# The Bering Strait tunnel.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 21, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147 "2017-05-21T16:23:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/1 "2017-05-21T16:23:35Z")
What do you think of the proposed [Bering Strait tunnel](http://www.interbering.com/)?
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/2 "2017-05-21T16:27:10Z")
Like television set on honeymoon: unnecessary.
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### Author:  [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/3 "2017-05-21T19:47:09Z")
Where are we going in it?
Last i knew of the Global Situation, one does not just freely drive into China or Russia?
Weather isnt good at that latitude anyways.
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### Author:  [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/4 "2017-05-21T20:03:46Z")
> [@Weisshund](#):
>
> Where are we going in it?
>
> Last i knew of the Global Situation, one does not just freely drive into China or Russia?
> Weather isnt good at that latitude anyways.
Where are we going? Pretty much anywhere in Asia/Europe. London if you like trains. The Global Situation is actually not bad. [China runs freight trains to London.](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38654176)
But you’re right; we can’t drive to China or Russia unless we have [one of these](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicar). 😃
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/5 "2017-05-21T20:19:15Z")
The route of this proposed tunnel takes it from one of the most remote, lightly populated parts of the US to one of the most remote, lightly populated parts of Russia. Sure you could eventually get to the interesting parts of Asia or Europe, but not anytime soon. And similarly, the journey could start in one of the more interesting parts of North America, but not anytime soon. And given that we already have sea and/or air routes to pretty much everywhere, what is the point of this?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/6 "2017-05-21T20:24:57Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> The route of this proposed tunnel takes it from one of the most remote, lightly populated parts of the US to one of the most remote, lightly populated parts of Russia. Sure you could eventually get to the interesting parts of Asia or Europe, but not anytime soon. And similarly, the journey could start in one of the more interesting parts of North America, but not anytime soon. And given that we already have sea and/or air routes to pretty much everywhere, what is the point of this?
But just imagine…a “Route 66” - type of highway where you could drive from, say, Seattle to Moscow, and on to Paris and London. Much like the [Pan-American Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Highway) from North to South America, although I’m not sure that is 100% operational right now.
It will happen someday.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/7 "2017-05-21T20:32:06Z")
The questions I’d have would center around whether it’s cheaper to ship something by rail up through Manchuria and Siberia, through this proposed tunnel, and then down through Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia and from there, to wherever it’s going, or putting it in a container and shipping it from Shanghai to Los Angeles.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/8 "2017-05-21T20:36:53Z")
Some quick searching turns up some old Bering tunnel/bridge threads.
> **[Super-Long Bridges-When Will They Be Built?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268187)**
>
> Anybody know when the Straits of Gibraltar will be bridged? Also, the Straits of Messina (Sicily to the mainland)-what is the start date for this? Anybody know how much these will cost? And…any MORE discussion about the feasibility of a BERING...
> **[Super-Long Bridges-When Will They Be Built?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268187)**
>
> Anybody know when the Straits of Gibraltar will be bridged? Also, the Straits of Messina (Sicily to the mainland)-what is the start date for this? Anybody know how much these will cost? And…any MORE discussion about the feasibility of a BERING...
> **[Would you drive from London to New York?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=752664)**
>
> Was reading this CNN article about a (fantasy) road proposal from Russia that would connect the US via Alaska to eastern Russia, then traverse Russia via an (fantasy proposed) road system that follows the trans-Siberian rail line (which is actually...
> **[Huzzah! A tunnel under the Bering Strait!](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=418116)**
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/24/russia.alaska.tunnel.ap/index.html Well… not just yet. Someday, maybe? Or is this forever doomed as a pipedream?
> **[Trans-Pacific Highway- Bringing Back the Land Bridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=81702)**
>
> I have a friend who is studying in South Africa for a year. I would really like to visit him, as I doubt I will ever have a good excuse to get to that corner of the world again. Airline tickets, however, are way out of my price range. I think the...
I thought we did this more recently than those. But, anyway, nothing’s changed economically.
Forget passenger traffic. It won’t pay a fraction of the costs.
Cargo? Shipping things by train works either due to time constraints or a more direct route. Since you’re not shipping a bunch of stuff from E. Sibera to Alaska or vice versa, you need to think in terms of the lower 48 of the US and China. For bulk stuff by ship is the way to do it. If you need it faster then airplanes. There’s not enough of a “sweet spot” where a train would work.
One big advantage of trains is minimizing cargo transfers. Each time something has to be taken off transport 1 and moved to transport 2 you’re losing time and money. But the way shipping has developed with containers and automation, this edge is weakening.
And it will be hella expensive. Not just the tunnel/bridge but laying tracks. Esp. on the Russian side. There just isn’t enough existing tracks, infrastructure, etc. to make this an easy job. Throw in the melting permafrost and the numbers get scary.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/9 "2017-05-21T20:38:03Z")
**The Bering Strait tunnel.
race\_to\_the\_bottom**
Nice title/username combo.
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### Author:  [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/10 "2017-05-21T20:44:47Z")
To paraphrase Billy, “I think it’s a Crack Pot idea!”.
To paraphrase Captain America, “How’s your Joint, George?”.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/11 "2017-05-21T20:51:56Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Like television set on honeymoon: unnecessary.
Nonsense! It would provide Americans with valuable access to Siberian snow, which would be the new “In” thing to make cocktails at hipster bars.
