@Megaprojects Where is your video about russian closed cities? those with kinda environmental hazards. I've watched it many times, and now just cannot find it any more....?
Intractable politics aside, the Bering Strait crossing is honestly less of a logistical challenge than that of the infrastructure that would have to be built in Alaska and Siberia in order to reach its east and west terminus. There's thousands of miles of NOTHING to either side of those coasts - the ultimate Bridge To Nowhere.
And imagine the hundreds of thousands of trees in the way that would have to be cut down. And hills and mountains you gotta cut through, entire continents would be cut in half in a straight line literally
Also the passage would probably only be useful for a couple month a year because of how cold it gets over there. There is a reason that almost no one lives there.
@@tonymouannes honestly the only way this sort of thing could ever be practical if it was some sort of high speed rail that was virtually all underground, even the parts that are on solid land. It's not just the cold you have to worry about in that area, it's multi feet thick snow piles that would be falling on the tracks six months out of the year.
@Agiantpansy that would be even more challenging and more dangerous. Long tunnel need vents on the surface. Also such an infrastructure wouldn't last long due to the tectonic activity. It would probably costs more to ship using that route than putting stuff on ships. The closest useful destinations are eastern russia, china, Washington and the canadian east coast. All of those are extremely far from the bering strait.
@@Agiantpansy There's trains that already operate in extreme cold. If a train is passing every 12 minutes and each train includes devices that blow snow off of the tracks they can be kept clear of snow. I propose to have no tunnels along the entire route from China to Canada. The entire route will be open.
Considering the remoteness of both the Russian and US side of the strait combined with the severe winter weather, I think it's unlikely. However, in the 1850's, a telegraph line was planned and supplies for its construction were distributed along the proposed route. The project was abandoned when the first trans-Atlantic, deep sea cables were laid. The native people in British Columbia built structures such as bridges out of the poles and wires abandoned decades earlier.
Once the railroad is built those remote places will not be so remote anymore. We will find ways to deal with the weather. Freights trains passing by every point on the track every hour, and every half hour blowing snow off and away from the tracks.
@@beringstraitrailwayhonestly though I agree with the other people. Might be worth it just to make a good portion of it be in a tunnel or coverered area
A train depot that you transfer western cars with eastern cars would be easy enough to solve. And for passengers just have them transfer from on train to another
@@Dustinicus. "A hog can cross America by train, but cannot!" Advertising in the 1940's, one of the reasons rail passenger traffic has nearly died in the USA. Also, assuming the crock of poop that is "high speed rail", do you have any idea how long it would take to get to Anywhere, Alaska to Somewhere, Russia? No, the only thing going across is freight. And already is a huge "break-of-gauge" yard in inbetween the Chinese rail network and the Russian rail network. It's so effective, that the world's shipping companies are building EVEN larger ships for containers. Many are Chinese flagged...
It’s not likely considering there’s no roads or railroads anywhere near. One thing you left out is the Diomede islands are inhabited so there’s also the impact on them to consider.
I am inclined to wonder; when have pre-existing inhabitants (and the impact thereon) ever been a consideration. From grand projects to nation building, people are usually little more than an obsticle to be overcome.
@nevd78 They weren’t, and in many countries they still aren’t. Though the degree to which this is true varies between nations. The more developed a country is, and the stronger civil society is, the more say people have in infrastructure projects. Alas, I am a millennial who has become increasingly jaded about this topic. The downside of the local input I described is that it has allowed “NIMBY” sentiment to get out of control. It eventually gets to the point where little ever gets built, and the projects that do get built end up delayed and costing vastly more money. Importantly, that happens regardless of a project’s overall impact. It doesn’t matter if it’s an oil pipeline or a wind farm, a high speed rail line or a highway. There will be local opposition regardless.
According to Wikipedia and more significantly the USGS, the boundary between the North American plate and the Eurasian plate is NOT in the Bering strait. Rather, it is much further inland in Siberia.
That land bridge is responsible for so many of us with Indigenous genetics in the Americas having a link back to the ancient peoples far Northeast of Asia, generally the Yakutia (Sakha Republic), Kamchaktka, and Chukotka.. the part that points at Alaska.
Please do a video on a trans-Atlantic bridge/tunnel. A high speed rail link that connects the cities of the American and Canadian northeast with Europe would be of much more use. With stops in Greenland and Iceland and probably Ireland or the UK before coming out in Europe and connecting to their train system. Reducing the need for trans Atlantic air travel would do far more good for the climate than tearing up parts of Siberia and Alaska, where few people live. A floating tunnel, suspended on cables a few hundred feet beneath the Atlantic ocean would be the best solution: deep enough to avoid weather issues and ships, but not so deep that pressure issues are a major concern. Though it would either have to be far enough south to avoid icebergs or deep enough for them to pass safely over them. Flexible enough to deal with ocean currents and seaquakes as well.
The route is just south of the Arctic Circle, and the locations has long, dark winters and extreme weather, including average winter lows of -20 °C (-4 °F) and temperatures approaching -50 °C (-58 °F) in cold snaps. This would mean that construction work would likely be restricted to five months of the year, around May to September, and centered during summer.
Not only that, but even then there's only so many hours per day during that time the crews could work, and then somehow you've got to build all these large camps for the workers AND figure out how you are going to get them to and from work sites safely for when their shift ends or they go on leave. It's just not practical... And for what reason?
@@TheHandgunhero It's practical for transportation and costs of products from USA to Europe and vice versa. Let's say a Swede want's to buy an old Cadillac from the States, to do that today you need to be rich and the transportation is a nightmare. You have to get someone to buy the car in the States, dismantle it and put it in a shipping container, then get it onto a ship, it will be shipped to France, and from there you need to hire a trucker to drive it across France, Germany/Denmark and then to Sweden. And then when it arrives you need someone to assemble it. All that is thousands upon thousands of dollars in just transportation. Now if the continents had a railway connection, transportation prices could be cut in half.
@Muffy But this doesn't happen as we see with the Beijing-Madrid railway connection - like only 1% of freight to Europe actually started using this railway when it was implemented because shipping is cheaper, easier, well established and avoids some geopolitical issues because of international waters. In the case of literally the USA to in this case Sweden, I don't even think it would be cheaper or faster anyway to cross the Bering Strait - so many breaks of gauge on this route as Russia, Finland and Sweden all use different rail gauges. It would be much cheaper and easier surely to just cross the Atlantic and ship directly to Sweden. If they have to disassemble the car to put into a shipping container on a ship, they'd have to do the same surely to load onto a much more narrow freight train.
