8-10 billion euros is unironically not a lot of money for a major infrastructure project; that's like, a couple universities and hospitals. Completely within the capability of two sovereign modern European/North African nations to commence. Hell, that's just a few new aircraft carriers or equivalent, and it's a helluva lot more economically profitable than military equipment (unless you're a Raytheon and Lockheed shareholder, I guess).
@@rafaelrondon1813I had a similar thought. Dig a tunnel until you start getting too deep, then cut across with an exposed tunnel. But I imagine that's pretty difficult to do and keep it watertight.
My idea for crossing the Strait of Gibraltar would be to build an underwater bridge with enclosed deck, probably at the depth between the two currents to minimise loading, designed to allow for the movement of the tectonic plates. The simplest way to allow for movement would be a longitudinal curve that is designed to be able to change radius slightly while maintaining structural integrity and seal. Tunnels would be bored or blasted from the land at each end to the ends of that undersea bridge. The effective result would be a relatively shallow tunnel.
under water bridges (or float tunnel that they also are known as) will probobly be revolutionary when the production start hitting a peak. Not only should the be the cheapest way of building connections (because they can be pretty much fully be built in dry dock), but they are also easy to transport and mount. But so far non have been built But there is a issue with a under water bridge. Trains. Trains have a maximum weight of 15ton/meter and a typical weight (medium weight freight trains) 5ton/meter. That is a lot of change in weight. And any train that will come will probobly be longer than the distance between the floats or peers. While under water bridges have the benefit of being partly floated, hence they can span huge distances with very little support, this is a big problem for trains.
Complicated construction and cheap don't go together. It would be more feasible if it was solely used for unmanned cargo transportation, pumping air in to keep enough oxygen would be a massive waste of power. Leave it to an engineer to over-engineer. Its also completely ignoring the practicality of building and maintaining that. Imagine having to replace that many lights. More complex doesn't mean better. If anything goes terribly wrong everyone in that tunnel will be fubar.
@@darylcheshire1618 Nope you're thinking of Marmaray Tunnel, immersed tube construction is widely known elsewhere too, Fehmarn Belt Tunnel etc. Yet immersed tube is immersed to the bottom, it's not floating.
A couple of thoughts: Oil platforms regularly are used well in excess of the depth of the straits; perhaps such structures could be adapted as bridge supports. Also, maybe a strong cable system anchored to the sea floor could support floating towers for an otherwise normal cable extension bridge; these floating towers could be further connected to one another structurally under the waters of the strait to form in essence one giant partially submerged beam or structural chord acting to reinforce the overall bridge from below and prevent moment developing in pivot points identified with the tower supports against storm and tide lateral forces. This substructure would be connected like the bridge to both shores and would as such as prevent general moment in the entire bridge itself. Also note of course should be taken of the role of strong truss supports in the bridge under either side of the roadbed which not only prevent movement of the roadbed like Galloping Girtie but act to reinforce the structure as well.
@@Paul_C Maybe you could elaborate on why his idea wouldn't work instead of just acting like an arm-chair genius to tear someone down to make yourself feel better.
@@bookcadenb4584 he is just highlighting the fact people on here tend to think they have a unique idea on the matter when they really don't and what he suggested has been considered and rejected in the past by engineers and the reasons have been documented.
@@hgbugalou In the majority of cases, that's true, but there are occasional instances when naive types come up with an idea that is feasible and outside of the imagination of the experts and their usual ways of thinking. For that reason, we should never be telling people not to express ideas - the choice is there to ignore such ideas, or to explain why it's unfeasible. But telling people to just shut up and stay in their lane is basically just A-holery.
Norway has road tunnels crossing fiords that are not on the bottom but submerged well under seagoing traffic and kept in place with wide spread cable anchors. This concept might work here as well.
I love joking about this with my friends (I'm Irish, living in Scotland). We've joked about this connection being built, then sneakily throwing up a fence along the English - Scottish border in the middle of the night and declaring a new United Celtic Republic in the morning 😂 chucking tomatoes over the fence etc. Or maybe rebuild hadrians wall like one block at a time so no one notices, if anyone goes "what are you doing?" just say aw nothing... and then when the connection is done, same plan as previously stated, but claiming that bit right up to the wall 😂😂
@@MemoirsofaBasketcase in the grand scheme of things I really enjoy all his channels and either a typo or slip of the tongue or poor editing.....I don't mind, because I know what was intended.
Yeah, Simon is notorious for not caring about slip-ups. I mean, he could probably make a 17th channel called Redactions, Corrections, & Edits just to cover them all.
Giant Trebuchets would do the job. Maybe not so good for people but hard-goods could take it. And if it ever came to war, well, it's the first line of defense.
If we ever attempt to do this with the tunnel route I think we are going to run into pretty unique geological challenges being so close to plate boundaries. Earthquakes are not the only risk and you are going to be dealing with things like super hydrated soils and rocks releasing millions of gallons of water, possible active or fossilized magma intrusions, noxious gas releases, and extreme heat. That's just a few and there could be a bunch more.
@@jnawk83 I was actually thinking that Europe would receive a surge of poor Africans who are sick and tired of being poor and oppressed and want to experience the quality of life and high standard of living that Europeans enjoy.
This would indeed become the biggest mega project of all time. But I think it's never gonna happen. Too deep, too strong current, too large distance, too much political strees between continents, etc...
I think a tunnel would be best; take inspiration from the Nordic nations of Denmark and Norway to create “floating tunnels” that are also anchored to the seabed.
There are no "floating tunnels" anywhere. There are tunnels that lie on the seabed in trenches that are dredged. There are quite a few in Scandinavia and a long one is being built to connect Copenhagen to Germany in a direct route. But you need a shallow seabed with not step gradients. That wouldn't work for a tunnel to Africa.
@@Hamsun56 none yet* Norway is looking at building some, they are completely feasible. The 2 possible options for a floating tunnel is either with wires attached to the seabed or attached to pontoons floating on the surface.
