU Constitution). Also, with the huge AIDS crisis in Africa, will the increase in movement mean an increase in European AIDS cases?
These are all problems humanity should solve, but being human we aren't going to solve them.
{exasperated_sigh} You know, technology would work a lot better if we could just keeps the humans out of the equation. {/exasperated_sigh}
The challenge to this lies not in refugees or economics but in engineering.
The deepest tunnel currently is in Japan and is 100m below a 140m channel. Engineering a tunnel 240m down is seriously non-trivial, and Japan is seriously hooked-in when it comes to engineering. Spain and Morocco, really have no hope of pulling this off without outsourcing the whole deal.
The tunnel would need to be 300m + 100m below sea level (1/4 mile). That depth presents numerous difficulties with removing seep water, air density, and a host of other things. The geology is not nearly as receptive to a tunnel as it was for the chunnel engineers and they'll find that it's much, much more difficult cutting through than the chalk that is present beneath the English Channel.
This is easily an order of magnitude more difficult to build than the chunnel was. I'd be surprised if it's ever built.
The EU keeps Turkey out of the EU, in large part because Turkey is a Muslim country...
Actually, it has much more to do with Turkey's incredibly poor record on human rights. A few years ago during the Danish Presidency, the European Council issued a set of requirements called the Coppenhagen Criteria, which basically made up a laundry list of minor atrocities perpetrated/ignored by the Turkish government that would have to be resolved before the country was considered for EU membership.
It's really easy to make blanket statements about the European community's supposed "intolerance" for the Islamic minority, but the criticism is far from water tight. For example, the mentioned "head scarf" policy, which is being discussed in terms of its enforcement in state-run public schools, also forbids the wearing of "obvious" religious symbols like skull caps and large crucifixes.
Many Africans enter Spain legitimately - jumping through all the necessary hoops. This in itself is not problematic. The trouble starts when their work Visas start to expire and they realize that the EU's uber-flimsy border control allows them to leave Spain and bounce around other countries in continental Europe almost indefinitely. The proposed rail link would have little or no impact on this problem because it deals with a different set of borders.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Things are probably different in Europe (never taken a train there personally), but in the USA with our super-ghetto trains, it almost always takes longer to take a train than to drive. For commuting trains, I can take CalTrain from my house to my work. Takes about 20 min longer than driving, since it makes an obscene number of stops along the way. The only reason I'd take it is so I can read the paper while commuting. But a time saver it ain't (especially when you factor in time to get to and from the train stations).
Subways are better. BART's decent, but they'll probably never make it down to the South Bay...
As for "real" trains, all we've got is Amtrak. When I was in school, I thought about taking the train from Santa Barbara back home to San Jose. Thats about a 300 mile drive. Driving typically takes about 4-4.5 hours. The train takes (literally, I just looked it up) EIGHT HOURS and costs $82. I get 30mpg in my car so I can make the drive in about half the time and for half the cost. Hell I could *fly* to LA for about that and be there in 2 hours.
It really sucks, since I'd be totally willing to take trains to work or down to LA if they could ever manage to match a car for cost and speed...
This scenario will be in Railroad Tycoon 4 for sure...
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
There are some trains that can shift gauge, but most railway engineers think that's asking for trouble.
Another issue is loading gauge (essentially how big the cross section of the train can be and not create problems). The UK has a really tight loading gauge and the Chunnel has a HUGE loading gauge.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Morocco exports a lot of goods to Europe. Some of them completely native like fruits and vegetables, phosphate, (hashich :p), etc. Others are produced by foreign companies outsourcing to Morocco (though not nearly as much as one would hope for) France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the U.K are some of Morocco's main economic partners.
:) I believe it gets around 2-3 million tourists a year (many of them people of Moroccan extraction residing in europe) which, while by no means comparable to Spain's 50 millions or France's 70 millions are still important to its economy and are a vital source of hard currency. That's some more traffic right there.
:)
It goes without saying That Morocco also imports from those countries quite a bit. Some more traffic right there.