Seriously, there are a lot of natural resources in Siberia, including oil, natural gas, various metals including copper, silver, lead, tin, and high grade iron ore. A lot of these resources are not extracted because of the difficult environment and lack of transportation infrastructure, but having some kind of reliable transportation might make it economically more viable, especially for a developing industrial nation such as China. However, the costs of building a tunnel under the Bering Strait are nearly incalculable. The Channel Tunnel between Britain and France is about 50 km through relatively soft chalk marl and Gault clay. The Bering Strait is 82 km at its most narrow, with feldspar granite and greenstone formations around the Cape Prince of Wales wide and unspecified potassic igneous rocks on the Cape Dezhnev side, which is also swampy and inhospitable to above ground structures. A transportation system to China might make sense; one across the Strait does not, especially as trans-Pacific shipping is well established and inexpensive.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/12 "2017-05-21T21:14:44Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Much like the [Pan-American Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Highway) from North to South America, although I’m not sure that is 100% operational right now.
[There still isn’t any direct road link between North and South America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap), and it doesn’t sound like there’s likely to be one for the foreseeable future. In order to drive from Seattle to Santiago or Boston to Buenos Aires, you need some _serious_ off-road vehicles.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/13 "2017-05-21T22:31:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Nonsense! It would provide Americans with valuable access to Siberian snow, which would be the new “In” thing to make cocktails at hipster bars.
>
> Seriously, there are a lot of natural resources in Siberia, including oil, natural gas, various metals including copper, silver, lead, tin, and high grade iron ore. A lot of these resources are not extracted because of the difficult environment and lack of transportation infrastructure, but having some kind of reliable transportation might make it economically more viable, especially for a developing industrial nation such as China. However, the costs of building a tunnel under the Bering Strait are nearly incalculable. The Channel Tunnel between Britain and France is about 50 km through relatively soft chalk marl and Gault clay. The Bering Strait is 82 km at its most narrow, with feldspar granite and greenstone formations around the Cape Prince of Wales wide and unspecified potassic igneous rocks on the Cape Dezhnev side, which is also swampy and inhospitable to above ground structures. A transportation system to China might make sense; one across the Strait does not, especially as trans-Pacific shipping is well established and inexpensive.
>
> Stranger
Additionally, it’s about 600 miles as the crow flies between Wales, AK and the nearest rail head or road in Fairbanks. Any road or rail built there would require constant maintenance and clearing. It’s just not practical. I suppose a deep water port facility could be attempted on the coast, but what an expensive project that would be. It’s also not (yet) ice free year round.
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### Author:  [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2017, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/14 "2017-05-21T22:55:27Z")
_Nothing_ about that web-page shouts ‘ **Conman**!’ at me.
Still, it’s worth doing for all the American families going to Californy for their holidays who will take a turning north and end up asking a passing Beringian where the nearest fast-food restaurant is.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2017, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/15 "2017-05-22T04:09:10Z")
Given that we don’t even have a road and rail connection between North America and South America, or between Europe and Africa, what exactly is the problem that a rail and/or road connection between Alaska and Siberia is supposed to solve?
So that Chinese goods can be shipped to North America by rail?
Dude, China is connected to Europe by land. But Chinese goods are not shipped across Eurasia by land. Those goods are shipped by ship.
Rail is for medium distance shipping, not long distance. And for human travelers, airplanes are cheaper by far than long distance trains. An antipodeal airline flight will take you no more than a day. A train trip, even if there were a connecting rail service, would take weeks. A train trip from LA to NY would take you 4 days.
Trains are great for medium distance travel because they can go direct from dense metro area to another nearby metro area, and you can get on and get off quickly. All those advantages vanish when you’re looking at continental distances.
There is no existing land connection between Fairbanks and Nome. And while there is a rail connection in Fairbanks, that rail only connects Fairbanks and Anchorage. The rail system doesn’t connect to the lower 48.
It’s a nonsensical project that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and accomplish nothing. Even if aliens came down and offered to construct it for free it wouldn’t be worth the const of maintaining it.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2017, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/16 "2017-05-22T07:32:25Z")
It might be worth considering if there were already good links to that part of the world, and the tunnel was simply a missing link. But there aren’t.
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> Additionally, it’s about 600 miles as the crow flies between Wales, AK and the nearest rail head or road in Fairbanks.
And the Alaska Railroad just gets you to Whittier or Seward. There is no railroad from Alaska to anywhere else. It would be hundreds more miles to get to the main North American rail network.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/17 "2017-05-22T14:16:41Z")
Just another crackpot idea by people who have no idea what they are up against. Next they’ll be proposing creating a deep harbor with nuclear excavation. [Oh, wait. . .](https://www.amazon.com/Firecracker-Boys-H-Bombs-Environmental-Movement-ebook/dp/B00ZYL9QHI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495462565&sr=1-1&keywords=firecracker+boys)
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/18 "2017-05-22T14:24:42Z")
On top of all the other reasons this is totally silly …
It’s also worth mentioning the Russians mostly use 1520mm = 4’ 11-27/32" gauge railways. The US, China, and most of the rest of the world use 1435mm =4’ 8-1/2" gauge. That 85mm ~=3-3/4" delta is huge.
So either somebody in Russia builds a dedicated nonstandard-to-them connector from the Chinese border to the tunnel, or you can expect containers to be cross-loaded to/from Russian gauge railcars at each end of the passage through Russia.
If this ever does get built it’ll be for the same purpose as the Sochi Olympics: to create a national pride project that’s emotionally & politically un-cancellable but whose only real purpose is to funnel the money through some middlemen companies that just happen to be connected to the rulers at one or (more likely these days) both ends of the tunnel.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/19 "2017-05-22T14:49:16Z")
Any of those older threads note that this tunnel would cross tectonic plates, which isn’t optimal for a tunnel to do, what with the collapsing during earthquakes and all?
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [May 22, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bering-strait-tunnel/787147/20 "2017-05-22T22:10:37Z")
There are already so many roads and tunnels between eastern Siberia and the rest of Russia and between western Alaska and the lower 48 that it makes obvious sense.
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