The Japanese could sort out a tunnel project for this, they are the masters of tunnelling to connect islands or make better road systems…..and they know they have to make these earthquake-proof🤔👍
@@rafaelrondon1813 Currents. Different salinity superimposed by tidal movements can reach speeds of up to 13km/h. And as said in the video, deep currents and surface currents go into opposite directions. To make thing worse, the "barrier" between deep salty water flowing into the Atlantic and less salty surface water flowing into the Mediterranean is a wave with an amplitude of up to 100m. A floating tunnel would have to withstand strong forces in all directions.
@@williamd1891 it's pulled by ropes under the water deep enough for every ship to easily cross Also currents aren't strong enough to eliminate floating tunnel in my opinion
(People are going to think I'm ADHD and they may be right!) Anyway, on the oil platforms I want to clarify that to the extent such structures extend both above water and are anchored below, oil rigs may offer a path to developing secure footing in extreme support depths in another application. (Also, on the other idea, perhaps the floating tower bridge and connected support structures could be hinged on the sides and open in the middle like the Dutch dike dams to break and pivot in the central sections to one side of the strait or the other in extreme circumstances; ie here instead of trying to always withstand storm surge of sea water flow and storm activity through the straits ('bridge closed temporarily due to inclement weather') and then swung back into place. No need to subject the structure to more wear than necessary.) But again aside from the natural seabed secured platform concept, what I am alternatively suggesting and thought of perhaps another way is some kind of secured artificial floating platform which is independent of the seabed as a base concept (except perhaps for cable securements*) and which supports a raised road and rail bed. Here, in my particular idea, this takes the form of a suspended roadbed on floating tower structures; the whole secured by massive perhaps steel box supports between the towers to keep the whole system stable and all of one piece and adequately submerged to allow sufficient passage. To all appearances and purposes an ordinary suspension bridge above the water, but underneath the bridge is part of a floating or suspended structural system. A type of structural platform if you like, independent of the sea floor. And think of the advantages of engineering a bridge to stand independent of such a geologically unstable area like the straits! With this basic idea of an artificial seabed perhaps progress can be made (or has already been somewhere) on bridging more difficult areas around the world. * On the cables, these could be arranged underneath the structure extending upwards like an upside down extension bridge cable array from the sea floor to the underside of the nonmoveable parts of the bridge, perhaps on both sides like a stabilizer and on both shores to additionally keep the structure stable in the water. IE situated towards the banks of the straits and not intruding into shipping channels; again also submerged at depth. I admit I'm using the information from the excellent video in developing these ideas and have not followed the engineering on Gibraltar to this point. Certainly the engineering solutions to bridging problems are many and really fascinating. Questions of cost? Always a question. OBTW the bridge structure could be engineered to take advantage of the tides with the installation of turbines, perhaps in the lower structural chord element tying the bridge towers together between. Talk about your cheap electricity in Morocco. OH and sales of electric power to offset costs besides the tolls!! Just ideas. Thanks again.
In the hypothetical world where we connect the Asian and American road systems and the North and South American road systems, you could drive from South Africa to Argentina
@@JamesFromTexas It wouldnt really be that difficult if anyone *actually* wanted that road built, but Panama has no incentive to build it, American doesnt want an easy road for South American migrants to get through that bottleneck, and there is no economic reason for private parties to build the road.
@@alashiya9536 The Bering Strait would probably be easier to bridge or tunnel than the Straits of Gibralter, as it's only on average thirty to fifty metres deep, with the deepest point being ninety metres. At such depths building a structure like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is definitely possible. The main difficulty would be the weather. Any bridge structures would need to be extremely strong to withstand the effects of both wind and snow/ice build up.
It is said the Mediterranean was once a salt basin, with the odd dotted lakes where river flowed in. But with rising sea levels, the sea broke through the Gates of Hercules, and eventually through the Bosporus strait to flood the now Black Sea which it is said was once arable land - of which the fable of Noah originates from, some say.
@0:59 A small correction: The shortest distance between Morocco and Iberia is approximately 14.3 kilometers (8.9 miles) not 14.3 miles. At its narrowest point, the strait is only around 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) wide. More specific from Tangier(Morocco) the southernmost point of mainland Spain, which is the city of Tarifa.
1:02 9 km is not 14 miles, It's the other way around. 14 km is just under 9 miles. At points in the distant past, the straight was closed. With such a high evaporation rate, the basin was the lowest area on earth by far. It flooded over many decades after a catastrophic break.
It’ll never happen for the same reason we still have the Moggill ferry across the Brisbane river. One side of the river is a low socioeconomic area (Riverview) and the other side of the river is a high socioeconomic area (Moggill). Keeping a ferry in operation provides convenient “separation” for the upper crust from us plebs.
Really? Actually you are wrong. This tunnelproject between Morocco and Spain has been conformed yesterday. The start will be in May and completed before the 2030 WC.
A major flaw in the analysis here is that a rail tunnel to Morocco only connects to Morocco, it doesn't functionally connect to the rest of Africa as there is no continental rail network or road network in Africa. Aside from the geography, and infrastructure issues, you have political divisions between countries that don't allow for free movement. Those issues need to be solved before even contemplating a tunnel from Spain to Morocco.
Whatever the plan funding via energy production will be key. Tidal floating generators along its route if simple and efficient could pay for the project yet alone transportation of solar made in Africa and the bridge too. The idea of casinos would increase the upfront costs to high and put off investors, although the idea of flotations and partly submerged tunnels has merit if you could anchor them better.
cool idea, but let's be real, this wouldnt jump start trade with the entire continent, the distances are just too vast. container ships are way too efficient anyway, but i could imagine this doing wonders for the maghreb. algeria could finally be linked more closely to southern europe, if they were willing. tunisia would also still benefit from it probably, so it's not just morocco. but let's be real, none of the other countries would care about it in africa.
