https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/german-engineer-hired-to-study-gibraltar-tunnel-idea/

German tunnel specialist Herrenknecht will study the feasibility of building a high-speed rail tunnel between Morocco and Spain, Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) reports.
Spain and Morocco have been considering the project since 1979, but the 2030 World Cup has revived interest.

The idea is promoted by Morocco’s National Company for the Studies of the Strait of Gibraltar and its Spanish counterpart, the Society for Studies of a Fixed Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar, or Secegsa.

The proposed tunnel would stretch 38km, and would cost in the region of $6bn.

—-

dv said:

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/german-engineer-hired-to-study-gibraltar-tunnel-idea/

German tunnel specialist Herrenknecht will study the feasibility of building a high-speed rail tunnel between Morocco and Spain, Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) reports.
Spain and Morocco have been considering the project since 1979, but the 2030 World Cup has revived interest.

The idea is promoted by Morocco’s National Company for the Studies of the Strait of Gibraltar and its Spanish counterpart, the Society for Studies of a Fixed Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar, or Secegsa.

The proposed tunnel would stretch 38km, and would cost in the region of $6bn.

—-

Seems cheap. The Channel Tunnel cost £22b in 2023 dollars.

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/german-engineer-hired-to-study-gibraltar-tunnel-idea/

German tunnel specialist Herrenknecht will study the feasibility of building a high-speed rail tunnel between Morocco and Spain, Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) reports.
Spain and Morocco have been considering the project since 1979, but the 2030 World Cup has revived interest.

The idea is promoted by Morocco’s National Company for the Studies of the Strait of Gibraltar and its Spanish counterpart, the Society for Studies of a Fixed Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar, or Secegsa.

The proposed tunnel would stretch 38km, and would cost in the region of $6bn.

—-

Seems cheap. The Channel Tunnel cost £22b in 2023 dollars.

Costs will likely blow out as they mostly do.

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/german-engineer-hired-to-study-gibraltar-tunnel-idea/

German tunnel specialist Herrenknecht will study the feasibility of building a high-speed rail tunnel between Morocco and Spain, Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) reports.
Spain and Morocco have been considering the project since 1979, but the 2030 World Cup has revived interest.

The idea is promoted by Morocco’s National Company for the Studies of the Strait of Gibraltar and its Spanish counterpart, the Society for Studies of a Fixed Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar, or Secegsa.

The proposed tunnel would stretch 38km, and would cost in the region of $6bn.

—-

Seems cheap. The Channel Tunnel cost £22b in 2023 dollars.

Compared with recent transport projects in Sydney, seems like a real bargain.

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/german-engineer-hired-to-study-gibraltar-tunnel-idea/

German tunnel specialist Herrenknecht will study the feasibility of building a high-speed rail tunnel between Morocco and Spain, Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) reports.
Spain and Morocco have been considering the project since 1979, but the 2030 World Cup has revived interest.

The idea is promoted by Morocco’s National Company for the Studies of the Strait of Gibraltar and its Spanish counterpart, the Society for Studies of a Fixed Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar, or Secegsa.

The proposed tunnel would stretch 38km, and would cost in the region of $6bn.

—-

Seems cheap. The Channel Tunnel cost £22b in 2023 dollars.

Honestly it seems fanciful. I would be surprised if they get away for less than 12 digits.

It’s also adjacent to a major convergent tectonic boundary: very active seismically, unless the English Channel.

dv said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/german-engineer-hired-to-study-gibraltar-tunnel-idea/

German tunnel specialist Herrenknecht will study the feasibility of building a high-speed rail tunnel between Morocco and Spain, Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) reports.
Spain and Morocco have been considering the project since 1979, but the 2030 World Cup has revived interest.

The idea is promoted by Morocco’s National Company for the Studies of the Strait of Gibraltar and its Spanish counterpart, the Society for Studies of a Fixed Communication across the Strait of Gibraltar, or Secegsa.

The proposed tunnel would stretch 38km, and would cost in the region of $6bn.

—-

Seems cheap. The Channel Tunnel cost £22b in 2023 dollars.

Honestly it seems fanciful. I would be surprised if they get away for less than 12 digits.

