Welcome to TDC. This is our mini-documentary on the most ambitious, fascinating infrastructure
Megaprojects of the near future.
The rulers of the United Arab Emirates have insane amounts of money to spend. Thanks to
everyone’s thirst for oil, they’ve been on a construction spree unlike any the world
has ever seen for such a small country, investing in one ambitious infrastructure project after
another. At one point, 24 percent of all the world’s construction cranes we in Dubai.
Unfortunately, that was before the 2008-2009 global financial meltdown, which led to much
of the investment in the city drying up faster than the water on somebody who just got out
of the pool at the Burj Khalifa. But the government insists that many of these projects have simply
been delayed, and are putting their money where their mouth is with the recent approval
of a $32 billion expansion of Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport that will break
ground by the end of 2014. When complete, it’ll suddenly have the capacity to become
the busiest airport in the world in both total passengers - at 220 million a year - and total
cargo of 12 million annual tonnes of goods that can move through it--that’s almost
3 times more than what takes off from the runways of the world’s current leader, Hong
Kong’s International Airport. It’s terminals will able to hold 100 of the massive new Airbus
A380’s that are over 2/3ds of a football field long and cost $300 million a pop. The
UAE’s Emirates airline already owns more of those planes than anyone else in the world.
It’s the largest airline in the Middle East and will eventually move into the Al Maktoum
airport to help jump start activity. The government’s plan is for the airfield to be the heartbeat
of a city within the larger city of Dubai called World Central, which the UAE thinks
will be home to 900,000 residents in the near future. The airport also hopes to be the central
hub for the emerging Middle East, North African, and South Asian economic bloc known as MENASA.
But time will tell whether the Shaikh’s vision for Dubai actually becomes a reality,
or fades like some vicious mirage.
This is Songdo International Business District, the world’s most futuristic urban area.
It’s being built 40 miles southwest of the second-most populated city in the world, Seoul,
South Korea. The $40 billion project is along the waterfront in the city of Incheon and
is embracing two key concepts that urban planners are in love with: The first is Aerotropolis,
which means the airport is integrated into the urban center instead of banishing it far
outside of the city. This allows for shorter trips to and from the place that’s going
to get you out of town--this’ll be an emerging pattern in 21st century planning as air travel
continues to become accessible to more and more people in our increasingly interconnected
world. Songdo is brilliantly directly connected to the airport via the 7-mile long Incheon
bridge so you’ve just got a straight shot that gets you there in like 10 minutes that’s
also got these incredible views and is the first thing visitors see coming into the city.
The other key theme is Ubiquitous City, which is a uniquely Korean concept where every device,
component, service is linked to an informational network through wireless computing technology,
allowing for greater coordination and a more efficient and synchronized city than has ever
been possible before. An example of this is Songdo’s trash system, which won’t rely
on garbage trucks, because a network of tubes will suck in the garbage straight from the
can and through a system of pipes, transport it efficiently to treatment facilities. Songdo’s
so dedicated to being a model for sustainability that it has set aside 40% of its land area
to be outdoor spaces like parks and it’ll become the first city in the world outside
of the United States to achieve LEED certification, which is the highest energy consumption and
waste standards possible with currently available technology. As a tip-of-the-hat to other great
cities, Songdo will also incorporate replicas of New York’s Central Park and Venice’s
historic canals. Overall, construction is currently half done. It already has 67,000
people living there studying and working at its many schools, including the foreign campuses
of four American universities, but it’s struggled to attract Korean businesses as
the government is refusing to give tax incentives for relocation, because that would create
an unfair playing field favoring Songdo over other cities in the country. Still, if it
stays squarely focused on the future, Songdo’s a long-term investment that’s likely to
pay off.
