Niagara Falls Hydroelectric Tunnel

[wyliepoon]

Hamilton Spectator

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Big Becky bores for more power
Mike Dibattista, the Canadian Press

Tunnel under city of Niagara Falls
By Angela Pacienza
The Canadian Press
NIAGARA FALLS, ONT. (Aug 9, 2006)

Ontario has a new friend in the quest to provide the provincial electricity grid with more power.

Her name is Becky. Big Becky.

She's a giant, 2,000-ton boring machine that will help create 1.6-billion kilowatt hours of electricity to meet the province's growing need for energy.

Using 85 disc-shaped cutters, Big Becky will spend the next two years eating her way through solid rock to create a 10-kilometre long tunnel underneath the city of Niagara Falls, right past the famous Horseshoe Falls.

Ontario Power Generation said the tunnel, being built at a cost of about $1 billion, will allow the province to more efficiently use its share of the Niagara River's water to create power.

The Niagara tunnel will enable the company to produce enough energy to serve an additional 160,000 homes.

Attending Big Becky's unveiling ceremony, Premier Dalton McGuinty said he was proud that the province will be able to create additional electrical power without contributing to global warming.

Billed as the largest hard-rock tunnel boring machine ever built, Big Becky will bore through about 15 metres of rock per day. The rock waste will be used by the brick industry.

Tourists need not be concerned that the new tunnel will affect the popular waterfalls.

Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said the average person won't perceive a difference.

The tunnel project is part of 11,000 megawatts worth of new power at various stages of development across the province, including wind and nuclear.

Duncan said the government is eager to get new energy supplies online because the current system wouldn't sustain consumer demand in the event of power plants breaking down.

"We still have a couple more summers which will probably test the limits," he said.

 

[wyliepoon]

The Star

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A gigantic bore, but not dull
The world's largest boring machine is about to chew a 10-kilometre
tunnel through solid rock at Niagara Falls, to tap more clean power for Ontario
Aug. 7, 2006. 07:33 AM
TYLER HAMILTON
ENERGY REPORTER

Tomorrow morning marks the official christening of Big Becky, a gigantic boring machine that will soon begin its two-year mission of drilling a 10.4 kilometre tunnel about 140 metres under the city of Niagara Falls.

The goal: tap more waterpower for generating electricity. It's not quite a voyage to the centre of the earth, but the sheer size of the project makes this an historic undertaking in the province.

"It's one of the largest hydroelectric projects in the world right now in terms of magnitude," said Emad Elsayed, vice-president of hydroelectric development at Ontario Power Generation (OPG).

The tunnel, which will run more than 100 metres below the city and be nearly three times the diameter of a subway tunnel in Toronto, will divert water flow from the Niagara River to the Sir Adam Beck generating stations, freeing up another 1.6 terawatt-hours of clean hydroelectricity a year for at least the next 100 years.

That's enough to power 160,000 homes annually, a welcome relief to a province in search of an energy fix.

Elsayed compares it to driving a car. "If you could go 100 kilometres on a tank full of gas, this project would make the tank a little bigger so you can go a longer distance," he explained. "It doesn't add more megawatts, but you can use what megawatts are produced more often." They're not adding more turbines, just more water flow for the existing turbines to use.

Construction on the $985 million project began last September and this giant wormhole is expected to be operational by the end of 2009.

Austrian engineering company Strabag AG was hired to design and create the tunnel, but Big Becky was built by Solon, Ohio-based Robbins Co. for about $30 million.

Owner OPG is touting Big Becky, named by high school students as part of a contest, as the world's largest boring machine. Some more impressive facts about this drill on steroids:

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The diameter of its face is about 65 per cent larger than the boring machine that created the Chunnel under the English Channel that links England and France.

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Big Becky is expected to bore through 10 to 12 metres of hard rock each day, but is capable of 15 metres per day.

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Enough clean shale rock will be removed from the tunnel to fill a major-league baseball stadium. A conveyor belt carries the fractured rock back to the surface where the material is trucked away. Most of it will be used over the next five to 10 years to make bricks, clay tiles and other construction materials.

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The boring machine has a large front cabin, lunchroom and a bathroom to support a crew of about 30. Crewmembers use minibuses to transport themselves to and from the machine.

"The tunnelling operation will be a seven-day, 24-hour operation with three shifts of workers," said Rick Everdell, project director for OPG.

"When they're underground they'll be underground for the full shift and will have all the facilities they need."

