The Bering Strait Tunnel project was proposed by Lyndon H. LaRouche as a part of his historic announcement of the Eurasian Land Bridge Development Proposal it in 1997. It was proposed as a key element to efficiently connect the Eurasian economic engine with the economic engines of the Americas, as a transportation backbone for world development.. It was one of the most far-reaching economic development projects ever devised. Some elements are already coming on line in Europe and Asia. However, with a dozen years lost and the economies of the world fast collapsing, the point has come at which the Bering Strait portion of the project  has became obsolete as a frontline economic driver. The world is facing a physical and economic collapse-crisis resulting from its destroyed industrial potential, which is no less dangerous than the nuclear-war danger had been in the 1980s. It appears that the key-principles of the LaRouche-authored SDI policy of the 1980s need to be applied to the modern crisis and be combined with the intercontinental-bridge concept, as well as all the other LaRouche-promoted economic principles, and that these be advanced to a higher-level implementation that reflects more fully that anti-entropic nature of the Universe and its principles.
 (see video: A Brief History of Lyndon LaRouche's Strategic Defense Initiative )

These (LaRouche) principles are:

1. The development of new physical principles that are an order of magnitude more efficient.
2. The application of high-density-high-temperature nuclear power processes.
3. The principle of automated industrial production to multiply the productive potential of human labor.
4. The integrated development of Africa as an element of world-development.
5. The recognition of the climate-reality that the global warming hype was invented to prevent.

The following list presents the 5 major 'flash'-points for which the Bering Strait Tunnel project will likely not be implemented.

1. The project is NOT built on new physical principles by which its implementation would be orders of magnitude more efficient.

2. The project's implementation is NOT build on the principle of automated industrial production that multiplies the productive capacity of the human being.

3. The project is NOT a key science-driver for high-intensity nuclear power development.

4. The project does NOT put Africa and South America at the crossroads of world economic-development.

5. The project does NOT have an inherent long-term lifespan due to the near-term resumption of Ice Age climatic conditions, unless we become serious with implementing the advanced climate control measures that the principles of the universe appear to offer. (See: No Ice Age Allowed - we can block it )

An advanced alternative: 
A proposal for a world-link that has none of the above flaws.

Did you ever ask yourself: How Big is Small?

Small-scale projects are hugely 'expensive' in terms of unrealized potentials.

Here is a big wealth-building project with great potential

1. The proposal is for building an intercontinental floating bridge linking Florida, Morocco, and Brazil as a key project for world development. Numerous extensions will invariably follow.

The first stage would involve building a floating-bridge 7000 km long for a high-speed rail link between the USA and Africa,  made of liquid-cast basalt. The logistics and technologies exist for a functioning bridge to be constructed in three years after the required industrial infrastructures are created. 

Molten-basalt technologies provide a platform of new physical principles with the potential to be an order of magnitude more efficient in housing construction, industrial construction, and general manufacturing, and of course large scale civil structures. Basalt is an ideal building material. It is non-corrosive; non-abrasive with a hardness just short of diamonds; strong, if not stronger than steel, with a tensile strength equal to glass fibers; and it is infinitely abundant. The U.S. Pacific Northwest, all by itself, has 175,000 cubic kilometers of it. It exists in surface deposits. It is process-ready as it sits on the ground. No pre-processing is required. It melts at 1200 degrees. It also has an extreme fine-grain consistency that allows it to be extruded into fibers of any size, including micro-fibers. It has wide potential uses for the production of robes, insolating bats, floatation foam, pipes, pressure cast structures, modular housing units, modular industrial units, etc.. Large scale application of basalt technology promises to open up a whole new world in construction an industrial processes, including the building of cities and bridges, highways and railways.

A supply-flow of 50000 tons of basalt per hour over a three-year construction period would likely suffice to fully construct a  functioning transportation link between the USA and Africa. Once this kind of process gets going, we would most likely see numerous secondary links opening up, linking Africa into the heart of Europe and Asia.

See: Measuring the potential - How do we measure such large-scale projects? Do we measure the cost, or do we measure the potential value that the created physical processes can provide?

2. The proposed project would be implemented with fully automated, large scale industrial production methods. The casting processes that would be involved for the modular units, would become the technology driver for truly revolutionary advances in the production of houses and housing units, with a cost-effectiveness so great that the houses can be given away as a social project for the cultural redevelopment of society itself. The bridge project would demand a scale of efficiency in production that would assure this kind of revolutionary fallout in benefits. The fallout all by itself would cause a revolutionary cultural uplift that would create a renaissance in living all across the world, together with an equal revolution in production methods that are not even possible on a lesser scale.

See: From Housing Crisis to Housing Revolution - Is universal free housing possible? (dialog of an exploration)

3. The intercontinental-bridge proposal would also serve as a key-driver for the mass production of the High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor technology and the associated heat-pump technologies that are needed for the direct application of the nuclear reactor heat to high temperature industrial processes, such as are required for melting basalt and for the melting of steel, both of which are presently highly inefficient. The HTGR delivers a heat output in the range between 700 to 900 degrees. With the application of ceramic heat pumps, very high process temperatures of up to 2000 degrees are readily attainable -- more than what is needed to melt steel, glass, and basalt. Modern high-temperature ceramics remain strong and stable in to 2000 degree range (with a melt-point at 3,400 degrees). Nothing is needed that we don't already have, to make direct application of nuclear power to high-temperature processes a reality.

