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EU wants submarine cable laid across Arctic to Asia

The recent sabotage attacks on the Nord-Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the northern German train network have shown how vulnerable critical infrastructure is in our climes. A new EU project now makes it clear that there is no longer any desire to take risks in this regard. The European Union is planning to lay a submarine cable to Asia on its own. Although this is likely to be expensive, it will also ensure greater security.

EU wants new route across the Arctic

A major feature of the new submarine cable that the EU wants to lay as a link to Asia is the route. Thus, it is apparently not relying on the common laying via the Suez Canal. Instead, the cable is to pass through the Arctic. That the European Commission is currently looking into funding such a project is clear from a report by Euractiv. What lies behind the rather atypical plans can be quickly understood. For example, events such as explosions at the Nord Stream-1 pipeline showed that the EU would probably prefer to act independently in the future when it comes to laying such large-scale projects. The project that the EU wants to finance, however, is said to have quite different advantages.

For example, the length of cable required to lay the pipeline across the Arctic is much shorter than if the conventional route via the Suez Canal were chosen. This should not only reduce the overall costs. A shorter cable always means lower latency as well. Furthermore, the EU could again provide more independence. This is in line with the striving for more self-sufficiency, as also shown by projects such as the EU Chips Act. Corresponding plans to provide for independent semiconductor manufacturing in the EU revealed the EU in February this year.

Climate change makes it possible

In total, the cable is to be 14,000 km long. The route across the Arctic is to start in Scandinavia and pass through regions such as Ireland, Greenland, Canada and Alaska, eventually arriving in Japan. The project is not new. The idea for the project, called North Fiber, has been around for some time. However, so far no suitable investors have been found who were willing to raise the total project costs of 1.25 billion US dollars. Until now. Now the EU seems to want to take care of the financing of the project, which is to be completed in 2025.

Until a few years ago, by the way, the route for laying the submarine cable would have been unthinkable. After all, the geological conditions were simply not suitable for it. In the course of climate change, however, large ice masses melted in the Arctic. As a result, the Northwest Passage can now be used to lay the submarine cable. However, there are still a few questions surrounding the financing of the billion-euro project. After all, the EU is hoping for support from the USA. However, it is not yet certain whether the United States will help finance the laying of the cable.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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The recent sabotage attacks on the Nord-Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the northern German train network have shown how vulnerable critical infrastructure is in our climes. A new EU project now makes it clear that there is no longer any desire to take risks in this regard. The European Union is planning to lay … (Weiterlesen...)

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