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theodoric3@lycos.com
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On Apr 23, 8:07 pm, "GeekBoy" <geeek...@haaa.com> wrote:
> Europe-Africa link edges closer
> By Daniel Woolls
> ASSOCIATED PRESS
> Published April 23, 2007
>
> TARIFA, Spain
> Engineers have dreamed of it for a quarter-century: linking Africa
> and Europe at the spot where the two cont- inents nearly meet across a
> strip of choppy water. Now a project for a high-speed rail tunnel
> there is gathering momentum, raising the prospect of an engineering
> feat equivalent to the Panama Canal or the Channel Tunnel tying
> Britain and France.
> This tube for passengers, cars and freight would bore deep under
> the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow waterway where the Atlantic flows
> into the Mediterranean, and run from Tangier, Morocco, to the Spanish
> town of Tarifa at Europe's southernmost tip, possibly extending
> farther both ways in the future. Big-name European engineering
> consultants brought in a few months ago are to complete a feasibility
> study this year.
> "I think this project is a utopia that is becoming a reality,"
> said Angel Aparicio, president of the Spanish government agency
> overseeing the endeavor with Moroccan partners.
> Besides improving economies on both sides of the strait, planners
> are excited by the idea of bridging two continents as far apart
> socially and culturally as they are close geographically.
> But the technological challenges are vast: A test tunnel dug
> outside Tarifa a decade ago, for instance, unearthed a variety of
> soils, some on the mushy side, hardly suitable for anchoring such a
> grand structure.
> The cost is unofficially projected to run over $13 billion, and
> engineers say the tunnel would take about 20 years to build. Spain and
> Morocco hope to receive European Union financing if the project gets
> under way.
> There's also the issue of whether the economic difference between
> Europe and Africa would doom the tunnel. Planners wonder whether
> Africa is too poor to provide a sustained, profitable flow of people
> and goods on the tunnel's northbound section.
> Even the popular Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, which opened in 1994,
> is $16 billion in debt. The company operating it, Eurotunnel, received
> bankruptcy protection from creditors last year. The costs of digging
> the 30-mile undersea rail tunnel were greatly underestimated, and
> traffic predictions proved optimistic.
> Still, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said
> last month he is fully committed to the Strait of Gibraltar project.
> He said the tunnel would "greatly speed growth, development and
> prosperity" on both sides of the Mediterranean.
> Planners hope the tunnel will create "an integrated Euro-
> Mediterranean economic area" and be more than just a way to cross the
> strait, a journey now made by ferry. They envision a day when tracks
> from the tunnel would reach as far south in Morocco as Marrakech and
> allow for travel time just a fraction of what it is now.
> Morocco's tourism industry, which the government views as a key
> economic motor for the future, would benefit from a tunnel.
> "Tourist flows will accelerate because people will be able to come
> with their own transport. For now, the need to cross by boat presents
> a psychological and practical barrier," said Tajeddine el-Husseini,
> professor of international economic law at Mohamed V University in
> Rabat.
> The biggest winners in Morocco would probably be exporters, who
> could ship their goods, mainly agricultural products, north more
> easily. Being able to send them to Europe by train rather than ship
> would also make for easier export of fragile products like tomatoes
> and flowers.
> For decades the Strait of Gibraltar was a dangerous and often
> deadly conduit for Africans trying to reach Europe, as people packed
> small, rickety boats hoping to reach Spain and gain a toehold on the
> wealthy Continent. Because of a Moroccan security crackdown, these
> journeys are now attempted further west from the Western Sahara and
> Mauritania.
> Ferryboats across the strait are not known to be a major lure for
> stowaways, so a very high security rail tunnel would probably not
> contribute to the flow of desperate Africans trying to reach Europe,
> either.
> The Strait of Gibraltar, formed millions of years ago when land
> masses split to form Europe and Africa, is only nine miles wide at its
> narrowest point. But the water there is so deep that a rail tunnel
> would be like a roller coaster, making the journey so steep as to be
> out of the question.
> Consequently, engineers have chosen a longer but shallower path
> covering about 22 miles. Even there, however, the water is about 1,000
> feet deep, five to six times deeper than the water in the English
> Channel where the Chunnel runs.
> Then there is the messy terrain at the bottom of the strait. "It
> is chaotic. The word is chaotic," said Sebastian Sanchez, an engineer
> overseeing the tunnel test site in Tarifa.
> It is muddy and unstable right at the seabed, unlike the harder
> surface at the bottom of the English Channel. Farther down are huge
> pockets of debris from tectonic slides -- a moraine of sand, stones
> and mud that make for a digger's nightmare.
> The proposed two-tube link with a service tunnel in the middle
> would be about 1,650 feet below the surface of the water, the deepest
> underwater tunnel anywhere.
> To these two challenges -- extreme depth and dangerous terrain --
> add concern over whether the project would be economically viable. One
> study under way aims to determine if Africa's poverty would make the
> tunnel busy in one direction but largely idle in the other.
> "Nowhere else in the world do these three difficulties come
> together," said Mr. Aparicio, head of the Spanish side of the project.
> His agency and the Moroccan partner are to recommend next year whether
> to go ahead; it is not clear when the governments might make their
> decision.
