Nikitas wrote:Piple laying across a deep sea bed cannot be interrupted. The pipe is laid in one continuous loop, with new rolls of pipe being continuously welded and laid at a slow pace. I still cannot figure out how the mid section laid at 1000 meter depths will resist the crushing pressure. There is an atmosphere of pressure for every 10 meters depth. And this water will make it across 110 kms with no intermediate pumping stations in a plastic heavy section pipe.
Exactly what is gained in time and money over two VLCC sized tankers doing a continuous back and forth is the mystery. The tankers are available today, if there was the will to actually do this project it could get going in a matter of days. Greek island used to be tanker supplied for years before the installation of desalinators, and the system worked fine.
To avoid the huge pressures in 2000m of water, the remarkably fanciful, never been tried anywhere else in the world, plan for "project of the century" is that for much of the sea-crossing, the pipe will be suspended below buoys at a depth of around 250m and anchored to the sea-bed by cables.
