Tunnel dream: Undersea project would link Alaska, Russia

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- For more than a century, entrepreneurs and engineers have dreamed of building a tunnel connecting the eastern and western hemispheres under the Bering Strait -- only to be brought up short by war, revolution and politics.
Now die-hard supporters are renewing their push for the audacious plan -- a $65 billion highway project that would link two of the world's most inhospitable regions by burrowing under a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.
Russians and Americans alike made their pitch for the project at a conference titled "Megaprojects of Russia's East," held Tuesday in Moscow.
"It's time to the rewrite the old slogan 'Workers of the world unite!"' said Walter Hickel, a former Alaska governor and interior secretary under President Richard Nixon. "It's time to proclaim, 'Workers -- Unite the world!"'
A Russian Economics Ministry official tossed cold water on the idea, saying he wanted to know who planned to pay the mammoth bill for the project before seriously discussing it. But Hickel was unfazed in his speech, saying the route would unlock hitherto untapped natural resources -- and bolster the economies of both Alaska and Russia's Far East.
The proposed 68-mile tunnel would be the longest in the world. It would also be the linchpin for a 3,700-mile railroad line stretching from Yakutsk -- the capital of a gold- and mineral-rich Siberian region roughly the size of India -- through extreme northeastern Russia, in waters up to 180 feet deep and into the western coast of Alaska. Winter temperatures there routinely hit minus 94 F. (Map)
By comparison, the undersea tunnel that is now the world's longest -- the Chunnel, linking Britain and France -- is only 30 miles long.
That raises the prospect of some tantalizingly exotic routes -- train riders could catch the London-Moscow-Washington express, conference organizers suggested.
Lobbyists claimed the project is guaranteed to turn a profit after 30 years. As crews construct the road and rail link, they said, the workers would also build oil and gas pipelines and lay electricity and fiber-optic cables. Trains would whisk cargos at up to 60 mph 260 feet beneath the seabed.
Eventually, 3 percent of the world's cargo could move along the route, organizers hope

The reasoning behind this crazy cool new idea is that, it will boost the economies of the two most uninhabitable lands. Because the tunnel could be used to carry cargo and passengers by train, the tunnel would pay for itself in 30 years. People would get more utility out of it becuase it would take less time to get certain places, also it could be cheaper since the only alternative route is by plane.