Hence why its proponents should ignore the road or passenger aspect and just focus on freight rail. So that it will be less of a “bridge to nowhere” as one small part of a giant freight railway connecting America and Eurasia.
There are not automotive tunnels of these lengths, but a Bering Straight automotive tunnel is within current engineering technologies. A nice warm well lit tunnel for motor vehicle travelers would be much better than a bridge subject to harsh weather, ocean spray and ice. The Islands in the middle of the straight could offer midway service and hospitality centers. As a challenging engineering project this one is highly accomplishable with currently known technologies. The rock under the sea bed is considered to be of good tunnel boring consistency. It is possible to add ventilation shafts if needed along the way of the tunnel with the sea only being 200-feet deep. These may not be necessary. At first though a couple ice rated all weather automotive carrying ferries with some ice breaking ability would be the way to offer transport between these locations along with ports. These ferries would be invaluable for moving people, vehicles and materials during construction of the tunnels as well. Bridges would be more majestic than traveling thorough tunnels, but considering the harsh weather and ice in this region automotive tunnels would offer reliable all year travel even during blizzards. In the middle of a dark gray winter people might even drive the well lit tunnels to cheer themselves up. Freight rail doesn't really make a lot of economic sense when water based freight is available because shipping by ship is much less expensive per ton than by rail. The advantage rail has is it it can be end-to-end with no need to trans load. Rail is faster than water travel which has value for some goods and especially transporting people. Once a ship starts its ocean crossing it tends to go at a constant a bit slow 20 - 25 mph, but is does this 24 hours a day. While a freight train may travel at over 70 mph at times then sit for large parts of a day.
Freight trains in Alaska and Northern Canada travel at less then half that speed of 70 mph for most of their journey. Tunnels, widely curving track in the mountains, and steep grades. And maintenance on the tracks and the engines and rolling stock is a nightmare at those temps.
@TheHandgunhero I’m seeing this misconception everywhere here. This map isn’t perfect since it’s a little out of date: < www.usgs.gov/media/images/tectonic-plates-earth > But it is accurate in showing that the Bering Strait is not actually the boundary between the Eurasian and North American plates.
maybe this works if Sibera is its own country and China foots most of the bill to connect up Hauling cargo by ship is just too cheap though in comparison to operating like 5,000 miles of rail across nowhere with no economic reason along any of it. Just load the big boat in the big port like you do today and sail it to the other big port across a shorter distance.
Pre jet airplanes , railway made more sense. People and cargo that needs to get there now, beats them all. I watch my iPhone tracking from china to Alaska to Chicago then delivery my house. That is just in time shipping.
@@wilfriedklaebe Trains can run on electricity they generate themselves or by electricity supplied by the rails or overhead wires. If they do the generation themselves, they burn fuel. There is no power grid between Fairbanks and Nome, not even a telephone or telegraph line. There is also NO road. People move around in that area by aircraft, boats on the rivers, snowmobiles and/or dogsleds. Not to mention that there is a bunch of mountains and permafrost to deal with.
Would love to see a mega projects video on space elevators... which are about as likely to come about as this proposed bering sea tunnel/bridge proposal.
When we get a Material for the rope wich is strong enough to hold its own weight it is very likely. Since a space Elevator would allow cheap space travel
"Never say never" While the islands in the middle of the straight may be useful to connect vertically to tunnel under the strait, they would not make good anchor points for a bridge. The mountains on the islands are over 100 meters high. I propose that a flat, straight, bridge, about 80 meters above sea level be built across the Bering Strait which will pass about one kilometer north of the islands, connecting to hills on both sides of the strait.
There's one huge problem with this idea. The two areas are sparsely populated and ice bound a good chunk of the year. Add to that all the hazards of permafrost and dangers of it melting. And then there is the environmental damage. Those areas will never recover. It may mean the extinction of plants and animals as well.
Start from Britain, go through the Channel Tunnel, across Europe and Russia, cross the Bering Strait, enter North America, go down south passing Panama and into South America, stop at the southern tip of Argentina, and say you want a boat ride to "The Falkland Islands"... (lol)
A potential option that is largely overlooked is rather than a rail bridge or tunnel is dedicated ferrying ships for the Strait itself. You have a break of gauge anyway so you may as well use the ship to lift the freight from one train to the other. This is way cheaper than the other options, and you only increase freight transit times by not even a day - rail is still significantly faster. Only issue is potential bottlenecking, but the traffic isn't going to be heavy enough for quite some time for this to realistically be an issue I suspect.
I think rail would be the only logical way to go. 4 lines, 1 in each direction for passenger and 1 in each direction for freight. That would save on tons of extra things being required like gas stations, restaurants, mechanics, housing for the employees of those things, etc.
The distance is so great and the traffic probably very low that I honestly wouldn't see why they wouldn't just use single track with passing loops or double track. Nobody is going to be taking a passenger train when they can just fly instead. The real value is shipping freight, and I imagine a large amount of freight would prefer to use ships directly to destinations anyway.
Just use the Chinese railway project for the Belt and Road connecting China and Europe as a way to check its economic feasibility. The trains reached Europe from China but it didn't make economic sense.
They could make it a tourist trip. I would love to travel the historic silk road by rail with stops in places such as Samarkand. But the trip would probably be too expensive to really be feasible as a tourist attraction.
Presumably you'd have to have a break of gauge somewhere in Russia. All of North America uses standard gauge, but Russia uses Russian broad gauge. Once you've linked to the Trans Siberian, you'd have to have a break of gauge there.
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@@battlesheep2552 Fun fact: Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her backyard. That was from an SNL skit. And what she *actually * said is 100% true.
Idk if it’s the ultimate land bridge, but it was definitely the last so far. I’d probably think when all the continents were connected into one continent, there was probably some pretty epic land bridges at times when it was splitting apart. One of those is probably the ultimate one.
This seems like a case of can we rather than should we. Seriously, it's seems like a lot of money to connect two barren wastelands when you can easily just ship things across the water.
Before a Bering strait bridge/tunnel, I'd prefer a passible road through *all* of central America and a true all-American highway for Canada through Chile.
How would you be able to generate sufficient power down the whole line and install and maintain all that maglev infrastructure to power trains? Maglev is a novelty suitable only for short distance high speed transit.