@@cjoin83 i gave it another night's sleep and i think maybe northern mali and northern mauretania could still benefit from THEORETICALLY, since they're so far off. but that's in the middle of the sahara, so nobody lives there. but should oil be found somewhere around there, a direct pipeline from the desert through morocco, over the bridge, to spain and beyond could still be kind of a big deal. no matter how efficient ships are, direct pipelines are a massive boon to any economy. but again, in reality algeria has oil and they fucking hate southern europe's guts and arent willing to trade at all. obv this would have to be figured out in advance if relevant, or this will just stay a future option once the connection has been built. ps: so is western sahara its own country now, or is it all morocco? they would obviously also benefit from it
What about floating tunnels? Long sections can be built in dry docks with sealed ends. They are then floated out to the appropriate location, attached to the previous section. Cables are then attached to the sections and massive concrete anchors buried into the ocean floor. The sections are submerged by incrementally shortening the cables. Finally, the sealed ends are removed, leaving a continuous tunnel floating at a predetermined depth. For safety, two tunnels could be built parallel with escape tubes from one to the other. Due to being made from slightly flexible materials, floating tunnels are naturally resistant to ocean currents, earthquakes and shifts in the seafloor. They do not need to be near the ocean floor, nor anywhere near shipping traffic. The cables would require maintenance but the tunnels and anchors could be built with redundant connection points so new cables could be fitted and tensioned before the old ones were replaced.
I bet that they will build like that someday. Hard to hold something like that at predetermined depth when heavy trains travel through - that's something you forgot to mention. The slightly flexible materials and their maintenance cost a lot in the face of current construction techniques and risk tolerances.
@@u1zha You're right. In the environment of the Straits, anything they make will be subject to extreme forces approaching or exceeding the strength and resilience of current building technologies. I honestly don't think there will be a practical crossing of any kind for at least another 50 years. Even then, any construction will require daily maintenance and constant monitoring just to prevent catastrophic collapse.
Probably the most realistic will be a tunnel on the easy sections from both sides and some kind of underwater bridge on the deepest part holding prefabricated concrete tubes that will be dropped on this underwater bridge
Transportation by sea is much cheaper than transportation by land. Right now, you can also send cargo from any port in the Med to any other. A bridge would only narrowly funnel a small amount of trade. There would be no real economic benefit to a bridge.
Crazy. Be the first time the lands were connected since the straight itself. When they invent time travel I am going to go back and visit this spot before its collapse and flooding of the Mediterranean. It must have been a beautiful wonder of the old world and a pathway connecting two continents
Now to be fair it is a big prodject but the norwegan megaproject is bigge due to we are trying to build a mega inderground tunnel from stavanger to trondheim if i remeber rigt
Meanwhile we've not been able to build a bridge for the 100.000 people per day commuting between the center of Amsterdam and Amsterdam North, which is a ferry ride of about 200 meters...
I'd make a floating tunnel with cables holding it submerged. Should be relatively cheap and esrthquake proof and largely contructed onshore, just assembled in the water.
The nascent expectation of significant sea level rise provides a renewed selling point for a Gibraltar dam to all dwellers of a huge length of coastline quite dwarfing the dozen miles of the straight. Their potential combined leverage, wow. "Syraccusing Gibraltar", in reference to Archimedes's famous lever quote -- handy should the time come to paint the pitch of that leverage as a cliché.
@@alfrredd Not a big difference between Morocco and Spain or Portugal. Almost same living standards. But all of Africa uses Morocco as a route to get to Europe.
IOW the reasons listed around 8:00 for coastal populations not to like the impact of a Gibraltar dam, essentially reverse when trading a dam intended to change sea level in the Mediterranean, for one made to keep it constant.
Imagine 2 modern 5+ million residents city's across from each other ( Barcelona and Dubai example) There would be a bridge and a tunnel already built 30y ago. Think of Euro tunnel. There just isn't enough money on the African side. .....and just think of the tide energy plant.
Given density of human habitation in Sahara area of Africa, there appears to be no economic reason to build a bridge to support trade. Expect ship borne trade will be more effective
Yes, having trains going across instead of loading onto ships would make the whole process cheaper. But surely they have a quite optimized solution for quick transfer of containers from train to ship to train by now?
This is looking at only ONE problem. It is better if they look at TWO different problems. The sea is rising. And that will flood coastal cities all over the world. But the Mediterranean is in a unique position where they can do something about this. Because if they DAM the Gibraltar Strait, they can limit the amount of water that enters The Med. And thus they can make sure that the sea level in the Med remains constant, even if the sea level in the rest of the world rises. And it shouldn't be a problem to make every country on the Med to pitch in to pay for this. And once there is a dam there, of course it should be easy to build a road. I would suggest making a dam of rock rather than concrete. Since the tectonic plates moving might break a concrete dam, but would only shift a rock dam.
Thinking like SFIA host Isaac Arthur, European rivers that used to flow into the Mediterranean are course changed and diked to flow through Portugal to the Atlantic. Or from the Danube through Turkey and the Jordan River to the Red Sea. The Suez Canal would extend to southeast of Venice and maybe branches going west to the Atlantic with the river, and mayby east to the Danube. The seafloor would be new land.
Im sure all those people living on the Mediterranean coast will be thrilled to live thousands of miles inland. I doubt they will complain at all, let alone actually try to stop such a project.
Although the mega Dam across the Gib Straights is absurd, image all the archeology dropping the Med by 200m would reveal - not least the wreck of the Britanic at 110m!
Suggestion the GPSS Pipeline System now the CLH Pipeline System in Britain its got all the classics WW2, The Cold War and Modern Aviation. It's literally the fuel life line of most of the RAF and major airports in Britain. Best bit unless you know what to look for, you wouldn't even know it exists.
I think that was the reason T in the Park ended. The original farm site was situated over an enormous gas pipeline and there were fears that in the event of a disaster hundreds could be killed. Still annoyed about that, was great having such a big festival on my doorstep.
At 1:00, you say that 9km is 14miles. You mostly got that backward. 14 km is 8.7miles. BUT the straight of Gibralter, acording to NASA, is 13km or 8 miles. Hope this helps.
