From the construction of the most expensive
oil field to an insane airport expansion, and from a massive nuclear power plant
to the most advanced high-speed rail, here are some of the biggest
megaprojects on the planet.
We start with the
Number 5: Tel Aviv’s Light Rail - which costs $20 billion
This is Israel's biggest public transportation project and it comes at a
staggering cost of 20 billion dollars.
It consists of 3 main rail lines: The Red, Green
and Purple, which have a combined length of 90 kilometers. Together, they will accommodate
228 million passengers every year and the first of the 3 is just days away from
transporting its first passengers.
But why is it being built? The Tel Aviv
metropolitan area has actually needed such a megaproject for decades. Now, to understand this,
you only have to look at how you can currently get from point to point in Tel Aviv. Either you take
one of the slow buses, call an Uber or - well - you walk. The city's growing population means
that traffic is becoming more and more congested. For this reason, Israel has been considering a
rail-based mass transit system since the 1960s. However, the unstable political situation and
financing problems kept getting in the way.
Fast forward 60 years and Israel is finally
working on this mass transit system. While most cities built these systems entirely
underground, Tel Aviv's decided to go with a hybrid system that consists of both
underground and above-ground sections.
The first part of it is the 24 kilometer long
Red line which operates between Petah Tikva and Bat Yam. Half of the track runs through tunnels
connecting 10 underground stations. This Red line is the first step in a plan to completely change
the way Tel Aviv travels. Over the next 5 years, the Purple and Green lines will also
become part of the system.
Moving on from underground rail tracks, we'll talk
about a megaproject that will reshape air travel in one of the busiest cities in the world.
Number 4: The Dubai Airport Expansion with construction costs of $33 billion:
Dubai has developed into a global metropolis and the business center of the Middle East. As
a result, more and more people from all over the world are traveling to the city. To manage this
large number of travelers, Dubai now has two huge airports, the International Airport and the
Al Maktoum International Airport. The latter is still relatively new and so far only handled about
1.5 million passengers per year. But now it is getting a massive $33 billion makeover that will
make it by far the world's largest airport - in both physical size and passenger volume.
To give you an idea of the insane scale of this expansion, here is a quick visualization.
The airport's busiest year to date was 2019, when it handled about 1.6 million passengers.
But once all three planned expansion phases are completed, its capacity will be 150 times
higher. This would make it much bigger than the other Dubai International and - actually
any other airport around the world.
Construction is divided into three phases
and will include four additional runways, two new terminals, four lobbies and a cargo
facility large enough to move 16 million tons of freight every year. A 40-km road and metro
network will also be built to make the airport more accessible. By the end of Phase 1, the annual
passenger capacity is projected to increase to 130 million. Some reports cite 2030 as the completion
year for this phase. But since the progress to date is only paperwork, a mid-2030s timeline
seems more plausible. Phase 3 is expected to be completed by about 2050 and increase the
capacity up to 255 million passengers. That's more than twice the size of Atlanta Airport,
which is currently the largest in the world.
But why is building Dubai such a large
airport? I mean, if everything goes to plan, both city’s airports together would be able
to handle over 350 million annual passengers, more than the US total population.
The simple answer to this is the rapid evolution of Dubai into a megacity. The
sheer number of travelers will eventually exceed the capacity of Dubai International.
So another airport is Dubai's preemptive plan to deal with a major future challenge.
But there's another factor at play here. Dubai's neighbor Saudi Arabia is also in the midst of a
rapid transformation. As a part of that shift, Saudi Arabia has launched the master plan for King
Salman International Airport in Riyadh. As things stand, this new airport will become the biggest
in the Middle East overtaking Dubai’s current main airport. So, the Al Maktoum expansion will help
Dubai to keep that title and protect its status as the business center of the middle east.
Next up, we have another massive expansion project the likes of which haven't been seen
in America for the last 30 years.
Number 3: Plant Vogtle Reactor
3 & 4, costing $35 billion:
This is the colossal construction site of a
nuclear megaproject 14 years in the making. The project calls for the creation of
two additional nuclear reactors at the Plant Vogtle facility in Georgia.
Unit 3 finally began operation in July this year. And once the fourth reactor is
completed, these two will generate a total of 2200 additional megawatts of electricity, enough
to supply about 500 thousand households.
But the story of how we got
here starts way earlier.
Plant Vogtle already had two existing reactors
that began operating in 1987 and 1989. For years, they remained the only two reactors at the
facility with a capacity of 2,450 Megawatts. But over the years, it has become clear that
coal and gas power plants will not be around forever. Beyond that, there are major challenges
related to the reliability and storage problems of wind and solar energy. If done right,
nuclear power plants can provide clean and reliable energy to millions of people.
So in 2009, the state of Georgia decided to upgrade this plant, hoping to shift close to
3 million consumers to a source of energy with much lower CO2 emissions.