Drilling is likely to begin in early September. Once activated the front of the machine — which resembles a space capsule or an enormous showerhead — begins cutting into the hard rock with 85 half-metre studded blades.

It might sound like a noisy process, but OPG officials say vibrations from the drilling won't be felt on the surface.

When Big Becky resurfaces in mid-2008, it's likely that OPG will sell the machine back to Robbins Co. for other tunnelling projects around the world. Once a tunnel is built it tends to last for more than a century without requiring much maintenance, said Elsayed.

"We've sent submarines into the existing tunnels that are 50 years old, and they still look like new," he said.

 

[unimaginative2]

This is a fantastic project. I wish they would build the second phase soon with the new generating plant. This power will be even cheaper than the current average price.

Water tunnels like that are the easiest to maintain since the water inside does much of the job of supporting the tunnel.

 

[samplain]

I love it. Any kilowatt of renewable energy is good news. This is fantastic news.

 

[billy corgan19982]

Could we borrow Becky for some subway tunneling?

 

[Mark Dowling]

it would be overkill! it's 65pc bigger than the channel tunnel TBM.

my concern is what the extra outlet's effect would have on Erie's water level over time.

 

[unimaginative2]

The water's flowing over the falls without the tunnel. The amount of water going over the falls is also strictly regulated by treaty.

 

[MetroMan1000]

2 years to dig through 10KM @ a price of $1B .... Ontario could keep Big Becky and use it for major infrastructure needed in our big cities.

BB could in one pass dig a tunnel capable of replacing the Gardiner expressway with subway trains running down the middle. Gardiner and Downtown Relief Line all done in one job.

 

[Tuscani01]

And at the pace that boring machine is working at, we would have a tunnel to replace the Gardiner in less that 2 years. The raised area of the Gardiner is less than 10km... from Strachan Ave. to the DVP is only 5 km.


Hell, why dont we just let it bore its way to Toronto... give us a subway to Niagara Falls.

 

[adma]

Wouldn't you need certain geologically-perfect ground conditions to make that possible? After all, NF has plenty of close-to-surface hard rock to bore...

 

[lizthevw]

I wonder what sort of resale value they will get on Becky?

 

[MetroMan1000]

If Becky were to enter an excavated hole 100 ft deep @ Strachan it could bore all the way to the DVP virtually unobstructed without the need to relocate utilities or avoid building foundations and basements.

5km of tunnel could be completed in just over a year taking into account that the Niagara project is double the distance. Of course, planning, EA's and installation of infrastructure for such a tunnel could add a good 5 years to the project, but at least two of Toronto's problems would see a solution.

There is no doubt that within the decade, Toronto will need to think about how to release pressure on Yonge-Bloor Station as it is already doing for Union.

The Gardiner will need major work to keep it up also within a decade or less so we best be deciding whether to spend the money now to replace it or keep on investing to keep the thing from falling apart.

It sounds so straightforward but unfortunately, this isn't a political priority (yet) but it might be by the time Big Becky is freed up from its work on this Niagara project.

 

[MetroMan1000]

In a semi-related note, when researching the Chunnel, I found a very curious fact on Wikipedia:


The main rail tunnels met on May 22, 1991 and on June 28, 1991, each accompanied by a breakthrough ceremony. When each pair of TBMs met, the French TBM was dismantled while the British one was diverted into the rock, concreted in place, and abandoned.


That's so cool! The TBM's are still there, encased in a concrete grave for future explorers to one day discover. A modern day fossil.

 

[CanadianNational]

As much as I'd like to see the Gardiner and DVP buried, I don't think the machine is quite wide enough. We'd need two. 14.4 metres (diameter) equals 47.25 feet...which isn't much for expressways.

BB would be great for boring tunnels big enough to contain double-track subways in each direction, though...a regular line, and an express line each way. That would be great.

 

[afransen TO]

"A gigantic bore, but not dull"

Groan...


Anyway, if we were to have double tracked subway lines (it would make sense for any long cross-town routes), it would make more sense to stack the express above or below the local line, wouldn't it? I say this for platform reasons. You'd have to have wide stations to have enough platform room.

To use a TBM to replace the Gardiner, you'd need on tunnel in each direction, no?

Then again, the ramps are the problem with the Gardiner, and burying it won't solve this as you'll need large holes for the ramps anyway. Perhaps an underground bypass with traffic destined for downtown on a slowed-down boulevard-ised Lakeshore.