One of my projects in little mining engineering school was to calculate the cost in explosives in a theoretical project to backfill the bearing straight. The bridge cited is much cheaper. But by closing the bearing straight you get global insulation buff between arctic and Pacific that would supposedly slow effects of global warming...not major
When you shit on a neighbor under the door, and then, as if nothing had happened, you tell him that I need a bridge to transport Chinese goods and let's hurry up faster!
The biggest question is...why? There are few people in the area, on both sides of the strait, little goods are produced there, other than oil, and I doubt people will want to drive or ride a train such a long distance. And that ignores the fact that it may become impassable in the winter months. Air and sea travel and freight just makes much more sense. As cool as it would be to connect all continents other than Antarctica and Australia, there is just no practical reason to do so.
Problem with this concept is that its not a link between the biggest cities of Asia and North America its a link between a barley inhabited part of Alaska and an even less inhabited part of Siberia
Since both China and USA use standard gauge (1435 mm, 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in), and Russia don´t have any railways close to the Baring Strait, it would be most efficient to just let the Chinese build a standard gauge high speed railway all the way from Harbin, Heilongjiang, China to the Bring Strait tunnel with reloading stations where this railway crosses the Trans Siberian railway.
My take. So, as to see where the birds were migrating, people crossed the Bering on rafts to the Diomede Islands and to America. They then, began to follow that coast all the way down to Argentina, eventually or Chile..through the centuries. 12,000 years ago or something like that.
“Link all the continents together.” Hmmm. So this bridge would go to Antarctica? Via Punta Arenas no doubt, and then across the Southern Ocean to Tasmania, and across Bass Straight to the mainland of the Australian continent?
A bridge from Russia to the larger island, another from the US to the smaller Island link the two with a tunnel. Similar to the Chesapeake bay and Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnels
I’ve thought of such a hybrid design but in reverse: the weather conditions would limit construction of a bridge to 5 months a year at best and make the bridges that much more expensive to build and maintain, so two tunnels with a bridge between the Diomedes would be cheaper long-term. As for the bridge, I envision it giving motorists and/or train passengers a brief opportunity to view the Arctic landscape with potential destinations on one or both islands, which would stimulate the local economies and then some. As for all the infrastructure that would need to be built on either side to connect to this bridge-tunnel project, I think both the US and Russia should focus on that before they decide to put political differences aside and discuss building across the Bering Strait
With a world wide reduction in the need for oil and deglobalization in progress I doubt that this project will even be required in the next 100 years. Cool idea though.
As an expirenced electrical engineer. Just thinking about the electrical that would be needed to make this a reality. Gives me anxiety. The amount of work needed is an insane amount. Thats only electrical. Not to mention, structural, mechanical, civil ect ect ect......wow
Master Simon, call me overly cautious, or maybe just weary of 2 potential issues: 1. A mass population exodus of Russia to North America. I do NOT object to the immigration. My concern lies with a tantrum from Russian “Leadership” (see Tyrant). This being realized by unleashing a Nuclear deterrent to this immigration. 2. A Next Gen’ Russian want-to-be Czar has all to easy land access point to North America. Potentially China could see it as a strategic access point to North America, or worse, North Korea. Then again, the U.S. could go “Swiss”, and have explosives in place with a Dead Man’s Switch to implode a tunnel, or collapse the bridge. An appealing safeguard!
I feel like the environmental impact discussion didn’t take into account the fact that rail lines can be electrified to use renewable sources, which would make shipping and transit much more ecologically friendly than current diesel powered ships and jet liners
I would love to hear the real story of the c27J spartan, the plane that gets delivered Then taken directly to the boneyard to be mothballed. Yall are awesome thanx.
It would be a little used waste of money. It's so far from anything that could make use of it that just shipping or flying would be better options. Sure some people may take their RV from LA to England and tour the world but they would already be wealthy enough to just buy a second RV.
Are there any theories of Atlantis (not the fake on in the movies but the one Plato described and depicted in Egypt) existing on this land bridge? Has the area been excavated under the sea? In mv opinion I think Atlantis refers to parts of the Land Bridge between Siberia and Alaska (26,000 yrs ago, the last glacial maximum or ice age) that were still present in Platos time (11,000 yrs ago) before being fully swallowed by the sea. Plato literally described it as a bridge or pillars or something. That is a sea bed/floor that has been untapped for research I think
We need this and a tunnel under Gibraltar and a road between Panama and Colombia. Then take a train all the way from Cape Town, through Europe, Asia, the Americas and end in the south of Chile. I would go take it immediately
Please do a video on what would be needed to increase the size of trains both in the US and worldwide. My opinion is that if a rail system is built between the US and Russia it should be on a much bigger scale so cargo maybe 15-20 feet wide and 15-20 feet tall could be hauled regularly. My guess is the biggest expense would be to increase the load capacity as well as the width and height clearance of bridges. It would be very expensive but I think in the long run it would be worth it.
Damn this is a pretty cool idea. How well does train efficiency scale with the size of the train? Could it be better than ships? Easier to electrify, that's for sure
Why would you increase the size of the rolling stock and incur all those costs for widening corridors, having bigger rolling stock, regauging rail, increasing weight limits on bridges, increasing tunnel clearance etc when you could just do what both countries already do and make trains longer? With train length air brakes and distributed power we are more than capable of safely increasing train lengths.
Large, single piece cargo of that size goes by ship, or if light enough, by air, now. Rebuilding the entire planets rail infrastructure would be impossible. Just widening the railways in urban areas alone would mean ripping cities and towns in half. Just buying the land needed to do that kind of project would costs $trillions. Nor would there be room in densely packed urban areas to put such large staging yards. Nor could any truck today carry such a large container, meaning new vehicles and much wider roads and highways. The current size of standard shipping containers works for the world just fine. Big enough to supply everyone with what they need, small enough to fit on the existing infrastructure of trucks, roads, bridges, tunnels and ships. What really needs to be done is to come up with a single gauge track system that everyone uses. One of the problems with sending supplies into Ukraine right now is that their rail lines aren't the same gauge as the the EU's. So cargo has to be loaded at the border and then reloaded on to their trains.
Seriously, who would want a land bridge with russia? Having no easy link is one of the strongest defences. It would be foolish to connect a land bridge with a country like russia.
Cool concept, but wildly impractical. The continents are already connected by ships (in the case of freight), which are far more efficient at transporting goods such vast distances. Travelers wishing to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time are better off flying. HSR would be relegated to tourism. I doubt the generated revenue would be anywhere near enough to justify the startup investment in infrastructure, to say nothing about ongoing long-term maintenance of the system. And if it were a highway it would be mostly empty for much the same reason.
