Take the Highway Tunnel to Russia

Over the last century, the idea of linking Alaska and Russia with a highway has always been a dream;however, that dream may now someday come true.

With only 68 miles of Bering Sea separating the 49th state from Russia, supporters of linking these 2 superpowers with the world's longest tunnel is starting to gain some renewed interest. The world's current longest tunnel is the Chunnel that runs 30 miles and links England with France.

Backers of this tunnel idea hope this will lead to an even bigger project- building a 3,700 mile railroad that would link Alaska's west coast with the gold and mineral rich Yakutsk Siberian region of Russia.

This super tunnel has a projected cost of $65 billion dollars, and the tunnel would burrow underneath a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic ocean. Backers from both the United States and Russia made their pitch for this idea at the "Megaprojects of Russia's East," held Tuesday in Moscow.

A dose of reality set in during this meeting when a Russian economics ministry official wanted to know who was going to pay for this enormous project. However, Walter Hickel, a former Alaska governor and interior secretary under President Richard Nixon, remained optimistic about this grand plan saying this would help both Russia and the United States tap into the vast natural resources of a region were winter temperatures of minus 94 degrees are not unheard of.

Backers of this tunnel idea even started to dream of a possible London-Moscow-Washington train route.

Lobbyists for this tunnel claim a profit could be made within 30 years because lobbyists feel about 3 percent of the worlds cargo could move through this tunnel once it is completed. Experts believe it would take 20 years to build such a massive tunnel.

Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of the federal agency for managing Special Economic Zones, said his ministry would only look into this project if private financiers made a commitment to this idea.

This is not the first time an idea of linking the United States and Russia has come up. Russia's last czar, Nicholas II, gave the go ahead to such a project two times before, but his projects were stopped because of the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution.

Despite all the grand planning going on during the meeting Tuesday, the light at the end of the tunnel seemed to dim some because a top economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin, as well as the Russian railway minister, who had been billed to speak, changed their minds and cancelled at the last minute.

Even though the Russians seemed to pause at building this tunnel, a statement was endorsed Tuesday encouraging Russia, the United States, Japan, China and the European Union to develop this tunnel idea into their countries economic development strategies. This statement also urged the G-8 countries to continue discussing this tunnel linking project when they meet in Germany for the G-8 summit in June.

Read more about the great tunnel plan at Yahoo Biz