The HTGR technology truly is the power source of the near future. It is this not because it is the most efficient way to produce electric power and desalinated water with the safest technology yet devised. Rather it is poised to become the power source of the future, because it enables the direct application of nuclear power to high-temperature industrial processes, such as steel production, which has not yet been utilized to the present day. Right now, 40% of the world's steel is produced in electric-arc furnaces. This means that a power plant's heat is converted to mechanical power first, which activates turbines, which is then converted to electric power, which is ultimately converted back to heat. If each step is 50% efficient, the overall efficiency of the process is a mere 12.5%. In comparison the direct application of high-temperature heat from the nuclear reactor would be 100% efficient (slightly less in practice). The resulting process does not only make steel production more efficient, but enables technologies to be implemented that are not possible otherwise. The resulting increase in efficiency is evidently the reason why Lyndon LaRouche places great emphasis on the HTGR-technology utilization. Only a big driver is needed to get this energy-breakthrough implemented and mass-produced.

The bottom line is that everything that we would need to build the intercontinental bridge is plentifully at hand. We have infinite stores of materials sitting on the ground unused. We have infinite power resources of the least expensive kind, which is nuclear power, likewise sitting unused in the ground. We have the high-temperature technologies sitting unused on the drawing board. What more would we need? The construction work itself would be so highly repetitive that it would lend itself to extensive automated production. 

The bridge once built would provide a near-level platform, a platform that is ideal for high-speed transport, light or heavy, and serve as carrier of intercontinental pipelines and communications cables. The bridge would likely also offer residential living spaces along its 14,000 kilometers of seafront, with potentials for vast new industries in fish farming.

The point is that a strong commitment to the now available  High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor technology has the potential to create a renaissance beyond the traditional scale. Mankind has so far never allowed itself to experience the benefits from large scale power development. A commitment to this type of advanced power development would open many doors. It appears that to get the ball rolling a large Apollo-type project will be needed to generate the required breakout of society from its present rut. In this sense the proposed intercontinental bridge could serve as a powerful seed kernel that could radically, culturally uplift mankind with advanced production and construction processes all over the world.

So, who is afraid of nuclear power? (Allow me to demonstrate that nuclear power is as natural as apple pie! In fact, you already live by it.)

LPACTV Feature: The Fraud of Free Energy

LPACTV: Afraid of Nuclear Power?

4. The proposed intercontinental-bridge project would, as the most important aspect of it, put Africa at the center of the world-development process. It would make Africa the crossroads junction between the American industrial engines, the European industrial engines (via the Gibraltar Tunnel), and the Asian industrial engines. Of course it is no longer optional, really, for Africa to be put at the crossroads of world-economic development. It has become vital for the survival of much of mankind that this be done. 

See: Mission Africa - a dialog. -- 

See: LPACTV: The Future of Africa

The economic development of Africa is more than vital now for the health of the whole of mankind, and it will be especially vital in the near term when the Ice Age transition begins. Towards this end, the proposed intercontinental bridge is a necessity of great urgency.

Having a direct bridge from the USA to Africa would enable efficient high speed transport of heavy commodities, such as fresh agricultural products, urgently needed machinery, construction materials, sensitive chemical products, and so on. The bridge would enable many kinds of intercontinental transports that are currently not possible at all, for them being impractical by air and too long in duration by sea. Apart from that, air and sea transports are both inefficient forms of transportation as the transport mode must carry its own fuel. (see: Comparison)

Quite literally, the future of mankind is at stake here. Having Africa at the center of the development stage makes the recovery of mankind possible. But who will carry the torch? (see: LPACTV: The Coming Role of Youth)

5. The proposed intercontinental bridge is also acknowledging the evident need to create a long-term backbone for the kind of worldwide integrated transportation infrastructure that would not be climate sensitive, regardless of the presently uncertain timing of the the coming Ice Age transition. It would in addition have the potential to open the door to long-term political and economic cooperative relationships between the nations globally. Also it would take the sting out of the global warming hoax and replace it with the much needed awareness that we do live after all in the Pleistocene Ice Age that has has been the stage of the world for the last two million years, which we need to prepare for at the present time. And we are all affected by the coming Ice Age, all of us together, with no exception.

The proposed transportation backbone (with the land lines not shown here) would extend across the entire New Temperate Zone that becomes increasingly vital for the entire world as the food supplier until indoor agriculture can take over, and this hopefully before outdoor agriculture becomes totally disabled by the radically cooler climates.

While the New Temperate Zone (indicated below) will surely shrink in size, especially for agriculture, as the ice age transition unfolds, it won't shrink far enough to disable the proposed intercontinental links, while it would rapidly disable the arctic link via a Bering Strait Tunnel.

The Electric Universe  The Electric Climate The Coming Ice Age An Ice Age Renaissance Manmade Global Warming?

