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patents were filed decades ago for nuclear powered tunnel
tiggers for massive tunneling machines. they never got off
the ground for commercial purposes because of many
reasons and complexities.
i was trying to conceive of a method to dig 100 kilometer
long 1 foot diameter tunnel from ashkelon
coastal israel
mediterranean to the dead sea.
the nuclear powered digger would dig ever so slowly down
wards ...as the landscape above it rises it would be 'deep'
underground by many meter. by the end of 100 kilometers
of digging , the tunnel endpoint would be 40 meters below
sea level.
the tunnel entrance starts 10 meters below sea level just
off the coast.
the nuclear powered digger actually just 'melts' through the
earth by using the water that is constantly flowing to it
from the entrance of the tunnel.
the diggers back end (facing the opening of the tunnel )
takes in water and uses its prolific heat to produce steam
and super pressured water from this constant water flow to
dig away at the leading edge of the tunnel.
using the particulate matter that it creates by digging
away the tunnel---the digger than creates a hollow casing
for the tunnel. the inside of the casing is the tunnel. the
space between the inside and the outside wall is a
honycomb space that provides strucutural integrity as well
as an outlet for the excess particulate and excess heat and
water flow-----to be carries out of the tunnel back to the
leading edge entrance so that excess particulate has a way
out of the tunnel. the excess heat helps produce a
circulatory flow of water up and out of the leading edge of
the tunnel to the entrance.
when the tunnel eventually reaches the 'surface' of the
earth which should be around 50 meters below sea level --
-it can simply shut down its operations and allow the
mediterranean to slowly and passively flood the dead sea
basin which extends to 400 meters BELOW sea level. NO
pumps, no waste energy.
the particulates and steam
Mediterranean–Dead Sea Canal
http://en.wikipedia...80%93Dead_Sea_Canal
"The approx 8 m diameter pressure tunnel is designed for a maximum flow rate of 2.5 m/s" [8th of 7, Mar 07 2014]
Red Sea–Dead Sea Canal
http://en.wikipedia...80%93Dead_Sea_Canal
Alternative or complementary option. [8th of 7, Mar 07 2014]
NaK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaK
Lovely stuff. [8th of 7, Mar 07 2014]
2000 year old working acquaduct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_du_Gard
shallow acquaduct standard in roman times still works ---2000 years later! [teslaberry, Mar 09 2014]
vitruvius guide for gradient in acquaducts
http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Roman_aqueduct
my tunnel is designed with roman expert engineering guidance for passive water bearing gradient . [teslaberry, Mar 09 2014]
Underwater Epoxy
http://www.duckwork...rticles/underwater/
[scad mientist, Mar 12 2014]
[link]
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The core of a Pu-burning NaK-cooled FBR is about 1.2m in diameter
and 1.6m high. That's about as small as it's possible to make a
fission reactor; if you want to use thermal neutrons that means a
moderator is needed, which adds a lot if bulk. |
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It's not going to go through a 300mm hoop ... |
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If you're going to drive a tunnel, make it big enough to easily
maintain. |
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The "fall" on the tunnel needs to be as steep as possible allowing for
the level of the Dead Sea. That way you get a lot of hydro power as
well as decreasing the salinity. |
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//Pu-burning NaK-cooled// |
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sP: pu-burning nak-cooled. |
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Plutonium: symbol "Pu"
Sodium: symbol "Na"
Potassium: symbol "K"
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The eutectic alloy used for reactor cooling is generally referred to as
NaK. |
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Hmm, suspect quite a few middle east countries would chip in for the Project Orion version of this. |
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I think it's pretty cool that the water used in the
tunneling ops is so abrasive that it just cuts right
through the rock - but after construction, it flows
smoother than a warm silicone implant down a low-
latency wifi connection. It'd be pretty unfortunate if
it were to cut an unsightly and unplanned canyon
from the Med to the Dead... |
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Hang on, GPS doesn't work underground, so what's the stop it veering off-course and undermining Crimea....or is that a bit of a win-win. |
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//so what's the stop it veering off-course // |
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Civil engineering projects like tunnelling now use laser systems to
provide location data using the portal as the datum line, having
verified its position with DGPS. |
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It seems like making it autonomous is more complex than
needed. I wonder about the practicality of making anything
out of wet talings. Maybe just wash them out with a
sucker. And if you have a sucker you might as well have a
power cable. Then you could leave out the reactor and still
have room for a mini fridge. |
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Unless it's deep, or hard rock, or very wet strata, cut-and-cover has a
lot to commend it. |
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So that explains the lack of progress in the England to Ireland tunnel |
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If it's built, it will actually be a Scotland-to-Ireland tunnel, very
roughly Stranraer to Larne (and they're
welcome to it). |
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cut and cover is not only super laborious, but more
problematic you need permission from land owners
of MANY sorts along the route. same problem with
getting easements in making pipelines. |
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the problem with piping water to dead sea is you
