First Segment of the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel Is In Place (heise.de) 102
Longtime Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: The Fehrmarnbelt tunnel is a European construction megaproject building a tunnel between Denmark and Germany, crossing the Fehmarnbelt in the Baltic sea. The first segment of the tunnel has now successfully been placed in its designated spot. This is a yet-unseen, next-level engineering feat achieved by the Danish Sund & Baelt construction company. It took 14 hours and used a massive pontoon ship built specifically for this project.
The tunnel segments are 217 meters long, weigh more than 73,000 metric tons, and have to be placed within a tolerance of 3 mm. The tunnel will eventually consist of 89 of these segments, be 18 km long, and connect the Danish city of Rodby with the German island Fehmarn through five individual tunnel tubes: two for cars, two for trains, and one rescue and maintenance tunnel. Crossing time will be reduced from a 45-minute ferry crossing to seven minutes by train or 10 minutes by car, and cut the travel time between the German city of Hamburg and the Danish capital, Copenhagen, down to 2.5 hours. The project's planned completion is set for the year 2029. German news Tagesschau has some details and a neat animation, while further details are available from the German tech news site Heise.
The tunnel segments are 217 meters long, weigh more than 73,000 metric tons, and have to be placed within a tolerance of 3 mm. The tunnel will eventually consist of 89 of these segments, be 18 km long, and connect the Danish city of Rodby with the German island Fehmarn through five individual tunnel tubes: two for cars, two for trains, and one rescue and maintenance tunnel. Crossing time will be reduced from a 45-minute ferry crossing to seven minutes by train or 10 minutes by car, and cut the travel time between the German city of Hamburg and the Danish capital, Copenhagen, down to 2.5 hours. The project's planned completion is set for the year 2029. German news Tagesschau has some details and a neat animation, while further details are available from the German tech news site Heise.
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The USA is slowly crumbling https://www.nspe.org/career-gr... [nspe.org]
We have to save all our money to build a ballroom so the fiddler can continue to play while the ship sinks, or the civilization burns, whichever metaphor you prefer.
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Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Informative)
This relentless focus on whomever's on the Other Team as the problem this election cycle, is the problem.
The "other team" as you put is is currently running your country with the Presidency, house, senate and Supreme Court. The absolutely should be getting relentless focus.
Would you rather the focus was on people not currently in power and who can't really do all that much?
Re: Meanwhile (Score:2)
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference between one team (Biden's term and Harris' alternate future) and the current term absolutely destroys this bad faith both sides argument. You can't claim to be upset about an "oligarchy class" when one side clearly is the oligarchical one and you supported it.
You notice how this style of comment is all the more common now that it's crystal fucking clear how much worse one team is than the other? Almost like folks are coping with the fact they backed the wrong horse and they may have to face the fact that the signs were all there, that all the people they scoffed at while they pulled the hammer for Trump because "Harris had a weird laugh" were actually right and things are actually worse than that.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't claim to be upset about an "oligarchy class" when one side clearly is the oligarchical one and you supported it.
This really isn't true. Both parties constantly vote for more military funding for example, that's putting money directly into the pockets of oligarchs. And then there's the support for fossil energy.
What's true is that things get worse much quicker under one party than the other. But if we look at how they come to power there's been at least two elections with questionable results, especially bush v gore, where the Democrats just threw up their hands and gave up. Meanwhile Republicans contest the results of elections where it's obvious they lost. At what point does Democrats' not pursuing actually democratic results become deliberately losing?
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
There was no issue until Israel drug the U.S. by the nose into a war it can't win.
Remind everyone again who it is that keeps attacking its neighbors claiming "self defense" then whines it's the victim? Or who has been saying another country is "two weeks away" from nuclear weapons for the past 40 years?
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You are purposely using a stupid argument because you are a bad faith troll but for anyone else reading
When 2030 rolls around and they've abided by the deal then by logical conclusion the upsides for them are worth it and they are likely willing to extend the deal because they are doing better economically.
If they renege then guess what? You can actually bomb them at that point BUT you can actually do it with broad international support. You can actually build a coalition like Gulf War 1 and actually accom
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You are purposefully not misstating my argument. You know what, I'm chalking this one up to my mistake for engaging with you at all. No more until you post under your actual user.
"We're not having a real conversation are we? You're just waiting for me to stop talking so you can say your next thing."
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No to be clear I think you simply do not understand my argument, either from ignorance or purpose. I understand your argument fine, hell I am only half disagreeing with you but I dont even think you understand that. You cant understand that or you might be forced to actually address mt greater point and not just the 1in of surface on it.
