The World's Future MEGAPROJECTS (2015-2030's)

A documentary on the ten most ambitious mega-projects currently under development around the world, featuring: Dubai World Central Airport (United Arab Emirates); Songdo International Business District (South Korea); Tokyo-Osaka Maglev Train (Japan); Masdar City (United Arab Emirates); The Grand Canal (Nicaragua); National Trunk Highway System (China); International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor [ITER] - Fusion (France); World's Tallest Building (Azerbaijan); Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (India); King Abdullah Economic City (Saudi Arabia).

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Background music by:
Chris Zabriskie (free music archive)
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/
Kevin MacLeod
Incompetech.com
Purple Planet
http://www.purple-planet.com/dark-backgrounds/4584537439

All images and videos are used under the 'Fair Use' provision of United States Copyright Law:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

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Closed Caption:

welcome to TDC this is our mini
documentary on the most ambitious
fascinating infrastructure mega-projects
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 twenty four percent
of all the world's construction cranes
were in Dubai
unfortunately that was before the 2008
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
dollar expansion of dubai's al maktoum
international airport that will break
ground by the end of 2014
when complete it will 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 tons of goods that can
move through it
that's almost three times more than what
takes off from the runways of the
world's current leading airport
hong kong international devised
terminals will be able to greet 100 of
the massive new airbus a380 is at a time
those things are two thirds of a
football field long and cost 300 million
dollars a pop in the UAE zemer it's
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 to help jump-start activity
there
the government's plan is for the
airfield to be the heartbeat of a city
within the larger city of Dubai this
little our city is called World Central
which the UAE thinks will be home to
around nine hundred thousand residents
in the near future
the airport also aims to be the central
hub the emerging middle east north
african and south asian economic bloc
known as manasa but time will tell
whether the shakes 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 dollar
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 arrow tropics which
means the airport is integrated into the
urban center instead of banishing it far
outside the city
this allows for shorter trips to and
from the place that's going to get you
out of town
this will be an emerging pattern in 21st
century planning his air travel
continues to become accessible to more
and more people in our increasingly
interconnected world song go is
brilliantly directly connected to the
airport via the seven-mile long inches
on bridge
so you've just got a straight shot that
gets you there in like ten minutes
it's also got these incredible views
which is the first thing visitors see
coming into the city
the other key theme is ubiquitous city
which is uniquely Korean concept where
every device component service is linked
to an Information Network through
wireless computing technology allowing
for greater coordination and more
efficient and synchronized city that has
ever been possible before an example of
this is song those trash system which
won't rely on garbage trucks because the
network of tubes will suck in the
garbage
straight from the can and through a
system of pipes transported efficiently
to treatment facilities song goes
so dedicated to being a model for
sustainability that set aside forty
percent 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
the 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 have done it already has
67,000 people living there studying and
working at its many schools including
the foreign campuses of for 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 song goes a long term
investment that's likely to pay off
Nicaragua is about to embark on what may
be the riskiest mega project in the
world one that will change forever
it's going to build the biggest canal on
the planet the 50 billion dollar
nicaraguan 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
little 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 thousand
ships already passed 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
in 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 geo political decision-making in
june of last year
nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega send
an Easter party also controlled
parliament and without any real debate
gave a 50-year no-bid contract to
Chinese telecommunications magnet Juan
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 government
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 the
china is using state finance 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 impact of the canal
until december two thousand fourteen the
same month construction will begin
that's because there's a long 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
freshwater 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 after all
about a hundred years ago
US President Theodore Roosevelt
basically to control of Panama and
pushed through the canal there a project
that's benefited America time and time
again and is 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 to see
all that money flying around and
secretly single-handedly approve a
massively disrupt full 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 haves and 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 fifty four acre
88,000 panel solar farm beyond the
city's 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 they found our
that walls help to keep the high hot
desert winds away from city's
inhabitants
they also raised the entire foundation
of the site a few feet above the
surrounding land to keep Masdar cooler
and space the building's much closer
together to keep the streets and
walkways narrow and mostly in the shade
these techniques combined with 130 foot
tall 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 very 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
wanted hard-earned endorsements from
environmental conservation groups like
Greenpeace in the world wildlife
and 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 post
graduate university that was founded
through a collaboration with MIT
occupies one of mass stars first
complete 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 first
sixty thousand more commuters the city's
co-founder admits that Masdar is quote a
fraction of what it was supposed to be
back in two thousand six when we
announced it at the beginning of the
project
nobody really anticipated how difficult
it is to build a city
end quote 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 fit
ultimately fails because let's be honest
UAE was going to spend that 20 billion
oil revenue on something so it's better
for everyone that it's going to an
important experiment like Masdar rather
than another row of golden 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 dollars over the
next 30 years
to connect the islands three largest
cities tokyo to Nagoya Osaka
that's over 300 miles that you'll be
able to cover and about 67 minutes by
racing through the countryside over 300
miles per hour
medal of 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 will
eventually connect San Francisco LA and
san diego will only be able to travel at
top speeds of 220 miles per hour but
it's 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 called shoushan canson or as
the Japanese refer to it
rainy emoticon and is the culmination of
40 years of japanese negative
development that began with an unlikely
partnership between Japan Airlines and
japanese national railways
what's really impressive about this
project is that they are central the
company that's building the line will
finance the project without public money
thanks largely to the success of the
bullet train its run from Tokyo to Osaka
since the mid-nineteen sixties