Nicaragua is about to embark on what may be the boldest and riskiest Megaproject in the
history of the world. One that will change it forever. It’s going to build the biggest
canal in the world . The $50 billion Nicaragua Grand Canal will cut the country in half to
connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific, running through the biggest lake in Central
America. At 173-miles-long, it’ll dwarf the 120 mile-long Suez Canal in Egypt and
directly compete with the Panama Canal 250 miles to the south, through which more than
15,000 ships already pass each year. But in the coming years, many more ships full of
goods and raw materials are going to try and pass back and forth from the Pacific to the
Atlantic to connect Europe, Brazil and the Eastern Coast of the United States, with China
and the rest of Asia.
The story of how little six-million-man Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Western
Hemisphere, is able to afford such an expensive project is a fascinating case study of globalization,
and how capitalism is increasingly driving geopolitical decision-making. In June of last
year, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s Sandanista party also controlled parliament
and - without any real debate - gave a 50-year, no-bid contract to Chinese telecommunications
magnate Wang Jing to build and manage the proposed canal. And, it just so happens that,
also last year, according to a report in the LA Times, Wang hosted a number of Nicaraguan
officials and businessmen on a trip to China, where the powerful and connected Wang supposedly
flaunted his extreme wealth and was accompanied at all times by Chinese military officers
and other high-ranking governmental officials. So, it’s tough to believe him when he insists
that the Chinese government is not financially backing the project, especially when we already
know that China is using state financed companies to buy more and more assets in the West. The
opportunity to own the world’s most valuable shipping lane seems too tempting for the Chinese
government to pass up.
The supposedly democratic government of Nicaragua is using a page out of China’s playbook,
by refusing to release any of the studies about the impacts of the canal until December
2014, the same month construction will begin. That’s because there is a loooong list of
environmental and humanitarian concerns. The project will tear through countless ecosystems
and communities, and rip into the source of much of the country’s fresh water, Lake
Nicaragua. The residents whose land is on the canal route have received no word on what
the government plans to do for them in terms of compensation and relocation.
But, as easy as it is to criticize the way the project is being handled, it’s also
fairly hypocritical of me, as an American, to mount a very convincing argument against
the plan. Afterall, about a hundred years ago, US President Theodore Roosevelt basically
took control of Panama and pushed through the canal there, a project that’s benefitted
America time and time again, and has made Panama economically better off in the long
run. But we’re not living in 1914...
Now is the time of social media-fueled revolution, where images and video fly around the world
instantly, empowering even the poorest locals to use the power of the global community to
rally support for their cause and exert political pressure in unpredictable ways. So, what I’m
saying is that it may have been easy for President Ortega see all that money flying around and
secretly, singlehandedly approve a massively disruptive project like this, but when those
bulldozers start tearing apart the countryside - and people’s homes - there’s probably
going to be hell to pay for not consulting the voters at all. This could be shaping up
to be another one of those important moments of struggle in world history between the powerful
have’s and the have nots.
On the one hand, you have the limitless funding of the Chinese who want that flag-in-the-dirt,
statement-making moment for their country of staking a claim in the Americas. We know
the canal would benefit corporations in the west through the shipping and trade benefits
I outlined earlier. And with construction set to begin in Nicaragua next month - there
doesn’t seem to be any stopping it from starting.
But on the other hand, this thing is going to take six years at a minimum to finish,
and if we’ve learned anything from recent history, it’s that a lot can happen in six
weeks or six months, let alone six years.
