Stockholm Drills Enormous Tunnel for Carbon

The boring machine operating in the Anneberg-Skanstull Cable Tunnel in Stockholm on May 24.

Photographer: Erika Gerdemark/Bloomberg

Deep below the Swedish capital, an ambitious tunneling project is bringing the city closer to going fully green.

In a narrow, humid tunnel about 200 feet below the streets of Stockholm, a drill longer than the city’s tallest skyscraper nibbles away at granite and gneiss. After more than three years, the 1,000-ton machine, named Elektra, is at the halfway point of its journey.

Moving at a steady pace of 70 meters (230 feet) a week, the hulking machine is inching across the Swedish capital, burrowing a subterranean channel that will enable the city to overhaul its aging electricity infrastructure and finally, fully go green.