Honestly I think just building a rail tunnel similar to the channel tunnel on the shallower portion is the smartest way to go. You could have a car transporter train if necessary but going to 24 lanes I frankly absurd.
the shallow portion is still 2.5 times deeper than the channel and also this video didn't talk about the nature of the sea bed which complicate things even more
@@NoobGamingXXX indeed, I mean the whole project is almost impossible. But a tunnel is likely to be significantly easier than a bridge and the 20 lane monstrosity mentioned would frankly be absurd
Since the UKk is still (after 3 years) having difficulties sending sausages from England to Northern Ireland I think it might be fair to say British bridge/tunnel solution won't be happening.
The seabed where Denmark tunnel lies is < 40 meters down. Big difference if your seabed lies 400 - 900 meters down. Probably much steeper gradients too.
I don’t see the point in using the term “Africa”. Sub Sahara Africa is a very very long way off with almost no transport links. You can only connecting to North Africa.
Wow! These are some bad plans. What you need is a tethered submerged tunnel (buoyantly making the cable tethers taught), maybe 100-200 feet underwater. Much cheaper to build, and you can cross at the narrowest spot with no problems. You would want to make it out of strong concrete and steel, so any submarines piloted by idiots would not damage it, if they ran into it. You would want some sort of international agreement for subs to go over it rather than under it because of the cables. You also can only allow electric automobiles and electric trains, as ventilation has challenges similar to the Chunnel.
It's also about the what can sicily and tunisia bring to the table .. Tunisia is not a bridge to Africa like Morocco and Sicily is semi isolated with a fucked up economy. Compare that to Tangiers one of the largest docks in the region and Spain main land it's a no brainer
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1st
@@mothermovementa looks like it
Got your miles to Kilometers backwards.
Fact Boy
how did you get 9km = 14 miles at 0:59 ??? did you mean 9 miles = 14 km ???
Hey guy you didn't go bald your hair just slid down to your chin
1:35 - Chapter 1 - So close, yet so far
4:50 - Mid roll ads
6:10 - Chapter 2 - A true megaproject
8:05 - Chapter 3 - Back down to earth
8-10 billion euros is unironically not a lot of money for a major infrastructure project; that's like, a couple universities and hospitals. Completely within the capability of two sovereign modern European/North African nations to commence. Hell, that's just a few new aircraft carriers or equivalent, and it's a helluva lot more economically profitable than military equipment (unless you're a Raytheon and Lockheed shareholder, I guess).
10 billion euros is less than the new main train station in Stuttgart.
I think there was a zero missing.
Seriously, the U.S spends more on that on a single ship.
Less than ONE new gen EPR nuclear reactor in France 😅(price tag is expected to /2 for further models)
It's indeed not a lot of money, but usually these projects always end up costing double, triple or quadruple the original amount.
Now multiply that by four and you will get an realistic cost of such project.
0:57 the units of measurement have been switched! It's 14 km or 9 miles instead of the other way around.
Still, love your videos Simon!
Came here to say that, it really threw me for a loop to see kilometers get such a massive upgrade
Ron Burgundy would be proud
@@Fujikawa42 And the editor just ran with it...
With those units of measure safe to say I'm well endowed.
Didn't NASA have a real problem a few years back because someone messed up the km/miles conversion? Just sayin...
I've sailed through the Straits 3 times in the USN. Each time we hit gnarly seas. Like 24 ft waves.
Do you know if the currents are equally difficult beneath the surface? I’m thinking the best solution is a tunnel raised above the seabed.
I've done it twice in the 90s, and you're right, it was nuts.
heavy. I think Gibraltar and Darium (Swamp) are both strategic straights, keeping strategic continental separation
@@rafaelrondon1813I had a similar thought. Dig a tunnel until you start getting too deep, then cut across with an exposed tunnel.
But I imagine that's pretty difficult to do and keep it watertight.
@@QBCPerdition Especially at depth, where the pressure will be insane.
I never realized how DEEP the Straight is. That's crazy!
My idea for crossing the Strait of Gibraltar would be to build an underwater bridge with enclosed deck, probably at the depth between the two currents to minimise loading, designed to allow for the movement of the tectonic plates. The simplest way to allow for movement would be a longitudinal curve that is designed to be able to change radius slightly while maintaining structural integrity and seal.
Tunnels would be bored or blasted from the land at each end to the ends of that undersea bridge. The effective result would be a relatively shallow tunnel.
under water bridges (or float tunnel that they also are known as) will probobly be revolutionary when the production start hitting a peak. Not only should the be the cheapest way of building connections (because they can be pretty much fully be built in dry dock), but they are also easy to transport and mount.
But so far non have been built
But there is a issue with a under water bridge. Trains. Trains have a maximum weight of 15ton/meter and a typical weight (medium weight freight trains) 5ton/meter. That is a lot of change in weight. And any train that will come will probobly be longer than the distance between the floats or peers.
While under water bridges have the benefit of being partly floated, hence they can span huge distances with very little support, this is a big problem for trains.
Wasn’t something like this done in the Bosphorus? I forget if it was a proposal or actually implemented. Twin tracks I think.
Complicated construction and cheap don't go together. It would be more feasible if it was solely used for unmanned cargo transportation, pumping air in to keep enough oxygen would be a massive waste of power. Leave it to an engineer to over-engineer. Its also completely ignoring the practicality of building and maintaining that. Imagine having to replace that many lights. More complex doesn't mean better. If anything goes terribly wrong everyone in that tunnel will be fubar.
@@darylcheshire1618 Nope you're thinking of Marmaray Tunnel, immersed tube construction is widely known elsewhere too, Fehmarn Belt Tunnel etc. Yet immersed tube is immersed to the bottom, it's not floating.
