"Road Trip To Yakutsk!"

Reported by the AP: Undersea project would link Alaska, Russia

For more than a century, entrepreneurs and engineers have dreamed of building a tunnel connecting the eastern and western hemispheres under the Bering Strait -- only to be brought up short by war, revolution and politics.

Now die-hard supporters are renewing their push for the audacious plan -- a $65 billion highway project that would link two of the world's most inhospitable regions by burrowing under a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.

Russians and Americans alike made their pitch for the project at a conference titled "Megaprojects of Russia's East," held Tuesday in Moscow.

"It's time to the rewrite the old slogan 'Workers of the world unite!"' said Walter Hickel, a former Alaska governor and interior secretary under President Richard Nixon. "It's time to proclaim, 'Workers -- Unite the world!"'

A Russian Economics Ministry official tossed cold water on the idea, saying he wanted to know who planned to pay the mammoth bill for the project before seriously discussing it. But Hickel was unfazed in his speech, saying the route would unlock hitherto untapped natural resources -- and bolster the economies of both Alaska and Russia's Far East.

The proposed 68-mile tunnel would be the longest in the world. It would also be the linchpin for a 3,700-mile railroad line stretching from Yakutsk -- the capital of a gold- and mineral-rich Siberian region roughly the size of India -- through extreme northeastern Russia, in waters up to 180 feet deep and into the western coast of Alaska. Winter temperatures there routinely hit minus 94 F.

By comparison, the undersea tunnel that is now the world's longest -- the Chunnel, linking Britain and France -- is only 30 miles long.

I don't know that I have an opinion on this, but it certainly is an interesting proposal. It has certainly been quite a while since the US has engaged in a momumental piece of engineering, unless you count the monumental disaster that is the "Big Dig" in Boston.

The sheer size of this project is mind boggling.

The feasibility study alone would cost $120 million and would take two years to complete, organizers said. Actual construction of the road-rail-pipeline-cable effort could take up to 20 years.

How exactly do you sell a "feasibility study" that costs $120 million? Sounds like good work... if you can get it.