Birds-eye view of the bat tunnel, Google Earth
The £100 million HS2 bat tunnel has become the go-to example of gold-plated standards driving exorbitant costs for public infrastructure. But there’s an environmental consequence that’s so far gone unnoticed: the sheer amount of concrete it uses.
The kilometre-long structure needs 35,000 m³ of concrete in its foundations alone. Producing that concrete released around 9,000 tonnes of CO₂ (its embodied carbon), the same as around 5,100 return transatlantic flights!
The amount of concrete is on a scale that dwarfs famous landmarks. The foundation slab alone contains as much concrete as six of the Shard’s foundations, or 120 times the concrete in the foundations of the Angel of the North.
And this is only the foundations, so this doesn’t even account for all the arches in the tunnel, as this information is not yet publicly available.
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