One guy tried to link two oceans together became obsessed & almost bought the financial world down with him. Not his fault per say he just couldn't accept his previous constructive success would work again. This project screams of the same thing, best to be left alone.
Given the loss of trust in the West as a result of the Ukraine invasion I don't think anyone in Canada or America wants to become dependent on Russian fossil fuels and since this is the only thing Russia has to export it doesn't seem very viable for the foreseeable future. However it would be an awesome project. Imagine being able to go by car across basically the entire world!
The question is: for what? My understanding is that shipping is a far cheaper option, specially considering the necessary infrastructure. Adding the time to transverse the infrastructure and: for what?
Aren't we forgetting something? Permafrost is melting on both sides, sea level rise are accelerating, very soon a bridge needs to be 2-3-4000km longer, that would really be a megaproject. Maybe a megaproject video on the subject of climate change, and what needs to be done, and maybe even when we need to start.
Well then we’re in luck, ‘cause the North American actually plate extends all the way into the interior of Chukotka (i.e. the Bering strait is not actually located in a seismically active region).
Never going to happen as relationships between the three powers will never be harmonious. Either of the two projects if completely would be completely destroyed in the first day of the next war
Seriously lets make a 6 to 10 track railway track between North America to Asia/Europe. This Railway for any nation connected would do billions in commerce.
No it wouldn't. Even if the roads to connect the bridge to the rest of Russia and America existed it would be at least a 7000 km drive between major population centers, which means it would never be worth it compared to shipping by boat.
Has anyone asked the Alaskan indigenous on Little Diomede what they think? The entire western region of Ak is pretty much off limits to only a few outsiders, the Native Corporations answer to the individual tribes and not the government, and about 80% of people living in the Seward region villages survive solely on hunting seal, walrus, whale, caribou and summer time gathering wild berries, greens, and veg...sounds cool on paper, but it will not, and should not ever become a reality.
Alaska has 2 ports connected to a single track rail running to 2 military bases. The state railroad does not connect into Canada, which leaves only a precarious road connection to lower 48 states. Demand for a railroad thru Canada into Alaska is not likely as 97% land is Federal with the remaining 3% either in use or unusable. State will likely never expand production to a large enough degree that would pay the cost of maintenance for rail service into it much less thru it. The growth potential on the russian side is even less, making the cost for a Siberian rail to the Bering Strait unsustainable to operate as well. Cost to maintain pipelines in these regions compared to say anywhere else outside the moon, makes this an unlikely place to build massive oil and gas lines to transport oil from Mexico to China??? Usually oil and gas just goes away from the Artic not through it, missed the need for a east west pipeline. Yes this is an insane megaproject for today and very unlikely to happen even if 10k ships go through the Bering straits a day, they will only stop in Alaska if they crash.
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No. We don't need an invasion bridge
@Megaprojects Where is your video about russian closed cities? those with kinda environmental hazards. I've watched it many times, and now just cannot find it any more....?
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Intractable politics aside, the Bering Strait crossing is honestly less of a logistical challenge than that of the infrastructure that would have to be built in Alaska and Siberia in order to reach its east and west terminus. There's thousands of miles of NOTHING to either side of those coasts - the ultimate Bridge To Nowhere.
And imagine the hundreds of thousands of trees in the way that would have to be cut down. And hills and mountains you gotta cut through, entire continents would be cut in half in a straight line literally
Also the passage would probably only be useful for a couple month a year because of how cold it gets over there. There is a reason that almost no one lives there.
@@tonymouannes honestly the only way this sort of thing could ever be practical if it was some sort of high speed rail that was virtually all underground, even the parts that are on solid land. It's not just the cold you have to worry about in that area, it's multi feet thick snow piles that would be falling on the tracks six months out of the year.
@Agiantpansy that would be even more challenging and more dangerous. Long tunnel need vents on the surface. Also such an infrastructure wouldn't last long due to the tectonic activity. It would probably costs more to ship using that route than putting stuff on ships. The closest useful destinations are eastern russia, china, Washington and the canadian east coast. All of those are extremely far from the bering strait.
@@Agiantpansy
There's trains that already operate in extreme cold. If a train is passing every 12 minutes and each train includes devices that blow snow off of the tracks they can be kept clear of snow. I propose to have no tunnels along the entire route from China to Canada. The entire route will be open.
The political situation alone makes this project a pipe dream.
There are points in history when a bridge between Brtain and France were a pipe dream for political reasons...yet here we are.
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Considering the remoteness of both the Russian and US side of the strait combined with the severe winter weather, I think it's unlikely. However, in the 1850's, a telegraph line was planned and supplies for its construction were distributed along the proposed route. The project was abandoned when the first trans-Atlantic, deep sea cables were laid. The native people in British Columbia built structures such as bridges out of the poles and wires abandoned decades earlier.
Once the railroad is built those remote places will not be so remote anymore. We will find ways to deal with the weather.
Freights trains passing by every point on the track every hour, and every half hour blowing snow off and away from the tracks.
@@beringstraitrailway uh? There is something called "electric trains", right?
@@beringstraitrailwayhonestly though I agree with the other people. Might be worth it just to make a good portion of it be in a tunnel or coverered area
Imagine we get all the way to construction on a project like this and it all falls apart because of arguing over the railway gauge.
Imagine Russia “reclaiming” Alaska militarily 5 minutes after the completion of the Bering Strait connection.
@@CarFreeSegnitz then getting absolutely deleted because almost every American man has a gun hidden under his bed.
Best post in thread.
Gauge is but one problem, the Russians probably use a completely different air brake system for their trains.
A train depot that you transfer western cars with eastern cars would be easy enough to solve. And for passengers just have them transfer from on train to another
@@Dustinicus. "A hog can cross America by train, but cannot!" Advertising in the 1940's, one of the reasons rail passenger traffic has nearly died in the USA.
Also, assuming the crock of poop that is "high speed rail", do you have any idea how long it would take to get to Anywhere, Alaska to Somewhere, Russia?
No, the only thing going across is freight.
And already is a huge "break-of-gauge" yard in inbetween the Chinese rail network and the Russian rail network. It's so effective, that the world's shipping companies are building EVEN larger ships for containers.
Many are Chinese flagged...
It’s not likely considering there’s no roads or railroads anywhere near. One thing you left out is the Diomede islands are inhabited so there’s also the impact on them to consider.
I am inclined to wonder; when have pre-existing inhabitants (and the impact thereon) ever been a consideration. From grand projects to nation building, people are usually little more than an obsticle to be overcome.