Morocco is also a touristic destination. (And I am shamelessly plugging it when I say: Go visit! I swear you'll like it. Really
And last but not least, It is also a hub between Europe and Africa so part of many african countries' exports and imports also go through Morocco.
Anyways, My point is that there is PLENTY of traffic taking place between Spain and Morocco and that a tunnel or a bridge linking the two countries DOES make plenty of economic sense. As the article pointed out, talks about this have been going on for decades now and it is actually surprising this has not happened sooner (taking into account that The distance between Tangiers and Algeciras is a measly 10 miles).
And for those unfamiliar with the territorial "spats" between Morocco and Spain, it goes something like this:
A few hundred years ago, Spain conquered a couple of northern moroccan cities (sebta and imlilia a.k.a ceuta and melilla). They have been spanish ever since but Morocco still officially wants them returned (The truth is no moroccan I've ever known cares about that.) They are tax-free zones and a LOT of cheap contraband stuff (from eletronics to candy) comes from them. My first playstation most probably came from there
The Western Sahara is a different issue. Spain was ocuppying it during the days of european colonization and it was taken back about 3 decades ago at the end of a "million men" peaceful march. Since then, Spain has been trying to make it an independant country so that they could fish within it's territorial waters for cheap. Now THAT is a very touchy subject for your average moroccan. You know..pride, territorial integrity, yadda yadda. The government has been stalling a referendum supposed to take place there and giving incentives to Moroccans to relocate there in hopes of skewing a future vote.
Back to the topic. I'm a bit disappointed that the tunnel is going to be trains only. I was actually hoping for something that allows cars and trucks to travel through. I guess the ferry businesses lobbied against it to avoid certain bankruptcy.
To the extent that they have violence, it's down in the Spanish Sahara, a culturally different area south of Morocco that the last few Kings of Morocco want to rule because of the mining resources, while the local Polisario guerillas don't want the kings.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
According to the Guardian, the sea is shallower along the proposed longer route than along the shorter route. The depth of the tunnel would go from 300m to 900m if the shorter route were taken.
The tunnel will have to be significantly longer than the span of water it crosses, in order to allow for the tunnel to reach relatively non-permeable rock by the time you're under wet stuff and to allow a relatively shallow grade.
The Chunnel's average depth under the seafloor is 40m, dropping that distance at a 2% grade takes 2km of rundown on each end... and that's not counting the 100m or so of ocean you have to dip under.
Trains really don't do well on steep grades-- inefficient as hell compared to nice shallow glides, although this is less of a problem on pure-electric trains that don't have to worry about keeping their diesel generators running in an efficient RPM-range.
So, the shortest crossing point doesn't necessarily correspond to the shortest required tunnel, depending on the contours of the seafloor/coasts and the various rock formations around.
Gibraltar is also a hell of a lot funkier from an engineering perspective. The English Channel averages only about 100m deep, while the Strait of Gibraltar appears to be significantly more irregular, with bits running to about ~300m deep from what I can find on the net.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
So, if I'm correct, all of the links to the west of this map are either completed or funded...
As most of this is simply land routes, when are we gonna start the Siberia-Alaska route???
I know there's more to be considered...the extreme cold is one...the other major problem is that the area under consideration is geologically active. Not good for a tunnel...the other problem is that a portion of the "best route" is a protected wild life reserve.
The only problem is that this (like free trade zones) will not be good for the US economy...
How on Earth could it ever be profitable to connect Spain and Morocco? It's impossible. Madrid is the only city in Spain that could rival London, Paris or Brussels. And it already takes 6 hours to get from Madrid to the proposed tunnel! And then, there is no large business city on the other side. No business traveler will be taking the train. The plane will always be preferred on such distances.
Am I making sense? Had to work throughout the night.
Strangely enough, there does not seem to be so many european posts about that subject, that is truly interesting.