When approved, the project was estimated to be operational by 2017
and cost 14 billion dollars.
However, construction was delayed even before the
scheduled beginning in 2012. The nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima reactor a year earlier led to
increased safety protocols and licensing delays. Construction finally began a year later, and
regulators decided to use innovative designs to speed up the process. That plan however
backfired and led to even more licensing delays than expected. By 2015, the expansion
was officially three years behind schedule and the budget was adjusted to $22 billion.
A few years later, the project was massively affected by the pandemic. Workers'
schedules were shortened, which meant that the whole plan was pushed even more.
Finally, in mid-2022, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission finally approved plans to load reactor
3 with fuel. But, of course, something went wrong again. Major flaws were found, which meant that
the reactor's wiring had to be redone.
So today, after 7 years of
delays and a 250% cost increase, Georgia Power finally began operation
of Unit 3 reactor last month. Meanwhile, reactor 4 will be fully functional by early
2024. Despite the history of problems, state officials and stakeholders have called the
expansion a major victory as it will deliver clean electricity for the next 60-80 years.
In contrast, our next megaproject is a massive oil field development which
might be the last of its kind.
Number 2: The Kashagan Oil Field
- at a cost of $50 billion
Oil is still one of the most sought-after
commodities in the world. Which is why states and private companies spend billions of dollars every
year to find new oil fields. And in the year 2000, an exploration programme in the Caspian sea led to
the discovery of one of the biggest oil reserves in the world. Located 80 kilometers off the
shore of Kazakhstan, the Kashagan oil field holds 13 barrels of recoverable oil, enough
to power the entire world for 5 months.
Initially the project was estimated to cost
10 billion dollars. However the Kashagan development proved to be very challenging. The
oil lies 4.5 kilometers below the surface of the Caspian Sea. Temperatures often fall below
-20°C here forming a several-meter-thick coating of ice for months.
Under these extreme weather conditions and because of the presence of ice, conventional offshore
drilling technologies are no longer usable. To deal with the ice, five artificial islands were
built to prevent direct contact with the ice and provide a stable base for the drilling equipment.
More than 5,000 workers remained on the artificial islands, where they worked in freezing
temperatures to assemble the pipelines. These pipelines will transport the crude oil
from the wells to processing plants on land.
After a decade of construction, and costs already
over 4 times the original budget, the Kashagan Oil Field was finally ready to produce oil in
September 2013. However, just weeks later it was plagued with a major problem. The main pipeline
couldn't handle the massive pressure and sprang a leak. This caused the entire project to be halted
again and the costs to spiral even further.
Experts wondered how a 50 billion dollar
investment, 2 government-backed companies, and 4 of the biggest oil industry giants
were failing to produce a single drop of oil. But this was not an isolated occurrence.
Due to the massive scale of oil projects, delays and cost overruns are fairly common. An
estimate from Chevron found that between 2007 and 2010 only 8 percent of oil megaprojects were
on time and close to the estimated budget.
After the debacle with the main pipeline,
construction at Kashagan continued and commercial output finally started three years later.
Today, the field produces 400 thousand barrels of oil per day. Overall, Kashagan Oil field proved
to be a complex project at a massive cost. As the world tries to decrease its dependence from
fossil fuels, an oil megaproject of this scale may never be repeated.
And now we continue with most expensive megaproject
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Number 1: The Chuo Shinkansen with a cost
of approximately $80-100 billion
For our last megaproject we head to Japan:
a country famous for its architecture, traditions, crafts, and efficiency.
Nearly 32 million tourists visit the so-called "Land of the Rising Sun" every year.
But if you ask many of these travelers, you will find that they are especially
fascinated by one Japanese creation: the Shinkansen, or as the literal
translation of the word goes: bullet train. This piece of infrastructure speaks volumes about
Japanese efficiency. These trains are insanely fast, with speeds of up to 320 kilometers
per hour. During 6 decades of operation, delays have remained a rarity and
there's never been a single injury on the Shinkansen due to an accident.
And now, Japan is working on an extension that will break technological and
speed barriers like never before. The new line will connect Tokyo and Osaka in
just 67 minutes, with trains traveling at top speeds of over 500 kilometers per hour.
To achieve these insane speeds, Japan is making use of maglev trains that hover slightly
above the tracks with the help of magnets.
Construction of the Chuo Shinkansen began in
2014 and will be developed in two phases. Phase one will connect Tokyo with Nagoya by 2027. This
344-kilometer stretch is a massive undertaking, as most of the route will pass through tunnels.
Phase 2 will connect Osaka to the new line, and is scheduled for completion
in 2037. Whether Japan can meet this ambitious schedule remains to be seen.
Do you know other megaprojects that
we should cover in a future video? Let us know in the comments below! Thank you
for watching and we’ll see you next time!
