Science & Technology

Musk weighs in on plan for $20 trillion tunnel linking New York to London

By T.K. Randall
December 16, 2024

Image: AI-generated (Bing AI / Dall-E 3) The difficulties of building an underground rail tunnel all the way from London to New York might seem insurmountable, yet plans to actually construct such a tunnel are genuinely being considered, with those behind the idea estimating that it could cost somewhere in the region of $20 trillion.

Not only would the tunnel be the longest ever built by a huge margin at 3,400 miles long, but it would also make incredibly fast trans-Atlantic travel a reality, with trips between New York and London taking a mere 54 minutes to complete.

This remarkably short travel time would be achieved by creating a vacuum within the tunnel and using pressurized vehicles that could theoretically reach speeds of up to 3,000mph.

Actually building something like this, however, would take literally decades to complete.

The $20 trillion price tag would also seem to make it unlikely to ever happen.But there's one person who believes that he could do the whole thing for a lot less money.

Enter Elon Musk - the SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur who has also dabbled with creating tunnels that can carry high-speed vehicles using much the same method as proposed in the new tunnel plans.

In a social media post, he stated that he could do the entire project for 1000 times less than the estimated $20 trillion price tag using his own construction and infrastructure firm The Boring Company.

That's quite the discount, though it remains unclear exactly how he'd be able to pull this off.

Whether Musk (or anyone else) will actually attempt to build such a tunnel, however, remains to be seen.

Source: NDTV.com

Tags: Tunnel