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Tunnel Boring Machine Completes Hole Under Niagara Falls

Posted by Soulskill on from the also-known-as-geohacking dept.

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."

24 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why they drilled that tunnel.

    --
    Fandroids hate facts.
    1. Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by codegen · · Score: 3, Informative

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

      --
      Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
    2. Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by hawguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I thought they could already divert so much water through the hydropower tunnels that they have laws to mandate minimum flow rates at the falls to maintain the waterfall spectacle. Don't the new tunnels draw from the same water source?

      http://www.niagarafallslocal.com/NiagaraFalls/showthread.php?t=60

    3. Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by dziban303 · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.

    4. Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by haruchai · · Score: 5, Funny

      I guess you believe you have concrete reasons to be annoyed but your rant has likely cemented opinions that you're over-sensitive.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    5. Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by happyhangone · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

    6. Re:No, I'm not going to RTFA just to find out by Walzmyn · · Score: 2

      They also didn't include a map. I mean, c'mon, if you're talking about a 10 freaking mile long man-made hole in the ground isn't a map showing it's route a pretty damned obvious thing to think that a reader would want to see?

  2. The reason by DanTheStone · · Score: 2

    It's a sustainable energy project, not that anyone would have guessed that based on the summary.

    1. Re:The reason by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Funny

      Looks like it's time to build a wall. Anyone know where I can get some cheap labor?

      Detroit.

      What, too soon?

  3. "Rogers Center"s? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Slashdot is an American site, we don't need any Metric measurements like "Rogers Center"s. How many Libraries of Congresses can it fill?

    1. Re:"Rogers Center"s? by Drooling+Iguana · · Score: 5, Informative

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

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      ... I'm addicted to placebos
    2. Re:"Rogers Center"s? by theguyfromsaturn · · Score: 2

      Thanks for clarifying that. Nobody knows what the Rogers Center is. Now, Skydome has a meaning. Rogers Center means nothing to me. And it will change name as soon as a new sponsor shows up. I think people should boycott those sponsored names and keep calling structures a true non-changeable name. Whatever the sponsoring says. Sadly, it will never be the case of journalists who have to cater to sponsors.

      --
      I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
  4. worst article ever by SashaMan · · Score: 2

    You'd think they would explain, you know, WHY THEY BUILT THE TUNNEL. They explain it's a "sustainable energy project", but they don't actually explain how the tunnel is used or what exactly it's for.

    1. Re:worst article ever by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

      What do you mean, why they built the tunnel. It's a tunnel. You've got to build tunnels.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    2. Re:worst article ever by Namarrgon · · Score: 2

      Would've, but the lights had gone.

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      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    3. Re:worst article ever by gmhowell · · Score: 2

      I was concerned about the leopard.

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      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    4. Re:worst article ever by Culture20 · · Score: 2

      you don't build tunnels though, you bore them.

      I'll have you know that most tunnels find me rather engaging.

  5. I'd tell you, but... by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...it's boring.

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    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  6. Nobody expected dirt to get in the way... by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 2

    Kind of funny that it ran into a timely detour because it hit a spot that WASN'T solid rock.

    Amazing that level of optimization fails due to loose dirt.

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    >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    1. Re:Nobody expected dirt to get in the way... by haruchai · · Score: 2

      Guess none of them saw "The Core"

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  7. Re:You're not missing out on much. by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

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    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  8. Re:Our chief weapon is surprise... dirt and surpri by Jartan · · Score: 2

    I would think drilling through loose material would be easy. Isn't the problem more about stopping the ceiling from dumping more material into the spot you just emptied?

  9. Re:Our chief weapon is surprise... dirt and surpri by blair1q · · Score: 2

    It's the stuff constantly dumping on the top of the borer instead of falling and being sucked up by its front end. These things run on rails, so except for the first few meters their workspace needs to be relatively clean.

    It's also much harder to stabilize loose stuff for use as a tunnel, and almost impossible to trust your load calculations. Nice, hard rock eliminates all that. Just throw in some cleats, spray on the gunite to seal cracks and prevent loose crap from becoming debris, and go to lunch.

  10. Feed for Sir Adam Beck power plant by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a feed tunnel for the Sir Adam Beck power plant below the falls. It's the third tunnel built for that purpose, and adds 194MW of generating capacity.

    There's so much plumbing in place at Niagara Falls that the falls can almost be turned off. There's a minimum water flow over the falls established by international agreement, but that's for aesthetics. At night, and during the tourist off season, more water is run through the hydroelectric plants.

    Back in the 1980s, some boater was upstream of the falls, closer than he should have been, and lost power. He managed to run aground upstream of the falls. This was noticed at the Niagara Mohawk power plant control room, where an operator opened all feed and diversion tunnels and closed gates at the upstream weir, shutting off most of the falls until a rescue crew could fetch the boater.