Sounds very elegant
A couple of thoughts: Oil platforms regularly are used well in excess of the depth of the straits; perhaps such structures could be adapted as bridge supports. Also, maybe a strong cable system anchored to the sea floor could support floating towers for an otherwise normal cable extension bridge; these floating towers could be further connected to one another structurally under the waters of the strait to form in essence one giant partially submerged beam or structural chord acting to reinforce the overall bridge from below and prevent moment developing in pivot points identified with the tower supports against storm and tide lateral forces. This substructure would be connected like the bridge to both shores and would as such as prevent general moment in the entire bridge itself. Also note of course should be taken of the role of strong truss supports in the bridge under either side of the roadbed which not only prevent movement of the roadbed like Galloping Girtie but act to reinforce the structure as well.
Maybe first finish college, then study engineering.
@@Paul_C Maybe you could elaborate on why his idea wouldn't work instead of just acting like an arm-chair genius to tear someone down to make yourself feel better.
@@bookcadenb4584 he is just highlighting the fact people on here tend to think they have a unique idea on the matter when they really don't and what he suggested has been considered and rejected in the past by engineers and the reasons have been documented.
@@hgbugalou In the majority of cases, that's true, but there are occasional instances when naive types come up with an idea that is feasible and outside of the imagination of the experts and their usual ways of thinking. For that reason, we should never be telling people not to express ideas - the choice is there to ignore such ideas, or to explain why it's unfeasible. But telling people to just shut up and stay in their lane is basically just A-holery.
Those are terrible ideas, do you work for HS2?
Norway has road tunnels crossing fiords that are not on the bottom but submerged well under seagoing traffic and kept in place with wide spread cable anchors. This concept might work here as well.
They are not real, Norway has only concepts so far.
Simon, could you please do a similar video on the various proposed undersea tunnels under the Irish Sea between the U.K. and Ireland?
I love joking about this with my friends (I'm Irish, living in Scotland). We've joked about this connection being built, then sneakily throwing up a fence along the English - Scottish border in the middle of the night and declaring a new United Celtic Republic in the morning 😂 chucking tomatoes over the fence etc. Or maybe rebuild hadrians wall like one block at a time so no one notices, if anyone goes "what are you doing?" just say aw nothing... and then when the connection is done, same plan as previously stated, but claiming that bit right up to the wall 😂😂
@@RealElongatedMuskratI may be American but I want in on this giant middle finger to England 😂
There’s an error at the beginning….9 miles or 14 kilometers. You got it the other way round, just thought I would let you know
Ditto
Damn, little brain Simon kicked in. In the eyes and out the mouth.
Crappy editing…gotta keep mass producing videos
@@MemoirsofaBasketcase in the grand scheme of things I really enjoy all his channels and either a typo or slip of the tongue or poor editing.....I don't mind, because I know what was intended.
Yeah, Simon is notorious for not caring about slip-ups. I mean, he could probably make a 17th channel called Redactions, Corrections, & Edits just to cover them all.
There's a great 1930's movie about digging a tunnel between New York and Great Britain. Very ahead of its time.
All we need are scaled up Hot Wheels ramps and boosters.
Well done. That was funny as hell.😂
But....I drive a Matchbox
Giant Trebuchets would do the job. Maybe not so good for people but hard-goods could take it. And if it ever came to war, well, it's the first line of defense.
If we ever attempt to do this with the tunnel route I think we are going to run into pretty unique geological challenges being so close to plate boundaries. Earthquakes are not the only risk and you are going to be dealing with things like super hydrated soils and rocks releasing millions of gallons of water, possible active or fossilized magma intrusions, noxious gas releases, and extreme heat. That's just a few and there could be a bunch more.
... that's not the only challenge: would Europe even want to be connected with Africa because... you know?
@@cashewnuttel9054 no what?
@@MadSwede87 because racism.
All I can think about is a ship sinking onto the tunnel
@@jnawk83 I was actually thinking that Europe would receive a surge of poor Africans who are sick and tired of being poor and oppressed and want to experience the quality of life and high standard of living that Europeans enjoy.
This would indeed become the biggest mega project of all time. But I think it's never gonna happen. Too deep, too strong current, too large distance, too much political strees between continents, etc...
Simon, bang on these videos lately. Very informative.
I think Simon did use Keeps when he was younger.
He just got really confused and put it on his chin by mistake 🤣
Great work on this video guys as usual. Well done. Legends
I think a tunnel would be best; take inspiration from the Nordic nations of Denmark and Norway to create “floating tunnels” that are also anchored to the seabed.
An actual bridge would detract from its (Gibraltars) natural beauty
Good scheme. It's not like Europe and Africa are separate continents and continents move relative to each other, or anything like that.
It is not very safe, one crazy shahid and goodbye hundreds of people and billions money
There are no "floating tunnels" anywhere. There are tunnels that lie on the seabed in trenches that are dredged. There are quite a few in Scandinavia and a long one is being built to connect Copenhagen to Germany in a direct route. But you need a shallow seabed with not step gradients. That wouldn't work for a tunnel to Africa.
@@Hamsun56 none yet*
Norway is looking at building some, they are completely feasible.
The 2 possible options for a floating tunnel is either with wires attached to the seabed or attached to pontoons floating on the surface.
The Japanese could sort out a tunnel project for this, they are the masters of tunnelling to connect islands or make better road systems…..and they know they have to make these earthquake-proof🤔👍
there are ships coming and going always from there ...the only solution is the bridge to be high like 100 m high
Sort of surprised there was no submerged floating tunnel proposal, these are getting more popular
Damn I thought I was clever to think of that as a solution. I wonder what unforeseen issues that might involve..
@@rafaelrondon1813 Currents. Different salinity superimposed by tidal movements can reach speeds of up to 13km/h. And as said in the video, deep currents and surface currents go into opposite directions. To make thing worse, the "barrier" between deep salty water flowing into the Atlantic and less salty surface water flowing into the Mediterranean is a wave with an amplitude of up to 100m. A floating tunnel would have to withstand strong forces in all directions.
How will ships cross this floating tunnel?