But hey, you're a Trump voter, why do I have any expectations?
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Your argument is appease Iran and hope they don't try and get nukes.
See? Not real. You aren't real. This isn't real.
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No but for realsies, if you are a foreigner what country? Might change my perspective on your outlook here.
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I'm from USA and I didn't ask for another pointless diatribe.
If you don't want to answer then were really done.
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so only Native Americans will be able to vote! awesome!! they deserve it!!
Re: Meanwhile (Score:3)
"that military is stopping a nuclear armed terrorist state from setting the worlds trade rules."
No, it isn't. America has been setting those rules for decades, and if you don't like it, we will invade you. We are the only nation to ever nuke anyone. We are the terrorists.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember how the Strait of Hormuz was open to everyone until you started to fucking bomb Iran? We remember.
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Iran having nukes is desirable, since Israel has them too, and MAD only works if both sides are armed.
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What's stopping Trump for being as evil as you claim and just destroying all Iran's infrastructure?
Why wont Iran negotiate?
You were so close. It's obvious you post as a coward because you're stupid.
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Do you remember how Bush dragged the USA into Iraq with the claim of weapons of mass destruction that were not true? Iran was not looking to develop nuclear weapons until Trump threw out the deal that Obama had set up. Trump is a clear and present danger to Canada(claiming Trump wants Canada to be a 51st state), Greenland, and everywhere else, not to mention Venezuela, yea, let's just attack them because...they were a threat?
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Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
Look I'm not here to say Democrats are faultless or not in need of improvement but the difference today is quite stark. Sure both "support military funding" but 1. that issue is still broadly popular with the electorate, 2. the US will always have a need for a large military because as we are seeing when the US starts to withdraw from the world stage the world gets more chaotic and 3. scale matters, there's no world where a Harris admin is asking for a $1.5T military budget, no world where she is turning so much more support to the new MiC (Palantir, Anduril, etc) and no world where she is handing billions in military contracts to her own family like Trump is.
And as much as I don't like how Bush v Gore went down 26 years ago was a far, far, far different world politically. Should the dems have said "fuck the SC" and pushed more for a statewide recount? Maybe but that's hindsight 20/20 stuff. W Bush was not Trump and back then both parties were still broadly accepting of norms.
If we want to compare oligarch support just check the cabinets of Biden Vs Trump. How many billionaires sit in positions of power, how much graft, how much corruption do we have to see before we relent and accept the liberals, as annoying milquetoast as they might be are actually the responsible stewards of governance?
We can just say we prefer the Democrats and support them without becoming fealty swearing cuckolds like Republicans have become. We can actually stand behind our liberal values. We can understand the concept of "perfect vs good"
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you should really stop seeing US news and start seeing international news...
taking out the Hamas attack, i only see Israel grabbing land from Palestinians and a ratio of maybe 20 Palestinians dead by military, police or settlers for each Israeli dead in terrorist attacks
not what looks like a annihilation, from what i see... even from USA sided news
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Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
This is absolute cope. Show me how the Democratic party moved "so far left" with actual policies and actions and not social media culture war bullshit. Show me legislation, show me actions.
The democrat voters elected Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders. The Republicans told Nikki Haley to fuck off and chose Trump.
Saying the Republicans only moved 2% since 2008-2026 just tells me they were always corrupt irresponsible liars and you all enjoy that fact.
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Fox told him so. Therefor it is gospel. Let's see a source for his figures.
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This is gobbledygook. The liberals are already down 6-3
Sounds like you agree that SC reform is needed.
Also why would you post this under AC, it's kinda reasonable? Are you that fucking afraid?
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The left doesn't want to be under the tent of the Democratic party and somehow always finds a reason to not vote for the Democratic candidate. I remember when the left said we needed to choose Walz or they wouldn't vote for Harris and then after he was picked... whoops, found another reason! The same people that threw their weight behind Fetterman. So why should Democrats pander to people that don't want to vote for them anyway at the cost of alienating the party base that actually votes?
I mean look at yo
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. Let's discuss some of Reagan's policies if you want to talk about the overton window.
Tell me who said this quote "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally,"
Was it Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ronald Reagan?
https://www.npr.org/2010/07/04... [npr.org]
Who worked with the NRA to do away with open carry laws because scary black people were exercising their second amendment rights?
Was it David Hogg or Ronald Reagan?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Shall I continue?
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Democrats have moved far to the right, just not as far as Republicans have gone. The shift started back during the Clinton administration, try to go for the "big tent" approach, welcome CONSERVATIVES to the party, as long as they aren't too far to the right. To bring those conservatives, Democtats aimed for "the middle", but when the middle shifts to the right because Republicans push further and further to the right, suddenly, most Democrats are now more conservative than progressive.