It’s also adjacent to a major convergent tectonic boundary: very active seismically, unless the English Channel.

Yeah my thoughts too. Not sure how you’d go about building a tunnel which crosses from one plate to another.

https://www.schooltube.com/the-impossible-bridge-why-no-one-can-build-a-link-between-europe-and-africa/

link

I’ve got some quotes on TBM tunneling – I’ll have to dig them out

diddly-squat said:

I’ve got some quotes on TBM tunneling – I’ll have to dig them out

Prep for tunnelling is my main field now.
This is a unique case: it’s not going to be comparable to tunnelling in a simple environment.

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

I’ve got some quotes on TBM tunneling – I’ll have to dig them out

Prep for tunnelling is my main field now.
This is a unique case: it’s not going to be comparable to tunnelling in a simple environment.

I’ll have to have a read – I looked at a TBM project in Bangladesh under 100m of saturated and unconsolidated sands and gravel

diddly-squat said:

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

I’ve got some quotes on TBM tunneling – I’ll have to dig them out

Prep for tunnelling is my main field now.
This is a unique case: it’s not going to be comparable to tunnelling in a simple environment.

I’ll have to have a read – I looked at a TBM project in Bangladesh under 100m of saturated and unconsolidated sands and gravel

As mentioned before, it’s the high seismicity that is going to be an issue.

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

dv said:

Prep for tunnelling is my main field now.
This is a unique case: it’s not going to be comparable to tunnelling in a simple environment.

I’ll have to have a read – I looked at a TBM project in Bangladesh under 100m of saturated and unconsolidated sands and gravel

As mentioned before, it’s the high seismicity that is going to be an issue.

but what is the geological setting? is it also structurally complex?

diddly-squat said:

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

I’ll have to have a read – I looked at a TBM project in Bangladesh under 100m of saturated and unconsolidated sands and gravel

As mentioned before, it’s the high seismicity that is going to be an issue.

but what is the geological setting? is it also structurally complex?

I don’t know the details, but my understanding is that the reason this tunnel didn’t happen years ago is that there are all sorts of difficulties that make it much more difficult than the Chunnel.

diddly-squat said:

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

I’ll have to have a read – I looked at a TBM project in Bangladesh under 100m of saturated and unconsolidated sands and gravel

As mentioned before, it’s the high seismicity that is going to be an issue.

but what is the geological setting? is it also structurally complex?

It’s plate boundary in a convergent setting. Structurally complex? Highly likely. Active structures? Yes.

I’ll just c and p from Dong and Pimentel rather than rewording.

The proposed Gibraltar Strait tunnel will cross two zones with breccia consisting of a chaotic mixture of blocks and stones embedded in a clay matrix. The breccia is saturated, has a high porosity and exhibits poor mechanical properties in the range between hard soils and weak rocks. The overburden and high in situ pore pressures in combination with the low strength of the breccia may lead to heavy squeezing. The crossing of the breccia zones thus represents one of the key challenges in the construction of the tunnel. In order to improve our understanding of the mechanical behaviour of the breccias, a series of triaxial compressions tests were carried out. Standard rock mechanics test equipment was not adequate for this purpose, because it does not provide pore pressure control, which is important in the case of saturated porous materials. Pore pressure control is routine in soil mechanics tests, but standard soil mechanics equipment allows only for relatively low nominal loads and pressures. In addition, the low hydraulic conductivity of the breccias demands extremely low loading rates and a long test duration. For these reasons, we re-designed several components of the test apparatus to investigate the mechanical behaviour of the breccia by means of consolidated drained and undrained tests.

I don’t have any fault maps right across the Strait but the adjacent Alboran Sea, south of Spain, is shot with thrust faults.

dv said:

I’ll just c and p from Dong and Pimentel rather than rewording.