LPACTV: Goodbye Global Warming Deepest Solar Minimum in Nearly a Century: Goodbye Global Warming NASA Says Arctic Ice Refroze at Near Record Rates  LPACTV: Global Warming -- British for Genocide LPACTV: The Green Shoots of Spring

The type of proposal that is put forward here is essential for the necessary task of pulling the world out of its present economic rut where mankind is drowning in pessimism in the face of a global economic collapse on a scale of historic proportions, occasioned by the natural bankruptcy of the private imperial monetarism that is ruling the world against the background of society's reluctance, or perceived impotence, in establishing itself competent self-government. Fortunately, we have no cause for pessimism.

Explorations in dialog

See: Queen of the New Law

See: Breaking the chokehold of elitism

See: Flood Tides... A look below the surface of the Lyndon LaRouche movement, a cultural universal movement.

See: Flood Tides... part 2 - The dimension of Lyndon LaRouche's leadership, a 'majority of one' in movement.

See: National Treasure

See: The Constitution

Books by Rolf A. F. Witzsche

See: The LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC) Website

Nothing but a clean break with the suicidal policies of monetarism, as LaRouche has proposed with the HBPA policy of 2007, is now sufficient to enable the world development on the scale that is needed. Financing the proposed project is easy on the platform of the credit society principle that the USA was founded on, as LaRouche has repeatedly pointed out, presenting its historic background in the American System of political economy. 

With the above proposed Florida-to-Africa floating bridge being totally achievable on the basis of the already existing and historically demonstrated principles, the construction of the bridge will happen sooner or later. The question for us today is: do we want to experience the vast potential benefits that such a project puts within our reach?  Indeed, the floods of money that were poured into the bank-bailout schemes from 2008 onward, which have afforded no benefit to society whatsoever, and never will, would likely have paid for the Florida-to-Africa floating bridge several times over by now, including the infrastructures required for its construction. In fact, the project wouldn't cost anything in real terms, considering the vast secondary economic and technological benefits to society that always flow from such a project on a scale that is barely imaginable. It is insane to measure the creative and productive power of society, and its application, in terms of cost, when this power and its application is the only wealth producing engine that society has. Projects on this scale should be measured by their benefit instead of cost. Cost only becomes a consideration when no benefits are associated with an expenditure, such as by throwing the nation's wealth into the bank-bailout bottomless pit.

In real terms the pursuit of the proposed Florida-to-Africa floating bridge may ultimately be unavoidable as a basis for inspiring renewed cultural optimism in society on a platform similar to the Apollo Moon Landing project, though going beyond it.  "We are doing this not because it is easy, but because it is hard," President Kennedy had said. Of course, cultural optimism doesn't actually flow from leading edge projects for the mere reason that they are hard to do. It flows from these projects because they are the human thing to carry out. This uplifting humanizing effect is especially needed, and pronounced for its effect, in times of a great crisis. President Kennedy had evidently understood this. The Cold War presented such a crisis then.  Cultural optimism unfolded in the Kennedy Years with society's large-scale self-development. It opened new horizons. Both factors are still valid. We need a lot of these at the present world-stage where the global financial and economic house is breaking down and has already largely disintegrated. 

It appears that the Bering Strait Tunnel proposal, which would have been a great project at the time it was proposed and would be implemented by now, appears increasingly too small in the light of today's larger crisis. Also, by it having been delayed for too long, it has become potentially too-short-term now in its projected usefulness considering the now possible Ice Age transition in the not-too-distant future. This makes the arctic route development an inefficient project to serve as the needed driver for the long-term integrated worldwide economic development program. Another inefficient factor would be that it wouldn't have Africa at its center. 

At the present stage nothing short of a bold project that incorporates all of LaRouche's advanced principles, with pioneering drivers acting on several fronts simultaneously, will likely be sufficient to pull the world out of the deep rut that the sewer of empire has become, which the nations now have tied their fate to, which literally spells doom for the vast majority of mankind if this link is not broken. We need to dramatically redevelop the world that has already collapsed below the level that is needed to maintain the present world population. The self-rescue effort that world now needs, needs to be based on the Westphalia-type principle of the intentional harmonizing of all interests throughout the world and for all people that make up our Universal Humanity, with Africa being fully integrated, reversing the trend by which the games of empire have so far kept Africa underdeveloped and isolated. The time has come to step away from a world being based on the rule of monetarist power, mired in the democracy of mediocrity, as we have it today.

It is likely not possible to possible to supercede the rule of empire without replacing it with a bold renaissance proposal that is a thousand times better and has a renaissance potential on many fronts simultaneously. It is never enough to take the house down that mankind has become accustomed to live in, without offering a radically better one, and one that has the potential to capture the imagination of the whole world with a cultural optimism similar, but greater in scope, than the Apollo Moon Landing project of the 1960s. And the timing has to be short-term.

The timing of the project

I believe the above proposal can meet all of the critical criteria that LaRouche has pioneered over the years. The resulting dynamism may even enable the Bering Strait Tunnel project to be implemented in the flow of the world-development renaissance, though it won't likely happen without it.

Rolf A. F. Witzsche - author and researcher