On a person-to-person basis, the United Arab Emirates has the biggest Ecological Footprint
in the world thanks to its prolific oil production and the massive construction boom that’s
been going on there for the last decade. So it’s surprising to learn that the UAE is
home to Masdar--the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city. To meet this ambitious goal,
it’s powered only by renewable energy, like a 54-acre 88,000 panel solar farm beyond the
cities’ walls. That’s right, I said walls. The designers studied ancient cities to learn
the most effective planning methods to reduce energy consumption. One of the key things
are walls that helps to keep the high, hot desert winds away from its inhabitants. They
also raised the entire foundation of the site a few feet above the surrounding land to keep
Masdar cooler and spaced the buildings much closer together to keep the streets and walkways
narrow, and mostly in the shade. These techniques - combined with 130-foot wind towers that
suck air from above and convert it into a cool breeze blowing on the street - mean Masdar
is a comfortable 70 degrees fahrenheit when just a few meters away, the thermostat rises
well above 100. Plus, there’s no driving in the city and any car that enters is parked
at the outskirts. A system of driverless electric vehicles then ferry people from place to place
underground, and a light rail system is also available above ground, which means there’s
no need for streets. And in a move that cuts both water and electricity consumption more
than half, there are no light switches or water taps--everything is controlled by movement
sensors. This unprecedented level of environmental consciousness has won it hard-earned endorsements
from environmental conservation groups like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund. The
German engineering giant Siemens has located its Middle East headquarters there, as has
the International Renewable Energy Agency. The Masdar Institute for Science and Technology
- a small postgraduate university that was founded through a collaboration with MIT - occupies
one of Masdar’s first completed buildings and is already producing great work and first-class
researchers. So the city undeniably has a solid foundation, but it’s got a lot to
do still if it’s going to meet its ambitious goal of housing 50,000 residents and hosting
offices for 60,000 more commuters. The city’s co-founder admits that Masdar is “a fraction
of what it was supposed to be back in 2006 when we announced it. At the beginning of
the project, nobody really anticipated how difficult it is to build a city." This underscores
the point many urban planners around the world have made: that we should be focused on making
our existing cities more sustainable instead of building brand new ones. But even if Masdar
only teaches us one or two major things about what’s possible when it comes to sustainable
urban design - and it does seem like it’s already done that - then it’ll have been
worth it, even if it takes much longer to achieve its overall vision, or if it ultimately
fails. Because let’s be honest, the UAE was going to spend that $20 billion in oil
revenue on something, so it’s better for everyone that its going to an important experiment
like Masdar rather than another row of gold and marble crusted hotel skyscrapers or an
electricity-sucking indoor snow park.
This is the future--maglev trains. Japan’s all aboard. They’re spending a staggering
$85 billion over the next 30 years to connect the island’s three largest cities: Tokyo
to Nagoya to Osaka. That’s over three hundred miles that you’ll be able to cover in about
67 minutes by racing through the countryside at over 300 miles per hour. Maglev technology
uses powerful magnetic charges to move rail cars that float several inches above a concrete
guideway, rather than riding on steel wheels. This frictionless system allows for a smoother
ride at significantly higher speeds than traditional high speed rail. In contrast, California’s
planned high speed rail system that’ll eventually connect San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San
Diego, will only be able to travel at top speeds of 220 mph, but its estimated overall
cost is ten billion dollars less than the Japanese system and will cover a distance
two and a half times as long. The Chinese city of Shanghai has had a short maglev line
in operation since 2004, but the Japanese line is the world’s first intercity link
to gain public approval. The project’s called Chuo Shinkansen - or as the Japanese refer
to it, Rinia Mota Ka - and is a culmination of 40 years of Japanese maglev development
that began with an unlikely partnership between Japan Airlines and Japanese National Railways.
What’s really impressive about this project is that JR Central - the company that’s
building the line - will finance the project without public money, thanks largely to the
success of the bullet train it’s run from Tokyo to Osaka since the mid 1960’s. The
company’s also pushing hard to construct a maglev line between the American capital
city of Washington DC and New York, which would showcase the technology to the American
market and the rest of the western world. The Japanese government has even offered to
fully finance the 40 mile first leg of the US project from Baltimore to DC, a proposal
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe directly pitched to President Barack Obama during a meeting
last year. But critics of Maglev say the costs outweigh the benefits. Opponents have raised
questions about the sheer monetary cost of the project, its environmental impact, and
whether it is really needed. Tunnels will be blasted through some of Japan’s highest
mountains to build the Chuo Shinkansen line. But regardless of what the critics say, something
had to change. When the Maglev system is done it will help alleviate the overcrowding on
Japan’s existing rail system and make it feasible for commuters into Tokyo to live
further outside of the city than they can now.