cannot pipe any reasonable amount of water
because of the electrical pumping needs. running a
'negative pressure' pipe over land with multple
junctions and turns in the pipe itself is not gonna
happen---so you need to use electricity to pump
massive quantities of water. this is too energy
intensive. |
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finally---if you dig a passive STRAIGHT tunnel that
goes down a gradient, you cna presumably use some
of the water pressure at the first few hundred
meters of the exit of the tunnel to desalinate some
of the water. |
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some suggest you dig the tunnel as deep as possible
but that's even more expensive as earth gets more
compacted. ALSO---any remote possibility of wireless
communication to a subsurface 'guided' digger is
reduced the deeper the digger goes. |
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i think at 50 meters--the digger can probably receive
an low frequency sonic or electromagnetic signal
telling it to go left or go right. |
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the deeper you go less so. |
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and most importantly. if you're digging a passive
tunnel with sluice gates, the pressure builds at the
exit the deeper it is. a sluice gate at 400 meters is
holding back higher pressure and more prone to
catastrophic failure. |
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a sluice gate at 50 meters is just going to be a fluid
outlet that creates a river of less saline sea-water
that flows to the lowest point of the dead sea basin
of 400 meters below sea level. |
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as you go north the dead-sea basin goes up the
jordan river ( a sweet water river outletting from the
kinneret gallillee lake. ) |
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the kineret is at 210 meters below sea level and as
the dead sea basin fills close to this level ( a massive
amount of water would take years to fill it to this
level never seen in history) ---it would slowly get
brackish as the dead sea forms an estuary creeping
northwards up the jordan. |
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once it starts aproaching the 250 meters below sea
level mark---you are going to want VERY RElIABLE
SLUICE GATES. |
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catastrophic failure is not great.
most likely if the gates fail the only option is going
to be to destroy the tunnel in multiple points by
one of a variety of means. |
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in the unlikely event the pressure of the
mediterranean pushed an aquifer through that
rubble filling in the destroyed tunnel----YOU DONT
want a high pressure leaky aquifier running any
deeper than you need it to. |
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there are a number of mini canyon drainage vallies
leading to the dead sea that are just opening at
about 50 meters below sea level and they appear --in
person --to look like the edge of of a cliff leading
into a canyon , a smaller version of the lips of the
grand canyon. much smaller. |
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I would say the golden rule is just do the minimum
possible to solve the problem. doing the maximum
just leads to more unitended consquences--
particularly in the case of geo-engineering. |
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the deeper and steeper you make those tunnels the
more than can go wrong. the roman aquaduct
construction legend--vitruvius-----actually notes the
imporance of shallow gradients for long term
stability of the acquaduct ( in his time there were
not sensors and everything built by hand had to LAST
) |
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one of the oldest STILL WORKING roman aqaducts
has a gradient almost identical to my proposed
tunnel----dropping 34 centimeters for every
kilometer ----( 34 meters per 100 kilometers is about
what you get if your opening is at 10 meters below
sea level and exit at 50 ) |
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descending only 17 m vertically in its entire length
of 50 km (31 mi): it could transport up to 20,000
cubic metres a day. |
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higher gradients lead to more pressure and
sometimes were used for the purposes of hydraulic
mining and power. |
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it is my opinion that the dead sea is a disaster and
needs water desperately. the desert remains
profiteable to certain intersts so long as it is kept
stable enough for them to exploit it. well---that's
been going on for decades and it has just made the
problems far worse. eventually , when it comes to
dessert it's just going to die from their drying the
last drop of water. |
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the sad part is that all efforts to hydrate the
dessertifying basis are of course---being directed and
lobbyed by the very people who not only have
created the problem---but who stand to gain from
being able to direct and control any 'solutions' that
can be built. |
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compromise sometimes is good for commercial
purposes. but the dessert is a truly uncomprising
force of nature. it is hard to fight, and the simply
direct method is building a passive water conduit
which introduces are far more powerful force of
nature---the Mediterranean sea---to fight the
dessert. |
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===as far as the nuclear powered device is
concerned---it would not go under ANY disputed land
from gaza or west bank ( you can do a straight line
under the continuous strip of land that is israel. |
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furthemore-----a digging device that goes straight
and continuous without chanings will dig a far more
stable tunnel, that operates with less problems, and
can be dug faster than by other twisting means. |
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drop offs, conduits, junctions and sharp turns in
tunnels are inherently unstable just as twisty rivers
are unstable with shifting banks.