For my fellow globalized-citizens from America, two things :
- Oh no, those fucking africans are going to invade Europe, because there will be no more control over immigration. Maybe you are not aware of it, but we have something called in here the European Union. And that means that England and France are virtually borderless for the transportation of people. This is not because you red it in the press that the train project will be the same. Why ? Because Morocco is not part of the European Union. It is only applying for a "special relationship". Thus, one can imagine that controls there will be tight, very tight. Spain has been sailing a tight ship so far.
- What happens if an islamist/terrorist is plantin a bomb out there ?Stop being so neurotic about that. People with dark skin don't have bombs in their suitcases. Only people with mad minds have bombs in their suitcases. Morocco suffered a terrorist attack ; Bali suffered a terrorist attack. Don't you have the slightest impression than terrorists are focusing on the shifting of Islam from the inside ? No ? Think about it. There will be no more risk for a bomb here than in every other place in the world.
What's interesting here is how spain is changing its mind about morocco. After all the fud about the Turah island, this is one more step forward to enhance the relationship between Spain and Morocco. It a step for solving the immigration problem, since this is a path to rationalize the constant flux of immigrants coming to Europe from Spain. It is a step for integrating North Africa into Europe. It is a step for making the Arab people understand that they are *not* rejected. Etc.Tough there have been some funny jokes (I loved the thread about grammar/spelling), people should speak more quietly about issues that they don't know anything about.
Regards,
Jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
Anyone have any solid ideas why they'd choose a 40km route over a ~13km one?
Then they would be only the third longest tunnel. Whats the fun in that?
To any of you that don't work on transportation networks...
Do you have the slightest idea how much shorter the trip from Europe to Africa will be? Imagine Holland for example, which exports wheat to African countries in many situations. Their cheapest way to travel is of course by road, but too time consuming and it needs a trip through Continental Europe, bosphorus (Turkey, which they don't like at all), then Syria, Libanon, Israel, Egypt, etc. Now we get a direct link from Spain to Marocco.
Here is my prediction on how things will go, if this actually is successful.
1. Marocco and Spain will get rich from customs and the rest of the two continents will depend heavily on them for trade routes.
2. The English shipping industry will loose considerable amounts of money (they already did with the England/France tunnel).
3. Marocco will once again gain political influence in Africa, and will of course probably win over Western Sahara (there's been a disbute there for a long time, in case you didn't know).
4. Someone will figure out a way to involve Linux in this, eventhough Microsoft advertisements will fill the tunnel.
In case anyone wants to know more about the geography of transportation, a good intro is located at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/
Actually you're missing smth here.
:p
Madrid is only 4 hours and a half away from Malaga on a pseudo-high speed train. Once the TGV-AVE (High speed) rail comes to Malaga (1 hour car drive from Algeciras-Gibraltar) it'd be piece of cake to connect everything to the new AVE railroad which
will probably reduce the time to Madrid to 3 hours.
Stretch that westwards and you've got yourself Africa connected to Portugal as well.
How many hundred of thousands of muslims cross Spain from France every year on vacation? A big
police-emergency operation is devised every year to drive all this people south from France to Algeciras where they massively get onboard ferries (somewhat like D-Day but with old cars)
If done properly this tunnel will cost twice as budgeted but will be eventually (circa 2100) profitable.
It would be a cool project though.
Shihar wondered whether this is wasteful government spending.
My response is simple: no, it isn't. It is an effective and cheap means of promoting economic development and the development of democratic societies in Muslim nations in Northern Africa. Those kinds of cooperative infrastructure projects are, in fact, the only choice Europe seems to have for peaceful co-existence with its African and Middle Eastern neighbors.
To give Americans some idea of its order of magnitude, I made a comparison to a recent Middle East-related project by the US: the tunnel's cost is going to be a tiny fraction of what the US spent on the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq also was justified as promoting the development of democracies in Muslim societies. In fact, its cost is probably going to be small compared even to something like a single stealth bomber (which costs several billion dollars).
So, do you get it now? I responded to Shihar's question by a cost/benefit comparison with a related project recently carried out by the US, as well as with standard military hardware. Sorry if I didn't spell it out clearly enough the first time for you to understand.