Liberal is a term
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When you're hard right everything looks extreme left. The democrats haven't moved in the slightest with Obama, and Biden sharing the same spot on the political compass as Carter did in the 70s. Heck they are significantly more right wing that Truman, Johnson or Wilson. In fact the only outlier was Clinton who was slightly more rightwing than the rest, but still occupies the center left of the political compass.
How about less Fox News for you and more actual intelligent material.
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Ahh yes, who can forget the omnicause, we should nay MUST boil all politics down to Israel.
You know this is a loser argument for you on both ends right? If you're right and Israel is the issue that caused Harris' loss then congrats, all you did was subject Palestinians to even worse outcomes and elected an admin who does not care about them and can never be moved on the issue. You have become complicit in their suffering while the Harris voters tried to help even if it wasn't perfect for you.
Almost like y
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This relentless focus on whomever's on the Other Team as the problem this election cycle, is the problem.While money flows upward toward the new oligarchy class and corruption rises, you're kept bickering with no clue. But it sure feels great to have a team to root for, doesn't it?
Pray tell, what team am I rooting for? The Democrats don't really do anything for me either. And I have no problem roasting the hell out of them for their ineptitude. Without which, Donald Trump wouldn't have been able to achieve an electoral victory. Twice.
An attack on Trump's stupidity is not praise for the other side. You've fallen into your own dichotomy with that one.
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In other words you voted for Trump but someone made you do it.
Right.
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In other words you voted for Trump but someone made you do it.
Right.
What the fuck are you even talking about? I didn't vote for Trump. I voted *AGAINST* Trump, and while my vote went to the Democrats, I sure as fuck wasn't rooting for them like it's a team sport. They're the less detestable option, not the rah rah, go team option.
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We need better infrastructure and future planning.
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Is the USA in need of a tunnel to Denmark?
As a matter of fact, yes. Specifically, to the Greenland region.
Although a golden bridge of grossly outsized proportions and festooned with tacky ornamentation would be much preferred.
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..in the EU, they used Celcius
In the EU it isn't spelled Celsius?
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I think he is asking why they call it the Fahrenheit tunnel... /s
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Correct spelling: "centigrade." Also, how is it that temperature is a unit that has no units?
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One year later the French scientist Cristin reversed that and called the scale centigrade, because the scale was divided in 100 parts, with centi for standing for one hundredth.
Celsius and centigrade are the same, and for some time both terms were used, but in the mid-20th century Celsius was adopted as the standard name.
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The term Celsius comes from the Swedish scientist Anders Celsius who set the freezing point at 100 and the boiling point at 0. One year later the French scientist Cristin reversed that and called the scale centigrade, because the scale was divided in 100 parts, with centi for standing for one hundredth. Celsius and centigrade are the same, and for some time both terms were used, but in the mid-20th century Celsius was adopted as the standard name.
Exactly. Only insecure people would be offended by a term that has been and is understood world around.
Besides, the cool kids use Kelvin anyhow.
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"Centigrade" is a nonsense term nobody uses except Americans who can't memorize "Celsius". A centigrade would be 1/100th degree like a centimeter is 1/100th meter or a centigram is 10^-2 g. The SI unit is degrees Celsius, not "centigrades" or centipedes or Fumbleheit.
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"Centigrade" is a nonsense term nobody uses except Americans who can't memorize "Celsius". A centigrade would be 1/100th degree like a centimeter is 1/100th meter or a centigram is 10^-2 g. The SI unit is degrees Celsius, not "centigrades" or centipedes or Fumbleheit.
I see. As an American, I would use "C" or "F", but most often "K", mainly because it is better to use positives rather than negatives. Using a measurement system that goes into negative values simply because they are colder than the temperature where water freezes, is so clumsy.
Not an American, but a French scientist, Jean Pierre Cristin called his adaptation of Celsius' system centigrade as he divided the "C" scale into 100 steps. He called it the Centigrade scale, using "centi" as the prefix for 100
I liked that ferry (Score:5, Interesting)
I have travelled the ferry between Roedby and Puttgarden several times on a train.
It had felt a little unsafe to get out of the train to leave your belongings behind during the crossing, but it was a nice change of pace.
It was nice to get out on the deck and get a view of the Femern Baelt straight. That is something that future train travellers will be denied.
The worst part was for the train sometimes having to wait for the next ferry. That time should also be accounted for when calculating time savings.
More information (Score:4, Informative)
Having taken the train from Copenhagen to Hamburg before, this will be a massive improvement.
