Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

arup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 102 posts

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#21

Post by lukan »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #3

52.6B krone for 18 km 8B USD for 11 miles CACHSR IOS 36B USD for 171 miles. The Merced to Bakersfield IOS looks like a bargain on a distance basis. I have no idea of the carbon offset or passenger time saving versus flying of course

The building of this tunnel will likely create way more CO2, than can be saved by providing a more direct route and avoiding ferries

(german source ... and very critical of the project)

https://www.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/verkehr/verkehrsin...

Personally I like the concept of having a more direct access to scandinavia and see lots of other positive long term effects.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#22

Post by usrusr »

euroderf wrote: post #13
lmm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. What would that look like, adding more gaskets on the outside? That sounds even harder to maintain since the only way to get access is diving.

Some kind of goop that would get very slowly squeezed into gaps by water pressure ?

Sealing is really not that difficult if you have access to the high pressure side. The hard part is identifying the location of the leak. In sum, this means that they have to absolutely nail it, on the first attempt, for the bottom part that is resting on the sea floor. If they can to that, the rest of the circumference will also be so good they don't have to even think about fixability.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#23

Post by usrusr »

Can anyone from the region comment on the status of plans for the landside linkup on the German side? Last time it made the press it was because the project was at risk of seeing the Danish tunnel finished before Germany could tell not even when but if a linkup would ever make it across bureaucratic hurdles. Almost like a Darien Gap made exclusively of red tape.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#24

Post by nottorp »

BretonForearm wrote: post #20

That horrible website overrides web page scrolling and disables pinch zoom. Bad!

First it gives you a popup saying i'm not in the US and would I like to visit the global site?

In my experience that means they send me to the other site that doesn't even have the article i clicked to, or even if it has it they can't redirect me to it.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#25

Post by gmueckl »

lukan wrote: post #21
readthenotes1 wrote: post #3

52.6B krone for 18 km 8B USD for 11 miles CACHSR IOS 36B USD for 171 miles. The Merced to Bakersfield IOS looks like a bargain on a distance basis. I have no idea of the carbon offset or passenger time saving versus flying of course

The building of this tunnel will likely create way more CO2, than can be saved by providing a more direct route and avoiding ferries (german source ... and very critical of the project) https://www.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/verkehr/verkehrsin... Personally I like the concept of having a more direct access to scandinavia and see lots of other positive long term effects.

I really hate how German environmental activists resort to hyperbole and alarmist language by default when voicing concerns. This only makes it harder for me to take them seriously.

And then there is this tried and true tradition of commissioning studies with the sole intent to support a predefined viewpoint rather than taking an unbiased approach. This makes it so hard to trust any information when political arguments become heated.

To make the connection back to the tunnel: it consumes a huge amount of concrete and that releases the associated amount of CO2. Thisnpart is fairly easy to estimate. But estimating the impact on traffic emissions is fraught with issues. There are so many assumptions about lifetime, amount of traffic, types of vehicles that I can easily imagine the error bars to stack up to the point where a little tuning of model parameters gives just about any desired result.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#26

Post by logifail »

usrusr wrote: post #23

Can anyone from the region comment on the status of plans for the landside linkup on the German side? Last time it made the press it was because the project was at risk of seeing the Danish tunnel finished before Germany could tell not even when but if a linkup would ever make it across bureaucratic hurdles. Almost like a Darien Gap made exclusively of red tape.

You mean like the Brenner Base [Rail] Tunnel which will connect Austria and Italy?

Germany seems to be stuck at the "studying" stage before they improve the relevant rail links on the Grafing–Rosenheim–Kufstein route.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#28

Post by shellfishgene »

usrusr wrote: post #23

Can anyone from the region comment on the status of plans for the landside linkup on the German side? Last time it made the press it was because the project was at risk of seeing the Danish tunnel finished before Germany could tell not even when but if a linkup would ever make it across bureaucratic hurdles. Almost like a Darien Gap made exclusively of red tape.

It's not really clear, the German part was going slower than the tunnel, but now that the tunnel is also delayed by at least 2 years, who knows maybe they are in sync again ;). The road link seems to be going much faster than the rail link on the German sinde, which won't be done before 2032.

Re: First tunnel element of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel immersed

#29

Post by lukan »

gmueckl wrote: post #25
lukan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The building of this tunnel will likely create way more CO2, than can be saved by providing a more direct route and avoiding ferries (german source ... and very critical of the project) https://www.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/verkehr/verkehrsin... Personally I like the concept of having a more direct access to scandinavia and see lots of other positive long term effects.

I really hate how German environmental activists resort to hyperbole and alarmist language by default when voicing concerns. This only makes it harder for me to take them seriously. And then there is this tried and true tradition of commissioning studies with the sole intent to support a predefined viewpoint rather than taking an unbiased approach. This makes it so hard to trust any information when political argumen…

Agreed to that, but they are right with stating, that digging up so much ocean soil in a direct line might disrupt entire maritime ecosystems.
Post reply on HN