Bering Strait crossing

The Bering Strait Tunnel is a recurring scheduled transport connection between the Russian Chukotka and the U.S. State of Alaska. Initial plans for a tunnel under the Bering Strait are from the year 1905. Plans from 2007 to see the 100 -kilometer tunnel as part of a 6000 km long thoroughfare between Yakutsk and Alaska, both a broad-gauge high-speed railway and a highway and power lines, pipelines and data cables should include.

Historical precursors

The French engineer Loic de Laubel struck in 1905 for the first time a some 103 -kilometer tunnel rail link that would connect Russia with his 1867 sold for $ 7.2 million dollars to the United States former colony of Alaska. In 1906, a consortium of American, French and Russian supporters had already collected $ 6,000,000. Tsar Nicholas II was very receptive to the plans, but the First World War and the October Revolution prevented the construction. In the following period the project rested and was not pursued also for strategic reasons.

Current project TKM- World Link

In April 2007, an economic project called TKM- World Link was ( Russian: ТрансКонтинентальная магистраль, Transcontinental Mainline ) for tunneling the Bering Strait announced. According to the Council for planning production forces Studies in the Russian Economy Ministry and the Russian Academy of Sciences, the whole project could be realized in 10 to 15 years. The construction cost is estimated at $ 65 billion. The proposed tunnel would have a length of 104 kilometers, about twice as long as the Channel Tunnel. He is ( are both coasts there 82.4 km apart) at the narrowest point of the Bering Strait about 80 yards passing beneath the seabed and accommodate both a broad-gauge railway line and a motorway. Also, power lines, pipelines and data cables are planned. Every year, 70 million tons of cargo could be transported through the tunnel.

The then Russian Transport Minister Nikolai Aksjonenko expressed yet in 2001 skeptical about the project and estimated the feasibility with the words " more to Mars than to Alaska " as very low. The problem he saw not only in tunnel under the Bering Strait, but also in the fact that on both sides of the tunnel still over 1,000 kilometers of rail ties need to be built on permafrost (see Arctic Circle Railway ).

The tunnel is after its completion stay at 25 percent owned by the Russian state and the United States, the remaining shares to private investors and international financial agencies. Potential investors include, according to the Russian Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Russian railways and pipeline operator Transneft. Chinese, Japanese and South Korean investors have already expressed interest in the project.

According to press reports, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced in August 2011 the "green light " for the tunnel construction.