Didn’t the Russians evacuate big Diomede? That one could used as the anchor/vent and little Diomede could continue to be as it is.
@nevd78 They weren’t, and in many countries they still aren’t. Though the degree to which this is true varies between nations. The more developed a country is, and the stronger civil society is, the more say people have in infrastructure projects.
Alas, I am a millennial who has become increasingly jaded about this topic. The downside of the local input I described is that it has allowed “NIMBY” sentiment to get out of control. It eventually gets to the point where little ever gets built, and the projects that do get built end up delayed and costing vastly more money. Importantly, that happens regardless of a project’s overall impact. It doesn’t matter if it’s an oil pipeline or a wind farm, a high speed rail line or a highway. There will be local opposition regardless.
Literally who cares. They can live somewhere else.
Tectonic activity would be a problem, both the ring of fire and the gradual merging of the Russian and American plates
I think Teutonic activity has done more to affect building efforts than tectonic activity. Lol
Most of the activity tends to be from further south, it’s definitely something to consider and be aware of though.
According to Wikipedia and more significantly the USGS, the boundary between the North American plate and the Eurasian plate is NOT in the Bering strait. Rather, it is much further inland in Siberia.
That land bridge is responsible for so many of us with Indigenous genetics in the Americas having a link back to the ancient peoples far Northeast of Asia, generally the Yakutia (Sakha Republic), Kamchaktka, and Chukotka.. the part that points at Alaska.
Please do a video on a trans-Atlantic bridge/tunnel. A high speed rail link that connects the cities of the American and Canadian northeast with Europe would be of much more use. With stops in Greenland and Iceland and probably Ireland or the UK before coming out in Europe and connecting to their train system. Reducing the need for trans Atlantic air travel would do far more good for the climate than tearing up parts of Siberia and Alaska, where few people live.
A floating tunnel, suspended on cables a few hundred feet beneath the Atlantic ocean would be the best solution: deep enough to avoid weather issues and ships, but not so deep that pressure issues are a major concern. Though it would either have to be far enough south to avoid icebergs or deep enough for them to pass safely over them. Flexible enough to deal with ocean currents and seaquakes as well.
The route is just south of the Arctic Circle, and the locations has long, dark winters and extreme weather, including average winter lows of -20 °C (-4 °F) and temperatures approaching -50 °C (-58 °F) in cold snaps. This would mean that construction work would likely be restricted to five months of the year, around May to September, and centered during summer.
Minnesota year-round construction workers say ... "hold my beer"
russians wear shorts and t shirts in that weather
Not only that, but even then there's only so many hours per day during that time the crews could work, and then somehow you've got to build all these large camps for the workers AND figure out how you are going to get them to and from work sites safely for when their shift ends or they go on leave.
It's just not practical... And for what reason?
@@TheHandgunhero It's practical for transportation and costs of products from USA to Europe and vice versa. Let's say a Swede want's to buy an old Cadillac from the States, to do that today you need to be rich and the transportation is a nightmare. You have to get someone to buy the car in the States, dismantle it and put it in a shipping container, then get it onto a ship, it will be shipped to France, and from there you need to hire a trucker to drive it across France, Germany/Denmark and then to Sweden. And then when it arrives you need someone to assemble it. All that is thousands upon thousands of dollars in just transportation.
Now if the continents had a railway connection, transportation prices could be cut in half.
@Muffy But this doesn't happen as we see with the Beijing-Madrid railway connection - like only 1% of freight to Europe actually started using this railway when it was implemented because shipping is cheaper, easier, well established and avoids some geopolitical issues because of international waters.
In the case of literally the USA to in this case Sweden, I don't even think it would be cheaper or faster anyway to cross the Bering Strait - so many breaks of gauge on this route as Russia, Finland and Sweden all use different rail gauges. It would be much cheaper and easier surely to just cross the Atlantic and ship directly to Sweden. If they have to disassemble the car to put into a shipping container on a ship, they'd have to do the same surely to load onto a much more narrow freight train.
Just what Alaska needs, a literal bridge to Nowhere, Siberia
Would be perfect, from nowhere to nowhere, just what the world need
Alaska isn't exactly far from being Nowhere, USA
If both countries actually got along there would definitely be renewed interest.
Hence why its proponents should ignore the road or passenger aspect and just focus on freight rail. So that it will be less of a “bridge to nowhere” as one small part of a giant freight railway connecting America and Eurasia.
There are not automotive tunnels of these lengths, but a Bering Straight automotive tunnel is within current engineering technologies. A nice warm well lit tunnel for motor vehicle travelers would be much better than a bridge subject to harsh weather, ocean spray and ice. The Islands in the middle of the straight could offer midway service and hospitality centers. As a challenging engineering project this one is highly accomplishable with currently known technologies. The rock under the sea bed is considered to be of good tunnel boring consistency. It is possible to add ventilation shafts if needed along the way of the tunnel with the sea only being 200-feet deep. These may not be necessary.
At first though a couple ice rated all weather automotive carrying ferries with some ice breaking ability would be the way to offer transport between these locations along with ports. These ferries would be invaluable for moving people, vehicles and materials during construction of the tunnels as well.
Bridges would be more majestic than traveling thorough tunnels, but considering the harsh weather and ice in this region automotive tunnels would offer reliable all year travel even during blizzards. In the middle of a dark gray winter people might even drive the well lit tunnels to cheer themselves up.
Freight rail doesn't really make a lot of economic sense when water based freight is available because shipping by ship is much less expensive per ton than by rail. The advantage rail has is it it can be end-to-end with no need to trans load. Rail is faster than water travel which has value for some goods and especially transporting people. Once a ship starts its ocean crossing it tends to go at a constant a bit slow 20 - 25 mph, but is does this 24 hours a day. While a freight train may travel at over 70 mph at times then sit for large parts of a day.
Freight trains in Alaska and Northern Canada travel at less then half that speed of 70 mph for most of their journey. Tunnels, widely curving track in the mountains, and steep grades. And maintenance on the tracks and the engines and rolling stock is a nightmare at those temps.
A tunnel or bridge will be at the whims of seismic activity, given the tectonic plates.
@TheHandgunhero I’m seeing this misconception everywhere here. This map isn’t perfect since it’s a little out of date: < www.usgs.gov/media/images/tectonic-plates-earth > But it is accurate in showing that the Bering Strait is not actually the boundary between the Eurasian and North American plates.
