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China May Build an Undersea Train To America
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."
About the same as with a shorter underwater tunnel, such as this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Not America proper. You had us worried for a minute there, guys.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
This project, a bridge tunnel between Alaska and either Russia or China, has been discussed for decades. It would be an awesome idea and a massive undertaking. To date, no one has actually done it because of the easy access to air travel, cheap ocean freight, and the expense of building a 100+ mile bridge in some of the harshest environment known to man.
The days of terrorists? Are you kidding me? Terrorism has always existed. The only way to combat it is to not let it scare or deter us from going about our lives.
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.
They've got the money and the manpower. Nationalism is the only resource that lack of may stop them. Projects such as these and their moon base plans are money well spent.
Terrorists use plate tectonics now ?
Both sides of the Bering strait are part of the north american plate.
Are they building this tunnel to move cargo less efficiently than a cargo ship or to move people less efficiently than an airliner?
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, imagine what would happen if there was a transpacific or transatlantic crossing that was treated exactly the same way. One fuckup and the entire line is destroyed. Ask the cities that have transport tunnels why they haven't built any more. A) Cost, B) in case of fire, die quietly.
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...
Also the Aleutian islands are quite active, that entire area is active.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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.
well perhaps the channel tunnel between England and France is a better comparison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
(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.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Three words:
Channel Tunnel
Just because some people can't build a decent tunnel doesn't mean no one can do it Right
Please, extremely long tunnels already exist such as the one between Hokkaido and Honshu.
Just noticed that's two words, not three... I was going to call it english channel tunnel then checked the right name...
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.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
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 - they would not want this done for free, or without the US doing things in return. An oil line from Iran through Afghanistan without US intervention and a few other concessions, most likely.
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...
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.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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
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.
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.
Nothing about the big-dig is associated with any "lowest bidders". Speaking as a Bostonian, the project was a massive demonstration of the sort of crony capitalism that runs on Beacon Hill, and especially within the various transportation departments. Massachusetts, for example, spends roughly 7 times per highway dollar as New Hampshire, and yet has far worse roads. It's all about kickbacks to cronies. http://reason.org/studies/show...
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.
No, they won't. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should, or will. Alaska is too far away and it would cost too much. China won't build it, Russia won't build it and we won't build it.
>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.
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.
The Bering Strait isn't "in the middle of fucking nowhere", it's the least water between two distinct and useful somewheres. The problem is you don't see the value of that location.
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 China.
Come to think of it, I do believe that particular route by train would even be faster than the usual sea route by ship for the China-USA trade.
Although to be honest about it, I doubt anything will happen. This would probably be the most extensive and expensive engineering project ever attempted. Then there's a whole thing about China running the hype machine like usual. In exercising their control over the media, China sometimes forgets that the latest musings of a powerful or educated person is not the same thing as a realistic plan.
Does that include the rising prices of liquid fossil fuels? If they keep rising, electrified railway might overtake shipping one day, unless you make those ships sail at a snail's pace. (Environmentally, it might be sound to try to get rid of bunker fuel long before that, though. All that sulphur can't be good, now can it?)
Ezekiel 23:20
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.
Come on now, it's not that remote. Putin said he could see Alaska from his house.
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...
on the other hand obama did in fact make a statement saying terrorism is over
Also false.
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.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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 and Yukon Rivers over to the Mackenzie River. The North American rail network reaches as far as Hay River, near the south end of the Mackenzie River.
For a shorter route, the Tanana River could be followed past Fairbanks, and the route could continue paralleling the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse. At Whitehorse it could travel next to Teslin Lake and over land to Dease Lake. While Dease Lake is not currently connected to the continental rail network, but the track bed had been fully prepared in the 1970's, and it would be easy to install the necessary bridges and rail.
Still, ships would be more efficient.
Be relentless!
Not according to this chart
They don't exactly buy software, they pirate it. They don't buy cars, since they manufacture their own and quality isn't actually better in USA cars. Food? There's only so much soy the USA can export to China at interesting prices. China is buying up the entire USA economy and buying shares in lots of companies.just like Japan and Arabian Oil states have been doing in the past. Sorry, but the USA doesn't really produce a lot of goods that other countries are interested in any more. If anything, China buys raw ores, fuel and such, not finished products.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Yes, it's important that we borrow from people who are aren't born yet 'in order to keep the books balanced'.
My other UID is three digits.
I was wondering how this might get financed....
The answer is:
WALMART.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.