This is How Humans Have Changed the World | Generation Earth | BBC Earth Science

and this is it a giant raised Canal or Aqueduct currently the largest engineering project on [Music] Earth the Chinese are constructing the aquaduct on site piece by piece as they go in separate 50 m long sections each one starts off as a giant framework of steel rods a team of 20 men build this bird nest like skeleton the whole structure is encased in [Music] concrete then it's ready to be moved into position with one of the world's most powerful [Music] cranes each section weighs 12200 tons more than three jumbo [Music] Jets the 25-year-old crane driver Guang Aang isn't daunted by it all [Music] building a man-made River across the landscape takes more than just Brute fors positioning the blocks is critical the water has to flow north to Beijing of its own accord there are no pumps so Guang Aang has to set the gigantic block at the perfect gradient just a CM lower at one end than the other the aqueduct is so long it won't be fully operational until 2030 when it's carrying water millions in northern China will [Music] benefit the need to move water to where people live has led to Giant engineering projects across the world but it's our need to feed ourselves that's really transformed the face of our planet this is Bingham mine it produces enough ore each year to rewire every home in the USA and Mexico it's the largest open pit mine in the world the size of Bingham Canyon mine continues to expand all the time today we're about 2 and 1/2 mil wide at our widest point and we're nearly a mile deep at our deepest point as we get bigger we move back in about 1,000 ft cuts um those tht cuts will take us 7 years to get to ore and we'll continue to mine ore after that to produce the copper that we need Matt ler is the operations manager in charge the Earth does provide for everything that we need if it can't be grown it it has to be mined whether you look at the Copper that's in your house in terms of wiring or your plumbing fixtures your cell phone hybrid cars copper is essential to our way of life this is lowgrade Bingham Canyon mine ore in this case it's a limestone ore the shiny spots that you see in there are pyite material The Ore itself only contains a tiny amount of copper so they have to dig up a lot of it to get enough of the pure metal that's why being a mine is so [Music] huge we've been mining for over a 100 years we've made 19 million tons of copper in that time and we've produced about 8 billion tons of material with machines just like these some seams of copper are so deep that they have to dig for seven years through waste rock just to reach [Music] them everything about the mine is massive these giant trucks each weigh more than a jumbo jet and work Round the Clock to remove the rubble I've been driving this truck for about 7 years now it's a good feeling driving these it's it's pretty exciting they burn about 100 gallons per hour when they're driving up the hill loaded when you're up in these trucks driving you don't realize how big things are the the mine wouldn't make any money if if it wasn't for the shovels trucks carrying the ore and the the waste out of here the giant diggers and trucks are just to take the Rock Away the only way to get it out of the ground is with something a little more powerful [Music] three blasts a day and 100 Years of mining has created the largest excavation in human history Engineers have begun work on a new super se but until it's ready professional scuba diver Julio has one of Mexico's dirtiest jobs several pump in stations like this one force Mexico City sewage up hill and out of the city but the pumps get blocked up so regularly Julio and his team are forced to dive in the raw sewage unblocking the pipes by hand the lack of applicants reflects the dangerous and vile nature of the job [Music] Julio's job today is to inspect one of the Giant pumps that keep sewage moving out of the city Mexico City dumps all of its liquid waste from industry homes even hospitals into a single sewer and the huge sewage pumps regularly become blocked [Music] diving in some of the most toxic sewage in the world can bring some rather unexpected encounters [Music] today the problem is no less than a horse's head the growing world population has created huge new global [Music] Market the only way to get Goods where they need to go is in some of the largest vehicles on the planet container [Music] ships to construct one of the biggest ships in the world you need a Workforce of 50,000 [Music] buckets of molten metal heated to over 1,000° [Music] Centigrade tens of thousands of tons of steel per ship and engines the size of houses [Music] the biggest engine of our sha the power of the engine is more than 100,000 horsepower power of nor mot car is about 100 horsepower the scale of the effort is hard to take in it takes the mother of all cranes to put the big pieces together capable of lifting 1,300 tons juang Jong is the crane operator 27 years experience puts him on the a list of crane drivers he picks up pieces of ship the size of buildings and puts them in place with millimet precision [Music] the finished ship Rises more than 50 m from its Keel is three times longer than a football field and able to hold 13,000 shipping containers this one single ship is extraordinary by itself but in this Shipyard alone they are turning out approximately 100 of these a year that's almost one mega ship every 3 [Music] days with such big ships the problem becomes how to load and unload them just 40 years ago it used to take 100 men over a week today it can be done in just a matter of hours the reason is the shipping container [Music] boxes that are all the same are easy to get on and off ships our pank can handle 35 container boxes in an hour we have 12 Shi to shore Crane and that means we can hand 400 container boxes in an hour allowing ports to move them in their Millions fan is the the fif's largest port in the world uh in a year about 14 million container boxes were handled in the sun everyone knows it as the tube it's 8:00 a.m. this is when the city really starts to [Music] move in the next few hours over half a million people will be going to [Music] work morning Rush is when the system is pushed to the max for the most part all these Journeys are invisible but imagine what you'd see if the London Underground ran above the [Applause] ground in central London some lines run so deep that if they were above ground they'd be 10 stories high we take it for granted nonetheless every day over 500 trains running on 250 M of track moved nearly 3 million people London is the oldest subway system in the world the busiest system can be found in the world's most populous city Tokyo the number of riders dwarfs all others [Music] [Music] all those commuters add up to 8 million people crisscrossing the city below the ground every day that's an astonishing three billion Journeys a [Music] year to get that many people from A to B efficiently on every platform there are 25 officials like you hitashi to manage the flow smoothly the trains are not allowed to run late even if occasionally the commuters do here the underground system is expected to work like clockwork [Music]

Channel: BBC Earth Science

Views: 2,951,146

Keywords: bbc earth lab, earth lab, science, chemistry, physics, why, biology, space, BBC Earth Science

Id: dyxrwVzrdW4

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2024