Many of the projects that we’ve profiled in our Megaprojects series have a real purpose
for advancing society, or at least meeting the needs of a growing world economy. Then
there’s Azerbaijan’s ridiculous Khazar Islands, a project that - despite all the
progress in the world - is the perfect example of everything that’s still wrong with its
power structure, but more on that in a moment. The creatively named Azerbaijan Tower will
be the world’s tallest building, about 800 feet taller than the current leader, the Burj
Khalifa, and, insanely, twice as tall as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere,
New York’s One World Trade Center. The Freudian showpiece of the $100 billion project, Azerbaijan
Tower will rise above the capital city, Baku, and will be surrounded by 55 artificial islands
built in the Caspian Sea with land gathered by completely destroying a nearby mountain.
There will also be at least eight hotels, a Formula One racetrack, a yacht club, and
an airport. So basically, we’re talking about Donald Trump’s fantasy. Now, it’s
one thing to build an over-the-top city like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which is
one of the most-developed places in the world, and a completely different thing for it to
rise in Azerbaijan, which has a per capita GDP that’s not even ⅕ as much as the UAE.
This madness is the brainchild of the billionaire developer Ibrahim Ibrahimov, who has extremely
cozy ties with the corrupt government of the newly oil rich nation of Azerbaijan. Just
how corrupt is Azerbaijan? In a 2012 report by watchdog group Transparency International
that declared 2/3rds of the world’s countries “highly corrupt,” Azerbaijan’s Prez
Ilham Aliyev stood out from the pack as the report’s infamous, “person of the year,”
with untold amounts of money stashed in various locations around the world. But back to President
Aliyev’s good buddy, Ibrahimov, who lazily came up with the tacky idea for the megaproject
that’s basically a copy of Dubai’s island development and mega-tower while on a flight
home from, you guessed it, Dubai. He argues that Khazer Islands will be home to 800,000
people, but doesn’t explain how those people will afford its expensive apartments. Instead
of investing in the future by maybe funding a network of world class universities - which
Azerbaijan isn’t even close to having - in a country that borders no ocean and produces
no product that the rest of the world wants, besides oil, the government thinks its a good
idea to build this. I doubt many of the nine million people of Azerbaijan think it’s
a very good idea. In fact, in a possible sign of things to come, last year, Azerbaijanis
in a city across the country, got so fed up with the corrupt regime, they rioted for two
entire days. But look, the capital is doing some things right, Baku made Lonely Planet’s
top ten ranking of the best nightlife spots in the world. I just wonder how much they
paid to get on the list.
No list of Megaprojects would be complete without including the largest-ever science
project. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (or, ITER) is a collaboration between
China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States that is
under construction in Southern France where researchers will attempt to see if they can,
essentially, recreate the power of the Sun and harness it in a steel bottle. Gas will
be heated to over 150 million degrees in a massive steel frame using giant magnets that
will force some atoms together. In this experimental reactor, the hope is to produce 10 times more
energy than what is used to initiate the reaction, or the equivalent of 500 megawatts of power
for 1,000 seconds. Although electricity won’t be generated at the ITER facility, a fusion
power plant would use the heat generated to drive turbines and produce power. Unlike nuclear
fission, which are what all nuclear power plants are today, fusion reactors should be
completely safe, with no risk of a producing a runaway chain reaction and no dangerous
long-living radioactive waste. The fact that nations who are competing in nearly every
area of geopolitics and economics are coming together to collaborate on a $50 billion project
is a sign that the science is incredibly promising and the potential benefits to humanity are
profoundly game-changing. That’s why countries that represent half of the world’s population
and account for 2/3ds of the global economy are participating: because solving fusion
would mean prosperity for all, the closest thing to limitless energy we can fathom. This
month, after the completion of the ground support structure which took four years to
finish, the second phase of construction began: the walls of the seven-story building where
the experiment will take place. But we’re still several years away from turning the
thing on. The complex will make its first attempt to produce plasma in a fusion reaction
in 2020, with regular operations beginning in 2027, 11 years behind schedule and over
40 years after the program was first initiated in 1985. But no matter how long, or how many
tries it takes to get it right, the prospect, the hope of living in a world powered by this
type of energy that we wouldn’t need to fight over, or pump out of the ground, that
we wouldn’t need to burn, that wouldn’t harm our precious planet, that’s probably
one of the most optimistic, hopeful ideas I’ve ever heard, and it’s definitely one
worth waiting for.
