Finland is leading the world when it comes to permanently disposing of spent nuclear fuel in a deep geologic repository. Their Onkalo facility recently completed excavation of the first of five final disposal tunnels, a 1.7 km long tunnel. Ground Engineering magazine has a nice article about the project and the recent milestone, but there is a very cool article by BusinessInsider.com where their science reporter got a tour of the facility and has lots of great photos and videos. If you really want to see how the facility will operate, check out that article. One of the videos is shown below, an animation of how the waste capsules will be stored in vertical shafts extending below the main disposal tunnels.
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Niagara Tunnel – Crappy rock, Horizontal stress, SLOOOOOW progress
[Updated November 17, 2009] A few new posts from Ontario-geofish [/Updated]
Those with interest in rock mechanics and tunneling might be interested in this project. The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) company is the owner of a $600M (Canadian) construction project to create a third hydro power tunnel under Niagara Falls. Apparently the project is having all kinds of problems with overbreak in some very difficult tunneling conditions which means very slow progress and big $$ overruns. (Photo from niagarafrontier.com)
I’ve been meaning to post something on this project for some time. I admit that my perspective is biased by the viewpoint you can find on the Ontario-geofish blog. I’ve mentioned Harold Asmis before, he’s the owner of the OG blog, and a former OPG employee if I understand correctly. He left OPG for a career doing geophysics and earthquake engineering for the Nuclear Power industry in Canada. I highly recommend his blog, he has great insight into tunneling, earthquakes, siting of nuclear power plants not to mention opinions on all kinds of other things. His writing style is very colorful and entertaining as well.
So, Harold has written a whole series of blog posts on the Niagra Tunnel project, including a 5-part series entitled "The Disaster of the Niagara Tunnel" and a 4-part series called "Niagara Tunnel: doing it Right". He is not directly involved with the project, but his long career with OPG and related disciplines gives him some great insights. I’ve collected a list of some of his blog posts on the Niagara Tunnel project as well as a few other links about the project. Click through for the good stuff.
Tunnel Proposed to Link Europe and Africa at Straits of Gibraltar
The proposed railway tunnel will link Spain and Morroco underneath the Straits of Gibraltar. The depth of the straits ranges from 1,000-ft to nearly 3,000-ft. To put that in perspective, the English Channel is only 150-ft deep, and the Chunnel is another 130-ft below the sea floor. (Photo by chodaboy)
Centennial of NY Grand Central Station…And What the Future Holds
New York’s famous transportation icon, Grand Central Station (more properly Grand Central Terminal) celebrated the 100th anniversary of it’s opening on February 2, 2013. This rail terminal is more than just a means of travelling from point A to B, but it is a romantic, and grandiose metaphor for the hustle and bustle of American life. While the structure is definitely a cultural and architectural monument, it is also an engineering marvel, a fact recognized in 2012 by ASCE when it named it a National Civil Engineering Historic Landmark.
While the centennial of the GCT is being celebrated, a new project is taking shape approximately 90 feet below the existing tracks. The East Side Access project (ESA) will provide a new connection from the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to GCT. This project will help…
[Editor] Click through for the rest of this article, including a list of some interesting websites on Grand Central Terminal and the East Side Access Project. [/Editor]