A STRAIGHT SHOT WOULD DO IT.
keep it simple stupid. |
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nuclear powered. might sound complex but it really
doesn't have to be . you don't need as many moving
parts as with a combustion engine. |
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Also, those //particulates and steam// look a bit lost. Do they have a home somewhere in the main text? |
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//but the dessert is a truly uncomprising force of nature |
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Oooh, ooh, ooh....I want to say it, but I shouldn't say it... |
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Whips out Punners Anonymous card and starts saying "one day at a time, one day at a time.." |
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As designed this sounds very unlikely to happen. You need to develope your small nuclear reactor as well as some method for converting your particular matter into a casing. |
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Here's an alternative:
1) Make it gas or diesel powered.
2) Build the casing and "material tubes" out of 2 part underwater epoxy. |
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As the device digs, it forms 5 small pipes and the main pipe. |
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Pipe 1 is used to pump fuel.
Pipe 2 is used to pump air to run the engine combustion and waste removal.
Pipe 3 is used to pumps in fresh water for engine cooling, hydraulic digging, and to provide water flow back out the main pipe to carry waste. |
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Pipe 3 and 4 are used to pump a two part underwater epoxy (link). These are mixed and used to form the casing. |
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The tubes are formed around smooth pipes hanging out the back of the digger that slide out of the pipes being formed. The expoxy is prevented from sticking to these pipes by giving the pipes the appropriate electrical charge. The underwater expoy link describes "cathodic issues" as a problem that can prevent the epoxy from sticking, but in our case we can use that problem to our advantage. Hopefully we could get a good enough seal and still be able to slide the tubes out of the newly formed tubes. This makes it very difficult for the digger to turn, but you wanted a straight pipe anyway, right? |
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To remove the waste material, we could try to push the dry material out through a tube by pumping lots of water with it, but the chance of cloggling seems very high in a tunnel that long. Instead, some epoxy should be used to construct small packages of dirt. Before sealing these, air from the air supply tube should be added to make it slightly boyant so it will float at the top of the tunnel up the slope of the tunnel as it flows along with the waste water. The pods of dirt should be small enough that if some break and sink, other pods floating along the top of the tube can easly clear them. |
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Generating one-time use epoxy pods is somewhat wasteful. Maybe reusable pods could be sent down the water pipe, filed with air and dirt, and sent back to the surface to be dumped. |
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Depending on the smoothness of your pipe, I calculate your flow rate for a 40m drop of 1 foot pipe over 100km to be between about 0.35m/s and 0.55m/s. That actually seems like a reasonable flow rate so that you're not getting extreme errosion of your pipe, but it seems like a rather small amount of water for a project of this scale. According to the first link, the dead sea has an evaporation rate of 60 - 70 cubic meters per second (5.2 million cubic meters a day). Your pipe might deliver 3150 cubic meters a day. Do you plan to go back and add multiple tunnels over time? Is there a reason for making it 1 foot in diameter rather than having it be larger? If you made the pipe larger but reduced the altitude drop to keep the flow rate the same, then although you need a larger valve to close the pipe, that value would have less pressure to hold back when closed. Whatever pipe size you choose, just be sure to close it very slowly or you will demonstrate water hammer VERY dramatically. |
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... unless you put the valve at the upstream end of the pipe, and just
create some vacuum. |
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To be honest, the best way would be to bury a line of secondhand warheads and then explode them to make a big ditch. |
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That does have some obvious problems. But, done correctly it would cut off the Gaza strip from the mainland. |
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//That does have some obvious problems. // |
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Not to us ... please explain. |
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Well, that would Gaza into some kind of Venice, and the world is not ready for suicide gondoleers imho |
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(hang on, wasn't the bad guy The Mummy called imho-tep?) |
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