Full disclosure ahead: I am a Spaniard, I lived for 2 years in Morocco (Casablanca) and I work in the railway business (software engineering, not civil engineering, but you can't have it all, can you?)
/ guadarrama/), which will connect Madrid to the northern cities of Segovia and Valladolid. And last, but not least, the longest metro line in Europe, currently under construction, is the Line 9 in Barcelona, which will also feature fully automated trains (http://www.finanzas.com/id.5214701/noticias/notic ia.htm, in Spanish).
Believe it or not, but this is actually possible. Spain might not be any more the country many of you thought it was. Civil engineering in Spain and the rest of Europe is pretty advanced these days, as far as huge tunnels are concerned. Just look at Madrid's Metro and its spectacular growth here: http://www.metropla.net/eu/mad/metrosur.htm. The Line 12 was put in service in just 3+ years, and spans 40+ kilometres of underground tracks and stations. Look at the 27 kilometre high speed rail double tunnel currently being built beneath the Sierra de Guadarrama, a granitic mountain range 2500 metres high (http://www.geodata.it/english/progetti/gallunghe
However, having said this, I don't believe we will actually see this happen in our lifetimes. First of all, 27e6 euros (30e6 $) aren't enough even for preliminary studies of such a complex undertaking. The current Spanish government is extremely interested in infrastructure and development work if and only if two or more of the following apply: a) political gains are to be obtained, b) civil engineering firms tycoons line up their pockets even more and c) the european union foots a significant percentage of the bills.
And then comes Morocco, a developing country en route to democracy. Morocco has comparatively few transportation infrastructures deployed: around 1000 km of electrified, standard gauge railways. You simply don't build a tunnel to nowhere, unless Spain and the EU are strongly commited to finance development works there (and they currently aren't, and most likely won't be in a foreseeable future, even though it might be a hell of a good idea to even out differences and further good neighbour relationships in the Mediterranean area).
Lastly, governments of Spain and Morocco are at odds over several issues, the least important of which are the ones that got more attention in previous comments: territorial disputes and terrorism. The main troubles between Morocco and Spain (and the rest of EU) are immigration and commerce, and both of them receive a harsh treatment by the Spanish government. No compromises will be agreed upon unless forced by a third party, just because such an attitude improves the outlook of Aznar and his cabinet among the population right wing.
So, unfortunately, I believe this tunnel is just vapor, and will dissipate sooner or later depending on the result of the ongoing UN-sponsored Western Sahara negotiations...
Ivan
An eye for an eye anD%$"%R:=\D\q[NO SIG]
I am not very much confident in the success of this project... Spanish railway system is horrible.
The most recent example is Madrid-Lleida High Speed Railway. It was supposed to "fly" at 350 Km/hour, and hardly ever goes over 200 Km/hour.
nirvanis
The depth of 400m is not a big deal to deal with. Plenty of verticle shaft mines are dug 3,500m deep. The biggest problem with very deep mining is that the ambient temperature increases roughly 15C for every 1,000m. Obviously a 70C envirnoment is not great for miners, so they need cooling equipment. The +6C at the deepest part of this rail tunnel is not a big deal.
As far as cutting through harder stone, read up on NYC's Water Tunnel #3. Workers are excavating about 17 meters per day at a 7 meter diameter, at a depth of about 200m. They are boring through granite, a very hard rock. The tunnel is partially operational right now, but will be 100km long when completed.
In California, for example, Reagan pushed to have the interstate come right out into the Fisherman's Wharf area, but that got nixed. In the Twin Cities, where I live, we have a "Days of Rondo" celebration every year -- the Rondo neighborhood in Saint Paul having been cut in two and basically destroyed by the construction of the highway. (Poor [and black] neighborhood, had no political clout to defend itself.)
Anyway, though, we paid such an expense before, once. The social cost to this one would be less, but the physical costs of construction would boggle the mind. The Minneapolis airport's tunnel for light rail was a huge endeavor, and that's when the city's been planning ahead for twenty-odd years at least.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Depends how far along he is in his Scientology studies at the time. If he's OT7, shouldn't the magic alien Xenu come to his rescue?