@@williamd1891 it's pulled by ropes under the water deep enough for every ship to easily cross
Also currents aren't strong enough to eliminate floating tunnel in my opinion
those are for calm small waters not the crossing between the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean sea
It would be funny if the bridge got built between British Gibraltar in Europe and Spanish Ceuta in Africa.
maximum annoyance bridge.
😆😆
The troll bridge
With demolition charges built in by both European governments?
How about between Alaska and Russia?
(People are going to think I'm ADHD and they may be right!) Anyway, on the oil platforms I want to clarify that to the extent such structures extend both above water and are anchored below, oil rigs may offer a path to developing secure footing in extreme support depths in another application. (Also, on the other idea, perhaps the floating tower bridge and connected support structures could be hinged on the sides and open in the middle like the Dutch dike dams to break and pivot in the central sections to one side of the strait or the other in extreme circumstances; ie here instead of trying to always withstand storm surge of sea water flow and storm activity through the straits ('bridge closed temporarily due to inclement weather') and then swung back into place. No need to subject the structure to more wear than necessary.)
But again aside from the natural seabed secured platform concept, what I am alternatively suggesting and thought of perhaps another way is some kind of secured artificial floating platform which is independent of the seabed as a base concept (except perhaps for cable securements*) and which supports a raised road and rail bed. Here, in my particular idea, this takes the form of a suspended roadbed on floating tower structures; the whole secured by massive perhaps steel box supports between the towers to keep the whole system stable and all of one piece and adequately submerged to allow sufficient passage. To all appearances and purposes an ordinary suspension bridge above the water, but underneath the bridge is part of a floating or suspended structural system. A type of structural platform if you like, independent of the sea floor. And think of the advantages of engineering a bridge to stand independent of such a geologically unstable area like the straits! With this basic idea of an artificial seabed perhaps progress can be made (or has already been somewhere) on bridging more difficult areas around the world.
* On the cables, these could be arranged underneath the structure extending upwards like an upside down extension bridge cable array from the sea floor to the underside of the nonmoveable parts of the bridge, perhaps on both sides like a stabilizer and on both shores to additionally keep the structure stable in the water. IE situated towards the banks of the straits and not intruding into shipping channels; again also submerged at depth.
I admit I'm using the information from the excellent video in developing these ideas and have not followed the engineering on Gibraltar to this point. Certainly the engineering solutions to bridging problems are many and really fascinating. Questions of cost? Always a question. OBTW the bridge structure could be engineered to take advantage of the tides with the installation of turbines, perhaps in the lower structural chord element tying the bridge towers together between. Talk about your cheap electricity in Morocco. OH and sales of electric power to offset costs besides the tolls!! Just ideas. Thanks again.
2:42 bridge option vs. 3:43 900m deep tunnel... 8:27 1979 tunnel feasibility revisited in 2003
Hey Simon and team, and family. Love all the channels. Whistle while you work.
In the hypothetical world where we connect the Asian and American road systems and the North and South American road systems, you could drive from South Africa to Argentina
Yeah, those pesky Panamanian swamps make that a bit difficult but it would be awesome!
The Bering straight is 88km long so not likely.
@@JamesFromTexas It wouldnt really be that difficult if anyone *actually* wanted that road built, but Panama has no incentive to build it, American doesnt want an easy road for South American migrants to get through that bottleneck, and there is no economic reason for private parties to build the road.
Couldn't you just drive via Egypt and skip Morocco/Spain?
@@alashiya9536 The Bering Strait would probably be easier to bridge or tunnel than the Straits of Gibralter, as it's only on average thirty to fifty metres deep, with the deepest point being ninety metres. At such depths building a structure like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is definitely possible. The main difficulty would be the weather. Any bridge structures would need to be extremely strong to withstand the effects of both wind and snow/ice build up.
This idea doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as daming up the Nile river, like you described in the last video.
Love it that you promote 'Keeps'...unfortunately I am 70+ with all mine follicles intact ! Thankyou Mother( does it go down the female line? )
Re: Keeps - Kudos to the Keeps for the irony of letting Simon promote their products. 😀
It is said the Mediterranean was once a salt basin, with the odd dotted lakes where river flowed in. But with rising sea levels, the sea broke through the Gates of Hercules, and eventually through the Bosporus strait to flood the now Black Sea which it is said was once arable land - of which the fable of Noah originates from, some say.
Some say, but since it happened millions of years ago those people are wrong.
Since the highest point in the Gibraltar strait is 300m deep, that is highly unlikely.
@@aaronaaronsen3360 True. The Bosphorous part might be true though
@@rafaelrondon1813 LOL, millions of years ago? Bro, thousands of years. Humans were in the area when it flooded.
@@GrandChessboard No. It is theorised to have happened 5.3 million years ago. That's more than 5 million years before any humans lived.
@9 km or 14 miles - That's the other way round Simon.
1:28 so close, yet so far
8:02 back down to Earth
7:53 *You beat me to it -* *No one would want to stop in numerous Hotels now 5½ KM away from a once Sandy Beach !*
@0:59 A small correction: The shortest distance between Morocco and Iberia is approximately 14.3 kilometers (8.9 miles) not 14.3 miles. At its narrowest point, the strait is only around 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) wide. More specific from Tangier(Morocco) the southernmost point of mainland Spain, which is the city of Tarifa.
Just saw a picture of Simon with hair and it's is... I'll just say his current look is a vast improvement.
Love Gib.. And my Gibraltarian family 👍🏼
1:02 9 km is not 14 miles, It's the other way around. 14 km is just under 9 miles. At points in the distant past, the straight was closed. With such a high evaporation rate, the basin was the lowest area on earth by far. It flooded over many decades after a catastrophic break.
How is this guy on like every channel I watch?
and here we go
It’ll never happen for the same reason we still have the Moggill ferry across the Brisbane river. One side of the river is a low socioeconomic area (Riverview) and the other side of the river is a high socioeconomic area (Moggill). Keeping a ferry in operation provides convenient “separation” for the upper crust from us plebs.