The proposed Gibraltar Strait tunnel will cross two zones with breccia consisting of a chaotic mixture of blocks and stones embedded in a clay matrix. The breccia is saturated, has a high porosity and exhibits poor mechanical properties in the range between hard soils and weak rocks. The overburden and high in situ pore pressures in combination with the low strength of the breccia may lead to heavy squeezing. The crossing of the breccia zones thus represents one of the key challenges in the construction of the tunnel. In order to improve our understanding of the mechanical behaviour of the breccias, a series of triaxial compressions tests were carried out. Standard rock mechanics test equipment was not adequate for this purpose, because it does not provide pore pressure control, which is important in the case of saturated porous materials. Pore pressure control is routine in soil mechanics tests, but standard soil mechanics equipment allows only for relatively low nominal loads and pressures. In addition, the low hydraulic conductivity of the breccias demands extremely low loading rates and a long test duration. For these reasons, we re-designed several components of the test apparatus to investigate the mechanical behaviour of the breccia by means of consolidated drained and undrained tests.

The high pore pressure, more then than low strength of the rock mass, is the key issues for the positive pressure TBMs. This was the primary issue we had when talking to Herrenknecht and Robbins about the project in Bangladesh.

Sounds like a tough nut to crack.

As Rev alludes, Channel Tunnel, similar length, lightly faulted chalk marl, very low seismicity: 31 billion USD in modern money.

I’ll tell you a place that’s cheap to tunnel: Perth.
The two 8 km airport line tunnels, 6 m diameter … 800 million AUD, ie around 500 million USD.

dv said:

I’ll tell you a place that’s cheap to tunnel: Perth.
The two 8 km airport line tunnels, 6 m diameter … 800 million AUD, ie around 500 million USD.

one of the biggest issues with tunnelling is the availability of skilled labor.. you have that in spades in Perth

diddly-squat said:

dv said:

I’ll tell you a place that’s cheap to tunnel: Perth.
The two 8 km airport line tunnels, 6 m diameter … 800 million AUD, ie around 500 million USD.

one of the biggest issues with tunnelling is the availability of skilled labor.. you have that in spades in Perth

Sure but it’s also fairly simple geologically, sandstone, not a lot of faults.
There’s an expansion of the heavy rail commuter network (Metronet) underway, and after that they have flagged building a light rail or metro system.
Unlike Melbourne, Perth does not have wide main streets: mostly two lanes each way with a modest median and footpath, so I would think using the medians for light rail would not work in most places unless you chomp a couple of vehicular lane and that would be unpopular. The elevated option would work in some places but there would also be complaints from residents about the loss of view.
Surface option costs go up with property prices whereas tunnelling … well it goes up but not as fast, so as time passes the option to go under becomes more appealing.
If they’d asked me I’d have told them to just keep going after they finished the airport line tunnels. You’ve got all the expertise and manpower and gear in place, and to maximise efficiencies of scale and avoid unnecessary mount/demount mobdemob costs, just start tunnelling for the metro and keep adding to it steadily for the next 50 years or whatever.

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

dv said:

I’ll tell you a place that’s cheap to tunnel: Perth.
The two 8 km airport line tunnels, 6 m diameter … 800 million AUD, ie around 500 million USD.

one of the biggest issues with tunnelling is the availability of skilled labor.. you have that in spades in Perth

Sure but it’s also fairly simple geologically, sandstone, not a lot of faults.
There’s an expansion of the heavy rail commuter network (Metronet) underway, and after that they have flagged building a light rail or metro system.
Unlike Melbourne, Perth does not have wide main streets: mostly two lanes each way with a modest median and footpath, so I would think using the medians for light rail would not work in most places unless you chomp a couple of vehicular lane and that would be unpopular. The elevated option would work in some places but there would also be complaints from residents about the loss of view.
Surface option costs go up with property prices whereas tunnelling … well it goes up but not as fast, so as time passes the option to go under becomes more appealing.
If they’d asked me I’d have told them to just keep going after they finished the airport line tunnels. You’ve got all the expertise and manpower and gear in place, and to maximise efficiencies of scale and avoid unnecessary mount/demount mobdemob costs, just start tunnelling for the metro and keep adding to it steadily for the next 50 years or whatever.

