Tunnel Boring Machine Completes Hole Under Niagara Falls

abhatt writes with news that "Big Becky," a 4,000-ton tunnel boring machine, has finished chewing through over 10 kilometers of rock underneath Niagara Falls, Ontario, a project that's been underway since 2006. "The 10.2 kilometer tunnel is 14.4 meters in diameter. Big Becky ate through 1.6 million cubic meters of rock to reach her goal. That’s enough rock, officials said, to fill the Rogers Centre in Toronto. And the cement used to line the tunnel would build a sidewalk stretching from Windsor to Quebec City. ... The project took longer and cost more because Becky ran into unexpected conditions. She’s designed to go through solid rock, but encountered a stretch of loose, crumbling material that was unsuitable for tunneling. That forced a long and expensive detour."

Comments

Re:"Rogers Center"s?

[Drooling Iguana]

There's no such thing as a "Rogers Centre." It's called SkyDome and will always be called SkyDome.

Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out

[codegen]

Divert water from the Niagara river to the Adam Beck generating Station. More Hydro Electric Power.

Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out

[dziban303]

Also, IT'S NOT FUCKING CEMENT, IT'S CONCRETE.

Cement is an ingredient of concrete. It is not the finished product. Calling concrete "cement" is as stupid as calling clothing "cotton", or calling a sandwich "mayonnaise". Once you apply the mayonnaise to bread and add some lunchmeat, your creation has become a sandwich, and it is no longer simply mayonnaise.

Yeah, I get that fucking irritated by this.

AND SO SHOULD YOU.

Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out

[happyhangone]

Why they can use more water without affecting the laws governing the preservation of the fall's spectacle.
http://www.opg.com/power/hydro/new_projects/ntp/why_niagara.asp

What this proyect is all about!
http://www.opg.com/power/hydro/new_projects/ntp/tunnel_route.asp

Re:You're not missing out on much.

[theshowmecanuck]

The project was to up upgrade the existing hydroelectric generating stations that currently generate a little over 1.9 Gigawatts of electricity from the waters of the Niagara River. The Niagara River (on which you will find Niagara Falls) flows between the two Great Lakes, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It will add around 200 MW of power generating capacity. Thiswould have been a better news release article and explains a bit of the "green" projects in Ontario.

There: all you ever wanted to know about WTF the OP's linked article should have told you. FWIW, I agree that the OP's linked article is pretty lame. But that's nothing new for mainstream journalism. But I have to admit, Canadian news media that were once pretty damned good, are now pretty damned weak (Leaving out important contextual information, inability to spell, lack of grammar skills, just not understanding what the fuck they are reporting on and too lazy to find out).