Really? Actually you are wrong. This tunnelproject between Morocco and Spain has been conformed yesterday. The start will be in May and completed before the 2030 WC.
A major flaw in the analysis here is that a rail tunnel to Morocco only connects to Morocco, it doesn't functionally connect to the rest of Africa as there is no continental rail network or road network in Africa. Aside from the geography, and infrastructure issues, you have political divisions between countries that don't allow for free movement. Those issues need to be solved before even contemplating a tunnel from Spain to Morocco.
There is rail from morocco all the way to Nigeria it goes through multiple countries
I'm just here to say hello.
Hello there!
I just called to say I love you.
I just called to say how much I care.
@@ratchet2505 how's your day going, today?
Hello
Hello!
Came here to mention the “9km or 14 miles” error, but there are already 2 comment threads on it. Damn!
Whatever the plan funding via energy production will be key. Tidal floating generators along its route if simple and efficient could pay for the project yet alone transportation of solar made in Africa and the bridge too. The idea of casinos would increase the upfront costs to high and put off investors, although the idea of flotations and partly submerged tunnels has merit if you could anchor them better.
Getting my hair back is a mega project
There is a third scenario though. A floating subsea tunnel is also an option i would think? Assuming the currents doesn't make that an improbability.
those are for calm small waters not the crossing between the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean sea
cool idea, but let's be real, this wouldnt jump start trade with the entire continent, the distances are just too vast. container ships are way too efficient anyway, but i could imagine this doing wonders for the maghreb. algeria could finally be linked more closely to southern europe, if they were willing. tunisia would also still benefit from it probably, so it's not just morocco. but let's be real, none of the other countries would care about it in africa.
Yup, It would help Northern Africa but there are way more people in central and southern Africa who are cut off from the north by the Sahara.
@@cjoin83 i gave it another night's sleep and i think maybe northern mali and northern mauretania could still benefit from THEORETICALLY, since they're so far off. but that's in the middle of the sahara, so nobody lives there. but should oil be found somewhere around there, a direct pipeline from the desert through morocco, over the bridge, to spain and beyond could still be kind of a big deal. no matter how efficient ships are, direct pipelines are a massive boon to any economy. but again, in reality algeria has oil and they fucking hate southern europe's guts and arent willing to trade at all. obv this would have to be figured out in advance if relevant, or this will just stay a future option once the connection has been built.
ps: so is western sahara its own country now, or is it all morocco? they would obviously also benefit from it
What about floating tunnels?
Long sections can be built in dry docks with sealed ends. They are then floated out to the appropriate location, attached to the previous section. Cables are then attached to the sections and massive concrete anchors buried into the ocean floor. The sections are submerged by incrementally shortening the cables. Finally, the sealed ends are removed, leaving a continuous tunnel floating at a predetermined depth.
For safety, two tunnels could be built parallel with escape tubes from one to the other.
Due to being made from slightly flexible materials, floating tunnels are naturally resistant to ocean currents, earthquakes and shifts in the seafloor. They do not need to be near the ocean floor, nor anywhere near shipping traffic. The cables would require maintenance but the tunnels and anchors could be built with redundant connection points so new cables could be fitted and tensioned before the old ones were replaced.
those are for calm small waters not the crossing between the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean sea
I bet that they will build like that someday. Hard to hold something like that at predetermined depth when heavy trains travel through - that's something you forgot to mention. The slightly flexible materials and their maintenance cost a lot in the face of current construction techniques and risk tolerances.
@@u1zha You're right. In the environment of the Straits, anything they make will be subject to extreme forces approaching or exceeding the strength and resilience of current building technologies. I honestly don't think there will be a practical crossing of any kind for at least another 50 years. Even then, any construction will require daily maintenance and constant monitoring just to prevent catastrophic collapse.
Probably the most realistic will be a tunnel on the easy sections from both sides and some kind of underwater bridge on the deepest part holding prefabricated concrete tubes that will be dropped on this underwater bridge
Transportation by sea is much cheaper than transportation by land. Right now, you can also send cargo from any port in the Med to any other. A bridge would only narrowly funnel a small amount of trade. There would be no real economic benefit to a bridge.
Crazy. Be the first time the lands were connected since the straight itself. When they invent time travel I am going to go back and visit this spot before its collapse and flooding of the Mediterranean. It must have been a beautiful wonder of the old world and a pathway connecting two continents
Now to be fair it is a big prodject but the norwegan megaproject is bigge due to we are trying to build a mega inderground tunnel from stavanger to trondheim if i remeber rigt
What a brave idea...
Meanwhile we've not been able to build a bridge for the 100.000 people per day commuting between the center of Amsterdam and Amsterdam North, which is a ferry ride of about 200 meters...
I'd make a floating tunnel with cables holding it submerged. Should be relatively cheap and esrthquake proof and largely contructed onshore, just assembled in the water.
hahaha...Simon and his BEARD....Hilarious!
Great video Nomis 👍
Whistler promoting anti hair loss products is the most youtube thing ever.
The best option would be an enormous zip line.
The nascent expectation of significant sea level rise provides a renewed selling point for a Gibraltar dam to all dwellers of a huge length of coastline quite dwarfing the dozen miles of the straight. Their potential combined leverage, wow. "Syraccusing Gibraltar", in reference to Archimedes's famous lever quote -- handy should the time come to paint the pitch of that leverage as a cliché.
The tunnelproject between Morocco and Spain has been confirmed yesterday. The start will be in May🎉🎉
I guess it'll save all the doctors and engineers from having to use boats.
😂😂😂😂. True, to much wealth disparity between the continents, it doesn't really make sense, not much to gain by Europe.
@@alfrredd Not a big difference between Morocco and Spain or Portugal. Almost same living standards. But all of Africa uses Morocco as a route to get to Europe.
Don't hesitate to turn the volume up, lol
How many channels does this guy have???
you need a new channel for projects like this: Gigaprojects 🤔🤷😏👍
We need evidence of Simon with hair
Just watch @RealCivilEngineer come in here and solve it with a dangling road and some very strong shapes 😂
Or with fishes, eggplants and precious minerals.