Re: More information (Score:2)
Thanks! I'm a bit curious about the 217m section length ðY"
The sections float and are towed into place (Score:3)
Click on the large Play button in the middle at the top of this page: https://femern.com/the-tunnel/... [femern.com]
Or use this link, this is the video they embed: https://vimeo.com/1106084333?f... [vimeo.com]
It shows the whole process.
First, they dredge a 12 meter deep tunnel trench on the seabed.
Meanwhile, the sections are build in a factory on shore. Sections of 24 m pieces, 9 of them, adding up to 217 (after connecting them). 73000 tons total.
That long section is assembled into a drydock in front of the factory. Both ends are c
Hell hath frozen over! (Score:5, Funny)
A news article posted on Slashdot that hasn't been stripped of the original metric numbers! Refreshing.
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Yeah we would have expected it to to be stated in number of football fields or something like that.
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217 meters is approximately 43 rods, if that helps
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It's okay I got you: Here's the TL;DR translation.
The travel time from Hamburg to Copenhagen will be reduced to 1.04166/140th of a fortnight.
The ferry to the island which used to take 1.5625/700th of a fortnight now takes 2.7666/5600th of a fortnight by train.
Re:Hell hath frozen over! (Score:5, Funny)
"The tunnel segments are 217 meters (two football fields) long, weigh more than 73,000 metric tons (slightly more than more than 73,000 REAL tons), and have to be placed within a tolerance of 3 mm (0 inches)."
Fixed. Thank you for bringing this oversight to our attention. Note, however, that this still lacks an analogy to liken this tunnel-for-cars to an actual car somehow.
Re: Hell hath frozen over! (Score:2)
Oh, and a "train" is a bit like 100 cars back to back.
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snatched waste (Score:2)
"The tunnel segments are 217 meters long, weigh more than 73,000 metric tons, and have to be placed within a tolerance of 3 mm."
I simply can't imagine why it wouldn't be orders of magnitude cheaper and faster to just use short segments that don't need to be aligned so precisely.
I used to think that maybe I, a simple country ignoramus, just wasn't equipped to understand the Wonders of the Modern Age. But the more glimpses I snatch of the wiring and plumbing of the Wonders, the more I think somebody in admin
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I simply can't imagine why it wouldn't be orders of magnitude cheaper and faster to just use short segments that don't need to be aligned so precisely. [google.com]
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Hey, can you imagine how much better the plumbing in your house would be if the pipes were a bunch of 1 inch sections connected by joints?
I don't know why you'd think the short sections would have to be aligned less precisely. A 1 mm error multiplied by a a couple thousand joints between 10 m sections has a good chance of being a lot bigger than a 1 mm error multiplied by 80 joints.
Nons
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I simply can't imagine why it wouldn't be orders of magnitude cheaper and faster to just use short segments that don't need to be aligned so precisely.
So having 100 times the number of segments but now all with poorly aligned joints would be better?
I used to think that maybe I, a simple country ignoramus, just wasn't equipped to understand the Wonders of the Modern Age. ...
Financing (Score:3)
From TFA:
The Fehmarnbelt link is funded by loans and will be paid for by its users.
So much for the Nordic Model [wikipedia.org]. I would grieve the death of Socialism over Karl Marx's grave. But there's a fee to get in to see it.
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The "loans" are 100% state funded loans by the Danish government who is footing 100% of the bill. The idea of tolls was largely due to the realisation that non-Danish people will be some of the biggest beneficiaries and that socialism only works if costs are distributed among the society itself, and not just half of it.
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socialism only works if costs are distributed among the society itself, and not just half of it.
Please come to Washington State and tell our legislature this.
What a cool thing! (Score:2)
Accuracey (Score:2)
The tunnel segments... weigh more than 73,000 metric tons, and have to be placed within a tolerance of 3 mm.
That is mind-blowing.
Hey Ted Stevens! (Score:3)
That's not a series of tubes, THIS is a series of tubes!
Question On How It Works (Score:2)
The video describes how the tunnel segments float and how they fill sections with water to ballast and position the segments. I understand that perfectly. Clever.
But, then the water is pumped out to make the tunnel usable. How do they keep it submerged? What prevents the entire tunnel popping up to the surface?
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They pile rocks on top.
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But, then the water is pumped out to make the tunnel usable. How do they keep it submerged? What prevents the entire tunnel popping up to the surface?
4700 metric tons of balast, rocks and gravel per segement. Sorry, didn't mention that in the GP post but it's in the articles and videos.
The train is faster than cars? (Score:2)