There is support for relocating Cairns airport to Mareeba and have a tunnel to move passengers to Cairns via a tunnel,

Tamb said:

dv said:

diddly-squat said:

one of the biggest issues with tunnelling is the availability of skilled labor.. you have that in spades in Perth

Sure but it’s also fairly simple geologically, sandstone, not a lot of faults.
There’s an expansion of the heavy rail commuter network (Metronet) underway, and after that they have flagged building a light rail or metro system.
Unlike Melbourne, Perth does not have wide main streets: mostly two lanes each way with a modest median and footpath, so I would think using the medians for light rail would not work in most places unless you chomp a couple of vehicular lane and that would be unpopular. The elevated option would work in some places but there would also be complaints from residents about the loss of view.
Surface option costs go up with property prices whereas tunnelling … well it goes up but not as fast, so as time passes the option to go under becomes more appealing.
If they’d asked me I’d have told them to just keep going after they finished the airport line tunnels. You’ve got all the expertise and manpower and gear in place, and to maximise efficiencies of scale and avoid unnecessary mount/demount mobdemob costs, just start tunnelling for the metro and keep adding to it steadily for the next 50 years or whatever.

There is support for relocating Cairns airport to Mareeba and have a tunnel to move passengers to Cairns via a tunnel,

That seems like a weird idea

Secret tunnel between Morocco and Spain found in drug smuggling bust

Peak Warming Man said:

Secret tunnel between Morocco and Spain found in drug smuggling bust

:)

Peak Warming Man said:

Secret tunnel between Morocco and Spain found in drug smuggling bust

It’s not a secret anymore then.

Also, Spain has territory in Africa. Just like the UK has Gibraltar on the peninsula surrounded by Spain, Spain has a little outpost surrounded by Morocco. So I suspect this tunnel links the two of them.

party_pants said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Secret tunnel between Morocco and Spain found in drug smuggling bust

It’s not a secret anymore then.

Also, Spain has territory in Africa. Just like the UK has Gibraltar on the peninsula surrounded by Spain, Spain has a little outpost surrounded by Morocco. So I suspect this tunnel links the two of them.

Spanish authorities on Wednesday announced the discovery of a suspected drug smuggling tunnel linking Morocco with the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, in North Africa.

The tunnel, which was found during an operation targeting hashish trafficking, was fitted with basic lighting and measures 12 meters deep (39 feet), police said. It was located during a search at a warehouse in an industrial part of the tiny Spanish territory.

Spain’s El País newspaper reported that the tunnel stretched for 50 meters in the Spanish section, and that the mouth of the tunnel was found in a former marble factory that closed in 2020. The passageway was hidden by a trapdoor that gave way to a stairway descending into the tunnel, the newspaper reported.

The narrow tunnel “could have been used to transport drugs across the border between Morocco and Spain,” the Civil Guard said in a statement. No arrests have been made in connection with the tunnel and no drugs were found at the site.

https://apnews.com/article/spain-morocco-drugs-tunnel-discovery-6f010205fc0251ecd588dcd03cfce1e7

fsm said:

party_pants said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Secret tunnel between Morocco and Spain found in drug smuggling bust

It’s not a secret anymore then.

Also, Spain has territory in Africa. Just like the UK has Gibraltar on the peninsula surrounded by Spain, Spain has a little outpost surrounded by Morocco. So I suspect this tunnel links the two of them.

Spanish authorities on Wednesday announced the discovery of a suspected drug smuggling tunnel linking Morocco with the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, in North Africa.

The tunnel, which was found during an operation targeting hashish trafficking, was fitted with basic lighting and measures 12 meters deep (39 feet), police said. It was located during a search at a warehouse in an industrial part of the tiny Spanish territory.

Spain’s El País newspaper reported that the tunnel stretched for 50 meters in the Spanish section, and that the mouth of the tunnel was found in a former marble factory that closed in 2020. The passageway was hidden by a trapdoor that gave way to a stairway descending into the tunnel, the newspaper reported.

The narrow tunnel “could have been used to transport drugs across the border between Morocco and Spain,” the Civil Guard said in a statement. No arrests have been made in connection with the tunnel and no drugs were found at the site.

https://apnews.com/article/spain-morocco-drugs-tunnel-discovery-6f010205fc0251ecd588dcd03cfce1e7

Excellent. Thanks. Much as I suspected.

Is it for Cunard.

Peak Warming Man said:

Is it for Cunard.

Classic