Hacker News Reader

Comment by jakozaur | Hacker News Reader

This is way worse due to London airports' lack of spare capacity. They should have built Thames Estuary Airport a long time ago.

View on HN

What I don't get is that the government now says it wants a 3rd runway (this has been debated for 30 years). Why add a 3rd runway, costing billions and taking decades, to an airport that can't use it 24-7 due to noise restrictions, and doesn't even have resilient power from the grid. Heathrow should have been bulldozed years ago and replaced with housing, and the estuary airport built. Or the Maplin Sands project 50 years before that.

Adding a runway to an existing airport is relatively low risk and comparatively cheaper than building a new major airport altogether. Anyone considering the latter will surely look at the Berlin Brandenburg Airport [0], which ran roughly €4 billion over budget and opened nine years behind schedule. Given the dire financial situation of the United Kingdom right now, I would wager this is an incredibly hard sell.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport

Cheaper and lower risk still just to abolish the noise restrictions on the existing airport, allowing it to run 24-7.

The Thames Estuary Airport would be a good idea

But what can the UK do about the likelihood of Floods?

The bird migration that constantly fly where the Estuary would be

Or an accident happening at the Grain LNG Natural Gas Storage plant, one of the largest in the world that’s right next to where the airport would be?

I feel like if you build that extra capacity it will immediately get used and you will still have no extra capacity in these situations. An airport holding extra capacity feels like it's just burning money given the demand.

Oh no no, this airport would be the last! Promise. We just need one more.

So much this. They're still wanking over building a third runway at Heathrow which is about the worst possible solution.

I think one of the blockers to this is a very high risk of bird strikes.

Yes, unfortunately NIMBYs have been blocking any iota of progress in this area for around 40 years

That and the sunken ship full of explosives, yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery#/media/F...

I can think of a very quick way to make those explosives safe!

It's enough explosive to cause a 2m high tsunami in the estuary, iirc. Not an option.

That is absolutely an option which other sane nations would consider.

Issue a Tsunami warning and get everyone off the beach for an hour Sunday at 3am.

It would damage buildings and shatter every window in town. Look up videos of the Beirut explosion to gain a sense of the amount of energy involved. Even with water as a shield the force and shockwave will still inflict harm.

(1) the UK doesn't have Tsunami warnings, because it doesn't have Tsunamis. This also means they don't know how to deal with them institutionally.

(2) Right by a river leading directly into the capital. I don't know how far away a 2m tsunami would actually go, is it close enough to the river entrance to focus it? https://www.floodmap.net to play with what "2m" would mean to the local area.

According to a BBC News report in 1970,[12] it was determined that if the wreck of Richard Montgomery exploded, it would throw a 300 metres (980 feet)-wide column of water and debris nearly 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) into the air and generate a wave 5 metres (16 feet) high. Almost every window in Sheerness (population circa 20,000) would be broken and buildings would be damaged by the blast

Yeah the NIMBYs around Heathrow should just accept a third runway and 24 hour operation of the airport.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com