China is about halfway done building the largest expressway system in the world, and it’s
done so at a feverish pace over the last 25 years to keep up with the rise of the automobile
as the country - and the world - has shifted away from a rail-based transportation system.
The first expressway within the National Trunk Highway System, as it’s called, opened in
1988 and today, just 26 years later, the system is over 65,000 miles long. In the ten years
since 2004, the network has tripled in length. Each year, China’s now building new expressways
equivalent in length to the distance of going coast-to-coast and back in the United States.
The Chinese system exceeded the total length of the US interstate highway system back in
2011. This crazy expansion has happened because the Chinese have embraced the car at a staggering
pace. This next mind-blowing fact pretty much sums up this entire video: as the country’s
middle class boomed and tens of millions of people suddenly could afford to buy cars,
in the 20 years from 1985 to 2005, the number of passenger vehicles in China increased from
19,000 to 62 million cars on the road, that’s a mind-blowing increase of 323,000%. And that
62 million number is more than tripling to 200 million by 2020. That’s why we’ve
seen those stories that I thought were a joke the first time I read them, of traffic jams
around Beijing stretching over 60 miles and lasting for 11 days. So this project is sorely
needed simply for the country to function. When it’s finished, it will have cut total
travel times between cities throughout the country, by half, on average. Overall the
total cost of building the entire system is $240 billion dollars, that’s easily the
biggest infrastructure project in human history, with $12 billion a year being invested through
2020. It’s been able to afford to do this without adding a national fuel tax because
95% of the system are toll roads owned by private, for-profit companies. This is a problem,
as tolls are expensive at over 10 cents per mile...which is more than the cost of fuel
itself. But regardless of how the roads are paid for, or whether, you drive on them in
your gas or electric car, or ride in a self-driving car. The Chinese economy and quality of life
of its people will be significantly better thanks to this ambitious project. It seems
the whole country is embracing the Chinese saying, “Lutong Caiton,” wealth follows
the extension of motorways.
India faces one of the most challenging situations in the world. It has 1.2 billion people spread
over a vast country. More than 350 million of whom will move into cities in the coming
decade, which means some 500 new urban centers will need to be built from scratch. And even
though India’s sheer size means that its economy ranks third in the world in purchasing
power, overall, it’s relatively poor and underdeveloped. It’s also young. The average
Indian is just 27 years old, compared to the average American, who’s a decade older.
This means that most of the population is about to hit their prime working years—these
are all people who need jobs to be created now. That’s why the government is embarking
on the largest infrastructure project in Indian history: the $90 billion Delhi Mumbai Industrial
Corridor, whose backbone will be a 920 mile long dedicated freight corridor, basically
a set of multiple rail lines that will exist solely to move goods from the factories where
they are produced to the sea and airports where they can be exported to market. It’s
designed to cut the logistical costs of manufacturing goods to make India the cheapest place in
the world for a company to build its stuff and - in turn - triple the amount of merchandise
it exports from 2010 levels by 2017. Japan is the major partner behind the project because
the Japanese economy is based on a technology industry that needs to build its products
at the most competitive rates in the world. The overall effort will include a 4,000 MW
power plant, and at least three brand new seaports and six airports. And all along the
route, 24 new cities will spring up with each aiming to be superior to any existing Indian
city in terms of the quality of infrastructure, planning, management, and services offered.