the company is 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 financed the 40-mile first leg
of the u.s. project from Baltimore to DC
a proposal Prime Minister Shinzo are
they directly pitch to president barack
obama during a meeting last year but
critics of Meg love say the costs
outweigh the benefits
opponents have raised questions about
the sheer monetary cost of the project
its environmental impact and whether
it's really needed at all
tunnels will be blasted through some of
Japan's highest mountains to build the
church in canton 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
look further outside of the city then
they can now
many of the projects that we've profiled
in our mega project series have a real
purpose for advancing society or at
least meeting the needs of a growing
world economy
then there's other by John's ridiculous
cause our 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
dollar project
azerbaijan tower will rise above the
capital city
Baku and it 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
of formula one race track 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 in
two completely different things for to
rise in Azerbaijan which has a per
capita gdp that's not even 150 as much
as the UAE this madness is the
brainchild of the billionaire developer
ibrahim ibrahim of who has extremely
close ties with the corrupt government
of the newly oil-rich nation of
azerbaijan just how corrupt his
azerbaijan in 2012 report
I watchdog Transparency International
declared two thirds of the world's
countries highly corrupt Azerbaijan's
president mohamed ali have stood out
from the pack as the reports infamous
person of the year with untold amounts
of money stashed in various locations
around the world but back to President
Ali has good buddy
Ibrahim of lazily came up with tacky
idea for the mega-project that's
basically a copy of dubai's island
development and mega tower on a flight
home from you guessed it - bye
he argues that cause our islands will be
home to 800,000 people that doesn't
explain how those people will forward
its expensive apartments
instead of investing in the future by
maybe funding a network of world-class
universities which other by John 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 it's 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 righted for two
entire days but look
the capital is doing something right
back who made lonely planet's top 10
ranking of the best nightlife spots in
the world
I just wonder how much they paid to get
on that list
no list of mega projects would be
complete without including the
largest-ever science project
the International thermonuclear
experimental reactor or inter 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 is 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 ten times more
energy than what it used to initiate the
reaction or the equivalent of 500
megawatts of power for one thousand
seconds
although electricity will be generated
at the inter-facility a fusion plant
based on this design 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 producing a runaway
chain reaction and no dangerous
long-living radioactive waste
the fact that nations who are competing
in nearly every area of geo politics and
economics are coming together to
collaborate on a 50 billion dollar
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 the world's population
and account for two-thirds 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 are 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 20 27 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 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
it's definitely one worth waiting for
china is about halfway done building
largest expressway system in the world
and it's been doing so at a feverish
pace of the last 25 years to keep up
with the rise of the automobile is 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 is 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
u.s. 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
nineteen eighty-five 2005 the number of
passenger vehicles in china increased
from 19,000 262 million cars on the road
that's a mind-blowing increase of
323 thousand percent and that 62 million
number is more than tripling - 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 of function when it's
finished it'll have cut total travel
times between cities throughout the
country by half
on average over all the total cost of
building the entire system is 240
billion dollars that's easily the
biggest infrastructure projects in human
history with 12 billion a year being
invested through 2020
it's being able to afford to do this
without adding a national fuel tax
because ninety five percent of the
system are toll roads owned by private
for-profit companies
this is a problem as tools are expensive
and over ten cents per mile which is
more than the cost of fuel itself but
regardless of how the roads are paid for
or whether you driving them in your gas
or electric car or ride in the
self-driving car in the future
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 Kate on 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 sheer size
means that its economy ranks third in
the world and purchasing power
overall it's relatively poor and
underdeveloped
it's all so 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
dollar delhi-mumbai industrial corridor
who's 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 cost
of manufacturing goods to make India the
cheapest place in the world for a
company to build stuff and in turn
triple the amount of merchandise 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 up four
thousand megawatt 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 the 2014
election giving him a mandate to enact
his vision from 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're playing simcity you want to go
about building your metropolis the same
way the Saudis have with King Abdullah
economic city and just like other great
leaders of men
you'd probably named it after yourself
to which is exactly what King Abdullah
did you 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 flash your
neighbors like Abu Dhabi and Dubai get
all the publicity for their mega
projects
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 dollar enterprise in the
coast of the Red Sea is about an hour's
drive north of Judah 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 file Rashid the man
who's in charge of growing King Abdullah
economic city which we're going to just
shortened to its initials kec4 the
purpose of this video
quote you're talking about twenty four
percent of global trade going through
the Red Sea and this is a trend that's
never been addressed by a red sea port
end quote that's y ke sees port is going
to be massive with an annual capacity of
over 10 million shipping containers
which would make it one of the busiest
ports in the world
so cargo is ke sees first major
transportation hub
the second is para main station one of
four stops on Saudi Arabia's planned
high-speed rail network that will
connect the new mega city too Jetta
Mecca and Medina
this will bring thousands of visitors to
kec right from its 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 I'll rush eat then we reoriented
ourselves toward 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
end quote
part of that shift focused on ke sees
industrial valley which is centered on a
large petrochemical plant and has more
than 70 countries 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 2009 with a staggering 20
billion dollar endowment making it the
third best funded university in the
world behind Harvard and Yale this
capital injection has allowed 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 have carried the school
to an eye-opening
ninety-nine point nine percent 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 the first
mixed-gender university in the kingdom
plus with just 1,200 postgraduates on an
8900 acre campus
there's plenty of room to expand in
every direction with forty percent of
Saudi Arabia 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 its 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
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all of our daily videos for TDC I'm
Bryce plank
yeah
yeah