1:20 - Chapter 1 - History
1:50 - Mid roll ads
3:40 - Back to the video
5:15 - Chapter 2 - Design
6:25 - Chapter 3 - Funding challenges
7:25 - Chapter 4 - Logistical challenges
9:05 - Chapter 5 - Environemental challenges
maybe this works if Sibera is its own country and China foots most of the bill to connect up
Hauling cargo by ship is just too cheap though in comparison to operating like 5,000 miles of rail across nowhere with no economic reason along any of it. Just load the big boat in the big port like you do today and sail it to the other big port across a shorter distance.
Hauling cargo by ship could become more expensive because they need fuel... Trains can run on electricity.
@@wilfriedklaebe So can huge cargo ships. In fact, some already do.
It's just a climate change incentive.
Pre jet airplanes , railway made more sense. People and cargo that needs to get there now, beats them all. I watch my iPhone tracking from china to Alaska to Chicago then delivery my house. That is just in time shipping.
@@wilfriedklaebe Trains can run on electricity they generate themselves or by electricity supplied by the rails or overhead wires. If they do the generation themselves, they burn fuel. There is no power grid between Fairbanks and Nome, not even a telephone or telegraph line. There is also NO road. People move around in that area by aircraft, boats on the rivers, snowmobiles and/or dogsleds. Not to mention that there is a bunch of mountains and permafrost to deal with.
Would love to see a mega projects video on space elevators... which are about as likely to come about as this proposed bering sea tunnel/bridge proposal.
Even if it was created. All it'd take is another small war and it'd get blown up.
When we get a Material for the rope wich is strong enough to hold its own weight it is very likely. Since a space Elevator would allow cheap space travel
Even if all the stars aligned, we would never be able to agree on which gauge to use
I believe there’s a hybrid rail system that accommodates both Russian gauge and standard gauge. Maybe this project could utilize that somehow
"Never say never"
While the islands in the middle of the straight may be useful to connect vertically to tunnel under the strait, they would not make good anchor points for a bridge.
The mountains on the islands are over 100 meters high.
I propose that a flat, straight, bridge, about 80 meters above sea level be built across the Bering Strait which will pass about one kilometer north of the islands, connecting to hills on both sides of the strait.
What about some kind of intercontinental ferry system? I guess it would all depend how long it takes a ferry to go 50+ miles.
4:24 that’s an awesome achievement for Simon’s channel!
There's one huge problem with this idea. The two areas are sparsely populated and ice bound a good chunk of the year. Add to that all the hazards of permafrost and dangers of it melting. And then there is the environmental damage. Those areas will never recover. It may mean the extinction of plants and animals as well.
Imagine a high speed rail network from the US, through Russia, and ending in Europe. You could take HSR from LA to Paris. That would be dope af!
Because its faster to travel 2/3 across the world then 1/3?
Start from Britain, go through the Channel Tunnel, across Europe and Russia, cross the Bering Strait, enter North America, go down south passing Panama and into South America, stop at the southern tip of Argentina, and say you want a boat ride to "The Falkland Islands"... (lol)
A potential option that is largely overlooked is rather than a rail bridge or tunnel is dedicated ferrying ships for the Strait itself. You have a break of gauge anyway so you may as well use the ship to lift the freight from one train to the other. This is way cheaper than the other options, and you only increase freight transit times by not even a day - rail is still significantly faster.
Only issue is potential bottlenecking, but the traffic isn't going to be heavy enough for quite some time for this to realistically be an issue I suspect.
I think rail would be the only logical way to go. 4 lines, 1 in each direction for passenger and 1 in each direction for freight. That would save on tons of extra things being required like gas stations, restaurants, mechanics, housing for the employees of those things, etc.
The distance is so great and the traffic probably very low that I honestly wouldn't see why they wouldn't just use single track with passing loops or double track. Nobody is going to be taking a passenger train when they can just fly instead. The real value is shipping freight, and I imagine a large amount of freight would prefer to use ships directly to destinations anyway.
Just use the Chinese railway project for the Belt and Road connecting China and Europe as a way to check its economic feasibility. The trains reached Europe from China but it didn't make economic sense.
They could make it a tourist trip. I would love to travel the historic silk road by rail with stops in places such as Samarkand. But the trip would probably be too expensive to really be feasible as a tourist attraction.
It would be even less sensible economically in this case.
How many people Really Really want to travel from Alaska to Siberia and vice versa? Dozens! Perhaps even over a hundred! Worth $1 Trillion? 🤔
They should make a bridge from San Francisco to Vladivostok.
What gauge would the track use?
Presumably you'd have to have a break of gauge somewhere in Russia. All of North America uses standard gauge, but Russia uses Russian broad gauge. Once you've linked to the Trans Siberian, you'd have to have a break of gauge there.
while at it they should also build a highway between Pyongyang and Seoul
That Will Only Happen With The Collapse Of The Evil Kim Regime In North Korea 🇰🇵 & And The Reunification & Absorption Of 🇰🇵 Into South Korea 🇰🇷 Under The Democratic Free Prosperous South Korean Government
Why am I not surprised Sarah Palin was asking for a bridge to Russia
I'm surprised because wouldnt that ruin the view from her back yard?
@@battlesheep2552 Fun fact: Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her backyard. That was from an SNL skit.
And what she *actually * said is 100% true.
Idk if it’s the ultimate land bridge, but it was definitely the last so far. I’d probably think when all the continents were connected into one continent, there was probably some pretty epic land bridges at times when it was splitting apart. One of those is probably the ultimate one.
This seems like a case of can we rather than should we. Seriously, it's seems like a lot of money to connect two barren wastelands when you can easily just ship things across the water.
Before a Bering strait bridge/tunnel, I'd prefer a passible road through *all* of central America and a true all-American highway for Canada through Chile.
There was interest in it but panamas geographic features put a sad end to it
Is anyone going two talk about the Dover Gap Between UK London Plus EAA-Switzerland!?!
Even with high speed rail that would be a long journey… but a Maglev train would be a viable option 🤔
How would you be able to generate sufficient power down the whole line and install and maintain all that maglev infrastructure to power trains? Maglev is a novelty suitable only for short distance high speed transit.
One of my projects in little mining engineering school was to calculate the cost in explosives in a theoretical project to backfill the bearing straight. The bridge cited is much cheaper. But by closing the bearing straight you get global insulation buff between arctic and Pacific that would supposedly slow effects of global warming...not major
What could possibly go wrong. The Kerch Strait Bridge was such a success.
It was actually. It gets used very heavily, despite Ukraine's terrorist truck bomb attack.
@@InvaderNatDT lol 😂 Russian sympathiser alert.
