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Scottish Infrastructure


jamamafegan

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Just now, Newbornbairn said:

Does it affect things that the water is quite deep in those areas - up to 400ft+? The English Channel is about 150ft. 

Not necessarily. The Faroese tunnel that generated all the interest goes deeper than that:

1280px-Eysturoyartunnilin_diagram.png

It can mean you have to lengthen things to keep the gradient reasonable though, especially if you decide to add a rail component as was the case with Boris Johnson's proposed fixed link from Scotland to Ulster.

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Wonder if it would be cheaper to build immersed tunnels on the sea bed? Basically constructed onshore and dropped into a trench. 

A quick google tells me they're building an 11 mile one in Denmark that's costing billions, so perhaps not, but that's got a 4 lane motorway plus 2 way train tunnels and an emergency access tunnel.

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1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Not necessarily. The Faroese tunnel that generated all the interest goes deeper than that:

1280px-Eysturoyartunnilin_diagram.png

It can mean you have to lengthen things to keep the gradient reasonable though, 

kenneth.jpg.f00552bbf38d2f3b4333454d5ce49715.jpg

Spoiler

sorry, had to be done..

 

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Oooft.

Quote

This in-depth, evidence-based assessment has concluded that cutting-edge, twenty-first century civil engineering technology would make it possible to construct either a bridge or a tunnel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A bridge crossing, however, would be the longest span bridge built to date. A tunnel would be the longest undersea tunnel ever built given the limited gradients on which trains can operate, the route it would need to take and the depths it would need to reach. In addition, based on today’s technology and safety considerations, a tunnel crossing could only be constructed for railway use ...

The consequence of these parameters for either a tunnel or a bridge is that they are expensive. The indicative cost estimate for the full route, including optimism bias (at P95), is £335bn for a bridge crossing and £209bn for a tunnel crossing. The bridge or tunnel, and the associated very significant works on either side for a railway and possibly for roads would take a very long time. Planning, design, parliamentary and legal processes, and construction would take nearly 30 years before the crossing could become operational, even given a smooth passage of funding and authority to proceed.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1035650/a-fixed-link-between-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-technical-feasibility.pdf

Edited by welshbairn
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Wanting to include both rail and motorway scale road components on something like this was the turd in the proverbial punch bowl in feasibility and cost-benefit terms. Hopefully MPs and MSPs from Outer Teuchtonia will continue to point out stuff like the following in contexts where a two lane road would do the job just fine...

...what the Faroese do with one lane tunnels with passing places to link crofting townships on islands with fewer than 100 inhabitants is also mildly mind blowing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalsoy

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 13/11/2021 at 12:11, welshbairn said:

I was going to argue that the £100 million cost was based on 2005 estimates and would be a lot more, but a similar length of tunnel in the Faroes was recently completed for just about exactly that price. I'm surprised, thought it would be far more than that. The Faroes appear to be charging hefty tolls to try and get their investment back which has led to some boycotting it. Problem we have is the centre of political and financial power lying hundreds of miles away in the central belt and south east of England, so it's unlikely to get the support needed to get it off the ground. And Norway have their massive sovereign oil fund to play around with. 

"under the ground"

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8 hours ago, Lurkst said:

Hunterston B shutting down for the last time around about now...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59894688

 

I appreciate it’s of an age and safety concerns have been raised but it does seem a bold move to be removing 25% of our electricity generating capacity, quite literally, with the flick of a switch. In the middle of an apparent energy price crisis too…

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2 hours ago, alta-pete said:

I appreciate it’s of an age and safety concerns have been raised but it does seem a bold move to be removing 25% of our electricity generating capacity, quite literally, with the flick of a switch. In the middle of an apparent energy price crisis too…

I think it's barely been operating for the past couple of years so any reduction in supply will already have been felt.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Huge day for Offshore Wind in Scotland as ScotWind licencing round winners announced.

Scotland - BBC News

As with every auction there are winners and losers.  Some pretty big surprises though: Falck Renewables get a huge acreage as do newcomers as Developers, DEME and Equinor, RWE and TOTAL pretty much missing out.

BP have promised to spend £10bn on the scottish supply chain, position their HQ in Aberdeen and that all new vessels will be built in Scotland - they get potential to develop 2.9GW (huge) SSE awarded something similar.

This is a huge opportunity for floating wind and the associated supply chains - all developers had to submit a supply chain development statement with their bids - outling how they would utilise the Scottish supply chain (penalties for not adhering but more so this would scupper the chances of these developers winning in ScotWind2 etc)  This could have a dramatic impact on Scottish Ports and Engineering facilities - incidentally great to see Magnora win a licence off Orkney - Kishorn are partners and this can only move forward plans for expansion there and for the manufacture of concrete sub-structures.  Other winning ports could be Ardersier, Nigg, Arnish etc etc.

Offshore Wind, and subsequent hydrogen production (good to see Vattenfall win a licence as they have plans for offshore production of Hydrogen) will be huge in Scotland within the next decade.......you will be hearing lots more about ScotWind over the next months / years and a great deal of it is positive.

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12 minutes ago, Detournement said:

As I said in the Sturgeon thread SNP idiots are supporting this after spending 30 years greeting about Thatcher doing the exact same thing. 

Pretty much agree with this. Selling off plots for private companies to profit, I would have much preferred to see a national energy company to directly benefit Scotland.

Surprised the greens aren't fighting this more though maybe their priority is the  climate change aspect of this.

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Just now, GTG_03 said:

Pretty much agree with this. Selling off plots for private companies to profit, I would have much preferred to see a national energy company to directly benefit Scotland.

Surprised the greens aren't fighting this more though maybe their priority is the  climate change aspect of this.

Wee Paddy the rat hasn't tweeted about the auction so presumably he knows it's a crock of shit which will only benefit She'll, BP, Total etc at the expense of ordinary Scottish people. 

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On 26/11/2021 at 14:20, LongTimeLurker said:

...what the Faroese do with one lane tunnels with passing places to link crofting townships on islands with fewer than 100 inhabitants is also mildly mind blowing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalsoy

 

Faeroese sheep are remarkably reasonable compared to their Scottish cousins. Where's the leader casually chewing while staring down the driver with a look that bristles with square go energy?

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3 hours ago, Detournement said:

As I said in the Sturgeon thread SNP idiots are supporting this after spending 30 years greeting about Thatcher doing the exact same thing. 

I have absolutely no idea what you are on about here.  Thatcher did what?  Are you confused about which thread you are on, or more likely, confused about what you are trying to say

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4 minutes ago, Caledonian1 said:

I have absolutely no idea what you are on about here.  Thatcher did what?  Are you confused about which thread you are on, or more likely, confused about what you are trying to say

Thatcher sold off our natural resources dirt cheap and now Sturgeon has done the same.

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