Probably should take a few pages out of the Øresund Bridge, with the artificial island and tunnels. Would visit if made.
Øresund is really shallow, < 40 meters. Not applicable to Gibraltar
I actually liked the island idea
Have no sense economically
Would be amazing to see once it’s done!
The best option, connecting Algeciras to Ceuta
probably the last thing europe needs right now. I hope they build it!
IOW the reasons listed around 8:00 for coastal populations not to like the impact of a Gibraltar dam, essentially reverse when trading a dam intended to change sea level in the Mediterranean, for one made to keep it constant.
Imagine 2 modern 5+ million residents city's across from each other ( Barcelona and Dubai example)
There would be a bridge and a tunnel already built 30y ago. Think of Euro tunnel. There just isn't enough money on the African side.
.....and just think of the tide energy plant.
Inverness to Cape Town may one day be possible via automobile (with two train transit assists) ;) !
Given density of human habitation in Sahara area of Africa, there appears to be no economic reason to build a bridge to support trade. Expect ship borne trade will be more effective
Your acting is getting better, lol
Yes, having trains going across instead of loading onto ships would make the whole process cheaper. But surely they have a quite optimized solution for quick transfer of containers from train to ship to train by now?
This must be done yesterday!
Very funny. if anything I would dig the coast to increase the distance.
This is looking at only ONE problem.
It is better if they look at TWO different problems.
The sea is rising. And that will flood coastal cities all over the world.
But the Mediterranean is in a unique position where they can do something about this.
Because if they DAM the Gibraltar Strait, they can limit the amount of water that enters The Med. And thus they can make sure that the sea level in the Med remains constant, even if the sea level in the rest of the world rises.
And it shouldn't be a problem to make every country on the Med to pitch in to pay for this.
And once there is a dam there, of course it should be easy to build a road.
I would suggest making a dam of rock rather than concrete. Since the tectonic plates moving might break a concrete dam, but would only shift a rock dam.
6:50 the awkward moment when the World Map drops acid
I’ve heard structural wood has been working well lately. They should make it out of wood.🤣🤪😂
Thinking like SFIA host Isaac Arthur, European rivers that used to flow into the Mediterranean are course changed and diked to flow through Portugal to the Atlantic. Or from the Danube through Turkey and the Jordan River to the Red Sea. The Suez Canal would extend to southeast of Venice and maybe branches going west to the Atlantic with the river, and mayby east to the Danube. The seafloor would be new land.
Im sure all those people living on the Mediterranean coast will be thrilled to live thousands of miles inland. I doubt they will complain at all, let alone actually try to stop such a project.
Although the mega Dam across the Gib Straights is absurd, image all the archeology dropping the Med by 200m would reveal - not least the wreck of the Britanic at 110m!
“GIB BACK RIGHTFUL IBERIAN CLAY!” * Angry Spanish Noises *
Tough crap to Spain!🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Suggestion the GPSS Pipeline System now the CLH Pipeline System in Britain its got all the classics WW2, The Cold War and Modern Aviation.
It's literally the fuel life line of most of the RAF and major airports in Britain. Best bit unless you know what to look for, you wouldn't even know it exists.
I think that was the reason T in the Park ended. The original farm site was situated over an enormous gas pipeline and there were fears that in the event of a disaster hundreds could be killed. Still annoyed about that, was great having such a big festival on my doorstep.
At 1:00, you say that 9km is 14miles. You mostly got that backward. 14 km is 8.7miles. BUT the straight of Gibralter, acording to NASA, is 13km or 8 miles. Hope this helps.
Honestly I think just building a rail tunnel similar to the channel tunnel on the shallower portion is the smartest way to go. You could have a car transporter train if necessary but going to 24 lanes I frankly absurd.
the shallow portion is still 2.5 times deeper than the channel and also this video didn't talk about the nature of the sea bed which complicate things even more
@@NoobGamingXXX indeed, I mean the whole project is almost impossible. But a tunnel is likely to be significantly easier than a bridge and the 20 lane monstrosity mentioned would frankly be absurd
Since the UKk is still (after 3 years) having difficulties sending sausages from England to Northern Ireland I think it might be fair to say British bridge/tunnel solution won't be happening.
Why not suspend a tunnel above the seabed? It seems like it would solve the problems raised, albeit by doing something never before attempted.
What about an underwater bridge? The suports wouldn't be too high and the tunnel too deep. Build it in sections and sink it like the Denmark tunnel.
The seabed where Denmark tunnel lies is < 40 meters down. Big difference if your seabed lies 400 - 900 meters down. Probably much steeper gradients too.
floating bridge made of sections with archways so shipping can pass underneath
Those price tags feel like Pocket change compared to HS2
I don’t see the point in using the term “Africa”. Sub Sahara Africa is a very very long way off with almost no transport links. You can only connecting to North Africa.
Wow is that even safe
Wow! These are some bad plans. What you need is a tethered submerged tunnel (buoyantly making the cable tethers taught), maybe 100-200 feet underwater. Much cheaper to build, and you can cross at the narrowest spot with no problems. You would want to make it out of strong concrete and steel, so any submarines piloted by idiots would not damage it, if they ran into it. You would want some sort of international agreement for subs to go over it rather than under it because of the cables.
You also can only allow electric automobiles and electric trains, as ventilation has challenges similar to the Chunnel.
If you haven't done a mega projects on the Ryfast System then you should.
Just puff up a bunch of balloons!😊😊😊
Wouldn't it be easier to build such bridge from Sicily to Tunisia? Sure more than twice longer, but in shallow waters and with less traffic.
It's also about the what can sicily and tunisia bring to the table .. Tunisia is not a bridge to Africa like Morocco and Sicily is semi isolated with a fucked up economy.
Compare that to Tangiers one of the largest docks in the region and Spain main land it's a no brainer