> At Tarifa, a windy town of 10,000 known worldwide as a venue for
> kite surfing, many say the tunnel idea has been around forever and
> will remain a distant dream. "People here don't see the project as
> something tangible," said Mayor Miguel Manella. "They say: 'I'll never
> live to see that.' "
Spain is the arse hole of europe.
greg
> Europe-Africa link edges closer
> By Daniel Woolls
> ASSOCIATED PRESS
> Published April 23, 2007
>
> TARIFA, Spain
> Engineers have dreamed of it for a quarter-century: linking Africa
> and Europe at the spot where the two cont- inents nearly meet across a
> strip of choppy water. Now a project for a high-speed rail tunnel
> there is gathering momentum, raising the prospect of an engineering
> feat equivalent to the Panama Canal or the Channel Tunnel tying
> Britain and France.
> This tube for passengers, cars and freight would bore deep under
> the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow waterway where the Atlantic flows
> into the Mediterranean, and run from Tangier, Morocco, to the Spanish
> town of Tarifa at Europe's southernmost tip, possibly extending
> farther both ways in the future. Big-name European engineering
> consultants brought in a few months ago are to complete a feasibility
> study this year.
> "I think this project is a utopia that is becoming a reality,"
> said Angel Aparicio, president of the Spanish government agency
> overseeing the endeavor with Moroccan partners.
> Besides improving economies on both sides of the strait, planners
> are excited by the idea of bridging two continents as far apart
> socially and culturally as they are close geographically.
> But the technological challenges are vast: A test tunnel dug
> outside Tarifa a decade ago, for instance, unearthed a variety of
> soils, some on the mushy side, hardly suitable for anchoring such a
> grand structure.
> The cost is unofficially projected to run over $13 billion, and
> engineers say the tunnel would take about 20 years to build. Spain and
> Morocco hope to receive European Union financing if the project gets
> under way.
> There's also the issue of whether the economic difference between
> Europe and Africa would doom the tunnel. Planners wonder whether
> Africa is too poor to provide a sustained, profitable flow of people
> and goods on the tunnel's northbound section.
> Even the popular Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, which opened in 1994,
> is $16 billion in debt. The company operating it, Eurotunnel, received
> bankruptcy protection from creditors last year. The costs of digging
> the 30-mile undersea rail tunnel were greatly underestimated, and
> traffic predictions proved optimistic.
> Still, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said
> last month he is fully committed to the Strait of Gibraltar project.
> He said the tunnel would "greatly speed growth, development and
> prosperity" on both sides of the Mediterranean.
> Planners hope the tunnel will create "an integrated Euro-
> Mediterranean economic area" and be more than just a way to cross the
> strait, a journey now made by ferry. They envision a day when tracks
> from the tunnel would reach as far south in Morocco as Marrakech and
> allow for travel time just a fraction of what it is now.
> Morocco's tourism industry, which the government views as a key
> economic motor for the future, would benefit from a tunnel.
> "Tourist flows will accelerate because people will be able to come
> with their own transport. For now, the need to cross by boat presents
> a psychological and practical barrier," said Tajeddine el-Husseini,
> professor of international economic law at Mohamed V University in
> Rabat.
> The biggest winners in Morocco would probably be exporters, who
> could ship their goods, mainly agricultural products, north more
> easily. Being able to send them to Europe by train rather than ship
> would also make for easier export of fragile products like tomatoes
> and flowers.
> For decades the Strait of Gibraltar was a dangerous and often
> deadly conduit for Africans trying to reach Europe, as people packed
> small, rickety boats hoping to reach Spain and gain a toehold on the
> wealthy Continent. Because of a Moroccan security crackdown, these
> journeys are now attempted further west from the Western Sahara and
> Mauritania.
> Ferryboats across the strait are not known to be a major lure for
> stowaways, so a very high security rail tunnel would probably not
> contribute to the flow of desperate Africans trying to reach Europe,
> either.
> The Strait of Gibraltar, formed millions of years ago when land
> masses split to form Europe and Africa, is only nine miles wide at its
> narrowest point. But the water there is so deep that a rail tunnel
> would be like a roller coaster, making the journey so steep as to be
> out of the question.
> Consequently, engineers have chosen a longer but shallower path
> covering about 22 miles. Even there, however, the water is about 1,000
> feet deep, five to six times deeper than the water in the English
> Channel where the Chunnel runs.
> Then there is the messy terrain at the bottom of the strait. "It
> is chaotic. The word is chaotic," said Sebastian Sanchez, an engineer
> overseeing the tunnel test site in Tarifa.
> It is muddy and unstable right at the seabed, unlike the harder
> surface at the bottom of the English Channel. Farther down are huge
> pockets of debris from tectonic slides -- a moraine of sand, stones
> and mud that make for a digger's nightmare.
> The proposed two-tube link with a service tunnel in the middle
> would be about 1,650 feet below the surface of the water, the deepest
> underwater tunnel anywhere.
> To these two challenges -- extreme depth and dangerous terrain --
> add concern over whether the project would be economically viable. One
> study under way aims to determine if Africa's poverty would make the
> tunnel busy in one direction but largely idle in the other.
> "Nowhere else in the world do these three difficulties come
> together," said Mr. Aparicio, head of the Spanish side of the project.
> His agency and the Moroccan partner are to recommend next year whether
> to go ahead; it is not clear when the governments might make their
> decision.
> At Tarifa, a windy town of 10,000 known worldwide as a venue for
> kite surfing, many say the tunnel idea has been around forever and
> will remain a distant dream. "People here don't see the project as
> something tangible," said Mayor Miguel Manella. "They say: 'I'll never
> live to see that.' "
Spain is the arse hole of europe.
greg