With natural resources scarce - and climate change a concern of any good urban planner
- the use of technology has been stressed to make sure this boom will be as clean and
sustainable as possible. Roads are also a major part of the plan with thousands of miles
of expressways planned to ease congestion. The project is a priority of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, who entered office in 2014 after leading his BJP party to a dominating
win in the 2014 election, giving him a mandate to enact his vision for making India a global
manufacturing superpower. It seems the Indians are attempting to follow a similar blueprint
for success the Chinese put into action over the last 40 years. With a population nearly
as big, Indians are rightly asking, why not us?
If you were playing Sim City, you’d want to go about building your metropolis the same
way the Saudi’s have with King Abdullah Economic City. And just like other great leaders
of men, you’d probably name it after yourself too, which is exactly what King Abdullah did.
You’d also focus on job-creating infrastructure and a dream university to attract the best
and brightest. Saudi Arabia is the world’s dominant oil producer, and is a country that
knows how to play the game. While its flashier neighbors like Abu Dhabi and Dubai get all
the publicity for their megaprojects, the Kingdom is embarking on a far more ambitious
project that’s focused squarely on creating the most cohesive, well-planned city in the
Arab world. The $100 billion enterprise on the coast of the Red Sea is about an hour’s
drive north of Jeddah, the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia, and plans to expand
into an area about the size of Washington DC. That location is no coincidence, says
Fahd Al Rasheed, the man who’s in charge of growing King Abdullah Economic City - which
we’re going to shorten to just its initials, KAEC - “you’re talking about 24 percent
of global trade going through the Red Sea, and this is a trend that’s never been addressed
by a Red Sea port.” That’s why KAEC’s port is going to be massive, with an annual
capacity of over ten million shipping containers, which would make it one of the busiest ports
in the world. So cargo is KAEC’s first major transportation hub. The second is Haramain
station, one of four stops on Saudi Arabia’s planned high speed rail network that will
connect the new megacity to Jeddah, Makkah, and Madinah. This will bring thousands of
visitors to KAEC right from it’s inception, with officials hoping that some will naturally
take jobs and stay there, fueling its expansion. At first, the whole plan struggled to gain
much traction with investors, “but,” says Al Rasheed, “then we reoriented ourselves
towards building that demand, creating that support and it’s completely shifted. Now
we have captive demand — all our apartments are full and we have waiting lists for hundreds
of people, literally.” Part of that shift focused on KAEC’s Industrial
Valley which is centered on a large petrochemical plant and has more than 70 companies lining
up to set up bases there. And then there’s the cornerstone of any
thriving city: a great university. Enter, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- which began instruction in 2009 with a staggering $20 billion endowment, making it the third
best-funded university in the world behind Harvard and Yale. This capital injection has
allowed it to lift off like a rocket in its first five years. It’s recruited some of
the best talent from over 60 countries around the world--scientists who’ve carried the
school to an eye-opening 99.9% research record score. The research teams at King Tech are
advancing many important fields like solar cell technology and cancer therapy. It teaches
in English and is the first mixed-gender university in the Kingdom. Plus, with just 1200 postgraduates
on an 8,900 acre campus, there’s plenty of room to expand in every direction.
With forty percent of Saudi Arabia’s citizens under 15 years old, the plan is for the megacity
- by itself - to create upwards of a million jobs for all of those young people to grow
into. In the end, it may be true that Saudi Arabia
would be a bone-dry desert wasteland without it’s exploitation of the vast fields of
black gold underneath it, but at least - in the twilight of his life - King Abdullah is
doing all he can to set his people - and the rest of the world - on a slightly better path
than the one they were on when he took over just nine years ago in 2005. And if that’s
his legacy, he deserves to have a city named after him.
Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video, and if you did, you’ll love our video
profiling 10 promising renewable energy sources of the future or our mini-doc on robotic armies
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