@@andoletube lol, NAFO coper alert.
@@InvaderNatDT lol, whose side would you rather be on?
@@andoletube Not Ukraine, that's for sure.
Yay another Alaska ish video
not to mention one side will have to change the gauge of its rails
Melting permafrost and land subsidence lays a large kibosh on this.
Cheers Simon 😊
Mr. Frankenstein...l love your bad colored lights...wow
Genuine question: at around 7:03 - why does the pipeline go off to the side like that?
My IMHO its because the pipe expands and contracts from temp changes. Railroad has gaps at connecting points for this reason.
@@victorzvyagintsev1325 Yeah makes sense, cheers.
There is a problem with railway width. In US it's 1435 mm and it's former USSR countries it's 1520 mm.
Maybe we should build road bridge first.
They could standardise to Broad gauge
A bridge? Have you seen the Deadliest Catch on tv.
@@tobydawes6007 That would be costly cause one of the countries would have to rebuild all it's railroads and trains.
Nice thought - but let's face it, we're more likely to develop transporter technology before this gets built. ;)
When you shit on a neighbor under the door, and then, as if nothing had happened, you tell him that I need a bridge to transport Chinese goods and let's hurry up faster!
That bridge is a flat earthers worst nightmare
If you allow gas-powered cars. Where would they fuel up? Also, what about evacuation in case of something catastrophic like a tunnel Collapse etc...
The biggest question is...why? There are few people in the area, on both sides of the strait, little goods are produced there, other than oil, and I doubt people will want to drive or ride a train such a long distance. And that ignores the fact that it may become impassable in the winter months. Air and sea travel and freight just makes much more sense.
As cool as it would be to connect all continents other than Antarctica and Australia, there is just no practical reason to do so.
If it's a tunnel it'll stil be passable during the winter months.
@@Warsie the tunnel will be, but you have to get to the tunnel first
Problem with this concept is that its not a link between the biggest cities of Asia and North America its a link between a barley inhabited part of Alaska and an even less inhabited part of Siberia
How about The railroad yards on North Platte Nebraska and Galesburg Illinois.
The Ultimate Road Trip... I'm In!!
Since both China and USA use standard gauge (1435 mm, 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in), and Russia don´t have any railways close to the Baring Strait, it would be most efficient to just let the Chinese build a standard gauge high speed railway all the way from Harbin, Heilongjiang, China to the Bring Strait tunnel with reloading stations where this railway crosses the Trans Siberian railway.
It seems to me that there's a major earthquake fault zone thru the straight or right next to it. A major problem
Said boundary is a few hundred miles south alongside the Aleutian Islands.
My take. So, as to see where the birds were migrating, people crossed the Bering on rafts to the Diomede Islands and to America. They then, began to follow that coast all the way down to Argentina, eventually or Chile..through the centuries. 12,000 years ago or something like that.
The most worrying obstacles for this project are both political and Environmental. That's some of the last untainted wilderness left
“Link all the continents together.”
Hmmm.
So this bridge would go to Antarctica? Via Punta Arenas no doubt, and then across the Southern Ocean to Tasmania, and across Bass Straight to the mainland of the Australian continent?
Would also have to deal with that pesky jungle that almost divides Panama and Columbia. No (vehicle) roads connect North and South America.
Sounds handy. It's a nuisance getting from Tasmania to Victoria.
A bridge from Russia to the larger island, another from the US to the smaller Island link the two with a tunnel. Similar to the Chesapeake bay and Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnels
I’ve thought of such a hybrid design but in reverse: the weather conditions would limit construction of a bridge to 5 months a year at best and make the bridges that much more expensive to build and maintain, so two tunnels with a bridge between the Diomedes would be cheaper long-term. As for the bridge, I envision it giving motorists and/or train passengers a brief opportunity to view the Arctic landscape with potential destinations on one or both islands, which would stimulate the local economies and then some. As for all the infrastructure that would need to be built on either side to connect to this bridge-tunnel project, I think both the US and Russia should focus on that before they decide to put political differences aside and discuss building across the Bering Strait
With a world wide reduction in the need for oil and deglobalization in progress I doubt that this project will even be required in the next 100 years. Cool idea though.
As an expirenced electrical engineer. Just thinking about the electrical that would be needed to make this a reality. Gives me anxiety. The amount of work needed is an insane amount. Thats only electrical. Not to mention, structural, mechanical, civil ect ect ect......wow
Plenty of oil and natural gas to provide that electricity
That would be pretty awesome
Didnt hear anyone touch on fact american and russian railroads are not interchangeable. They run on different gauges.
It's not worth building a highway bridge because of the severe winters at that latitude there would be frequent closures.
Master Simon, call me overly cautious, or maybe just weary of 2 potential issues:
1. A mass population exodus of Russia to North America. I do NOT object to the immigration. My concern lies with a tantrum from Russian “Leadership” (see Tyrant). This being realized by unleashing a Nuclear deterrent to this immigration.
2. A Next Gen’ Russian want-to-be Czar has all to easy land access point to North America. Potentially China could see it as a strategic access point to North America, or worse, North Korea.
Then again, the U.S. could go “Swiss”, and have explosives in place with a Dead Man’s Switch to implode a tunnel, or collapse the bridge. An appealing safeguard!
a little thing called the ring of fire is just south of there. major earthquakes are not rare in alaska
I feel like the environmental impact discussion didn’t take into account the fact that rail lines can be electrified to use renewable sources, which would make shipping and transit much more ecologically friendly than current diesel powered ships and jet liners
I would love to hear the real story of the c27J spartan, the plane that gets delivered Then taken directly to the boneyard to be mothballed. Yall are awesome thanx.
One word: Volcanoes.
Let's go Bering Straight to the point
It would be a little used waste of money. It's so far from anything that could make use of it that just shipping or flying would be better options. Sure some people may take their RV from LA to England and tour the world but they would already be wealthy enough to just buy a second RV.
Are there any theories of Atlantis (not the fake on in the movies but the one Plato described and depicted in Egypt) existing on this land bridge? Has the area been excavated under the sea? In mv opinion I think Atlantis refers to parts of the Land Bridge between Siberia and Alaska (26,000 yrs ago, the last glacial maximum or ice age) that were still present in Platos time (11,000 yrs ago) before being fully swallowed by the sea. Plato literally described it as a bridge or pillars or something. That is a sea bed/floor that has been untapped for research I think
🤔🤔 would be interesting
0:40 I'm thinking this could be an issue regarding the newly opening Arctic sea lanes.
