(CNN) — Descending up to 40 meters below the Baltic Sea, the world’s longest submerged tunnel will connect Denmark and Germany, cutting travel times between the two countries when it opens in 2029. After more than a decade of planning, the construction of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel began in 2020 and in the months following the completion of a temporary port on the Danish side. It will house the factory that will soon build the 89 massive concrete sections that will make up the tunnel. “The expectation is that the first production line will be ready around the end of the year or early next year,” said Henrik Vincentsen, CEO of Femern A/S, the state-owned Danish company in charge of the project. “By early 2024 we should be ready to sink the first element of the tunnel.” The tunnel, which will be 18 kilometers (11.1 miles) long, is one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects, with a construction budget of more than 7 billion euros ($7.1 billion). By comparison, the 50-kilometer (31-mile) Channel Tunnel connecting England and France, completed in 1993, cost the equivalent of 12 billion pounds ($13.6 million) in today’s money. Although longer than the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel, the Channel Tunnel was constructed using a boring machine, rather than by sinking prefabricated tunnel sections. It will be built along the Fehmarn Belt, a strait between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland, and is designed as an alternative to the current ferry service from Rødby and Puttgarden, which carries millions of passengers every year. Where the crossing now takes 45 minutes by ferry, it will take just seven minutes by train and 10 minutes by car. The roof of the first production hall where the tunnel sections will be built in Denmark was completed on June 8, 2022. Femern A/S
Faster travel
The tunnel, whose official name is the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link, will also be the longest combined road and rail tunnel anywhere in the world. It will include two dual-lane highways — separated by a service crossing — and two electrified rail lines. “Today, if you took a train trip from Copenhagen to Hamburg, it would take you about four and a half hours,” says Jens Ole Kaslund, technical director of Femern A/S, the state-owned Danish company responsible for the work. “When the tunnel is completed, the same journey will take two and a half hours. “Today many people fly between the two cities, but in the future it will be better to just take the train,” he adds. The same journey by car will be about an hour faster than today, taking into account the time saved by not queuing for the ferry. In addition to the benefits for passenger trains and cars, the tunnel will have a positive impact on trucks and trains, says Kaslund, because it creates a land route between Sweden and Central Europe that will be 160 kilometers shorter than today. At present, traffic between the Scandinavian peninsula and Germany via Denmark can either cross the fehmarnbelt or a longer route via bridges between the islands of Zealand, Funen and the Jutland peninsula.
The work begins
The project dates back to 2008, when Germany and Denmark signed a treaty to build the tunnel. It then took over a decade for both countries to pass the necessary legislation and conduct geotechnical and environmental impact studies. While the process went smoothly on the Danish side, in Germany a number of organizations — including ferry companies, environmental groups and local municipalities — appealed against the project’s approval over allegations of unfair competition or environmental and noise concerns. Dredging operations started off the German coast in autumn 2021. Femern A/S In November 2020 a federal court in Germany dismissed the complaints: “The decision came with a number of conditions, which we expected and were prepared for in the way we monitor the environment while building, for things like noise and sediment. I think we really need to make sure the impact on the environment is as small as possible,” says Vincentsen. Now that the temporary port in the Danish area is finished, several other phases of the project are underway, including the digging of the actual trench that will house the tunnel, as well as the construction of the factory that will build the tunnel sections. Each section will be 217 meters long (about half the length of the world’s largest container ship), 42 meters wide and 9 meters high. Weighing 73,000 metric tons each, they will be as heavy as more than 13,000 elephants. “We will have six production lines and the factory will consist of three halls, with the first one now 95% complete,” says Vincentsen. The sections will be placed just below the seabed, about 40 meters below the sea surface at the deepest point, and moved into position by barges and cranes. The placement of the sections will take approximately three years.
Greater impact
Up to 2,500 people will work directly on the construction project, which has been affected by the global supply chain problems. “Supply chain is a challenge right now because the price of steel and other raw materials has gone up. We’re getting the materials we need, but it’s difficult and our contractors have had to increase the number of suppliers to make sure they can This is one of the things we’re really watching at the moment because a steady supply of raw materials is crucial,” says Vincentsen. Michael Svane of the Confederation of Danish Industry, one of Denmark’s largest business organizations, believes the tunnel will be beneficial for businesses beyond Denmark itself. This full-scale test cast of a tunnel element was built in July 2022. Femern A/S “The Fehmarnbelt tunnel will create a strategic corridor between Scandinavia and Central Europe. Upgraded rail transport means more goods moving from road to rail, supporting a climate-friendly mode of transport. We see cross-border connections as a tool for creating growth and jobs not just locally, but nationally,” he tells CNN. While some environmental groups have raised concerns about the tunnel’s impact on porpoises in the Fehmarn area, Michael Løvendal Kruse of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation believes the project will have environmental benefits. “As part of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel, new natural areas and stone reefs will be created on the Danish and German sides. Nature needs space and as a result there will be more space for nature,” he says. “But the biggest benefit will be the benefit to the climate. Faster transit of the belt will make trains a strong challenger to air traffic, and freight on electric trains is by far the best solution for the environment.”
