Re:Tunnels are our Transportation Future
by samstave on Thursday August 05, 2021 @04:37PM
(#28079396)
A semi-bouyant tunnel that sits ~100 meters below the surface with anchors to the floor and floats above might be ideal. Imagine if it was a conveyance even for just "packets" (cargo conatiners that are shot through the tunnel, no humans...)
Re:Tunnels are our Transportation Future
by noahtallen on Thursday August 05, 2021 @04:45PM
(#28079523)
The next downside is whether anyone would use such a tunnel, given that plane travel would be much quicker, probably safer, maybe cheaper (tolls on such a tunnel plus gas would be quite expensive), and possibly more enjoyable (better views in a plane, it’d probably be depressing and claustrophobic being down under for so long)
Re:Tunnels are our Transportation Future
by barbecue_sauce on Friday August 06, 2021 @07:57PM
(#28094231)
I imagine it would be used for shipping primarily.
China-USA would be a bit longer and go through the ring of fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire), making it a bigger challenge to build.
I would guess a bare tunnel itself is less of a challenge than its ventilation (even if you build a parallel tunnel tube for ventilation, pumping it out over thousands of kilometers will be challenging. The alternative would be to build ventilation towers every x km) and safety (how long will it take to get an ambulance to a traffic accident? To get people out?)