As *En Vogue* would put it......
🎵🎶 Never gonna get it, 🎶🎵
🎵🎶 Never gonna get it. 🎶🎵
🎵🎶 Never gonna get it. 🎶🎵
🎵🎶 Never gonna get it. 🎶🎵
One of the reasons why when NATO invaded Russia I was so pissed was because I realized that this project would never, ever, happen.
We need this and a tunnel under Gibraltar and a road between Panama and Colombia. Then take a train all the way from Cape Town, through Europe, Asia, the Americas and end in the south of Chile. I would go take it immediately
Please do a video on what would be needed to increase the size of trains both in the US and worldwide. My opinion is that if a rail system is built between the US and Russia it should be on a much bigger scale so cargo maybe 15-20 feet wide and 15-20 feet tall could be hauled regularly. My guess is the biggest expense would be to increase the load capacity as well as the width and height clearance of bridges. It would be very expensive but I think in the long run it would be worth it.
Damn this is a pretty cool idea. How well does train efficiency scale with the size of the train? Could it be better than ships? Easier to electrify, that's for sure
Why would you increase the size of the rolling stock and incur all those costs for widening corridors, having bigger rolling stock, regauging rail, increasing weight limits on bridges, increasing tunnel clearance etc when you could just do what both countries already do and make trains longer? With train length air brakes and distributed power we are more than capable of safely increasing train lengths.
Large, single piece cargo of that size goes by ship, or if light enough, by air, now. Rebuilding the entire planets rail infrastructure would be impossible. Just widening the railways in urban areas alone would mean ripping cities and towns in half. Just buying the land needed to do that kind of project would costs $trillions. Nor would there be room in densely packed urban areas to put such large staging yards. Nor could any truck today carry such a large container, meaning new vehicles and much wider roads and highways.
The current size of standard shipping containers works for the world just fine. Big enough to supply everyone with what they need, small enough to fit on the existing infrastructure of trucks, roads, bridges, tunnels and ships.
What really needs to be done is to come up with a single gauge track system that everyone uses. One of the problems with sending supplies into Ukraine right now is that their rail lines aren't the same gauge as the the EU's. So cargo has to be loaded at the border and then reloaded on to their trains.
Seriously, who would want a land bridge with russia? Having no easy link is one of the strongest defences. It would be foolish to connect a land bridge with a country like russia.
Cool concept, but wildly impractical. The continents are already connected by ships (in the case of freight), which are far more efficient at transporting goods such vast distances. Travelers wishing to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time are better off flying. HSR would be relegated to tourism. I doubt the generated revenue would be anywhere near enough to justify the startup investment in infrastructure, to say nothing about ongoing long-term maintenance of the system. And if it were a highway it would be mostly empty for much the same reason.
This is one of those ones i hope is never economically necessary. If there is enough commerce up there it means our planet got very warm.
One guy tried to link two oceans together became obsessed & almost bought the financial world down with him. Not his fault per say he just couldn't accept his previous constructive success would work again. This project screams of the same thing, best to be left alone.
Seems like a ‘bridge to Scotland’ project
nice sweater
Can they build an under sea tunnel instead?
Given the loss of trust in the West as a result of the Ukraine invasion I don't think anyone in Canada or America wants to become dependent on Russian fossil fuels and since this is the only thing Russia has to export it doesn't seem very viable for the foreseeable future. However it would be an awesome project. Imagine being able to go by car across basically the entire world!
Canada, the US, and Russia are all net oil and gas exporters. A pipeline across the Strait just means more competition for Russia in India and China.
The question is: for what? My understanding is that shipping is a far cheaper option, specially considering the necessary infrastructure. Adding the time to transverse the infrastructure and: for what?
Aren't we forgetting something? Permafrost is melting on both sides, sea level rise are accelerating, very soon a bridge needs to be 2-3-4000km longer, that would really be a megaproject.
Maybe a megaproject video on the subject of climate change, and what needs to be done, and maybe even when we need to start.
It kind of strikes me as a bad idea to build a huge underwater tunnel in a seismically active area.
Well then we’re in luck, ‘cause the North American actually plate extends all the way into the interior of Chukotka (i.e. the Bering strait is not actually located in a seismically active region).
World wide railway is a giga project that should exit since the previous century
The technology is here, it's only a matter of political willingness
This must be how Snowpiercer started.
Never going to happen as relationships between the three powers will never be harmonious. Either of the two projects if completely would be completely destroyed in the first day of the next war
Seriously lets make a 6 to 10 track railway track between North America to Asia/Europe. This Railway for any nation connected would do billions in commerce.
Surely 2 tracks would do if it was rated for 50kmph+
Train tunnel will be better than road right?
This will have to happen one day
The benifits would far outweigh the various political and engineering difficulties.
No it wouldn't. Even if the roads to connect the bridge to the rest of Russia and America existed it would be at least a 7000 km drive between major population centers, which means it would never be worth it compared to shipping by boat.
Has anyone asked the Alaskan indigenous on Little Diomede what they think? The entire western region of Ak is pretty much off limits to only a few outsiders, the Native Corporations answer to the individual tribes and not the government, and about 80% of people living in the Seward region villages survive solely on hunting seal, walrus, whale, caribou and summer time gathering wild berries, greens, and veg...sounds cool on paper, but it will not, and should not ever become a reality.
True. Leave them alone
Interesting time to explore this idea, lol
Nicholas II looks like Medwedew with a beard
If Sarah Palin had anything to do with it, it was straight from the Lizard Overlords. Cheers
Alaska has 2 ports connected to a single track rail running to 2 military bases. The state railroad does not connect into Canada, which leaves only a precarious road connection to lower 48 states. Demand for a railroad thru Canada into Alaska is not likely as 97% land is Federal with the remaining 3% either in use or unusable. State will likely never expand production to a large enough degree that would pay the cost of maintenance for rail service into it much less thru it. The growth potential on the russian side is even less, making the cost for a Siberian rail to the Bering Strait unsustainable to operate as well. Cost to maintain pipelines in these regions compared to say anywhere else outside the moon, makes this an unlikely place to build massive oil and gas lines to transport oil from Mexico to China??? Usually oil and gas just goes away from the Artic not through it, missed the need for a east west pipeline. Yes this is an insane megaproject for today and very unlikely to happen even if 10k ships go through the Bering straits a day, they will only stop in Alaska if they crash.
They said the same thing about the Alaskan pipline. Then the caribou realized how nice and warm it was around it and their numbers in creased.