This is The World's Most Remote Infrastructure Project

I'm currently driving through one of the longest undersea tunnels in the world now I have traveled all over the world I've seen some amazing construction projects but this is a feat of infrastructure like nothing else and up ahead of me is something that you just won't see anywhere else an entire roundabout underneath the Atlantic Ocean I have never seen a roundabout under an [Music] ocean seen pictures of this but to be driving around it right now deep beneath the water and underneath load of rock is pretty unusual now amazingly this is part of an entire network of tunnels that sits down here deep below a tiny island nation that most of you probably won't have heard of the Pharaoh Islands way up in the North Atlantic hundreds of kilometers from anywhere else and with a population that could fit inside a football stadium the breathtakingly beautiful and Incredibly remote Pharaoh Islands has just completed a series of projects that much larger countries could only dream of so how have these remote Islands managed to pull off a task that would be extremely difficult if not impossible anywhere else what are it secrets and perhaps most importantly how has it changed the lives of people that live here I'm on an epic road trip from the top to the bottom of the Pharaoh Islands to find out oh my god oh this is terrifying if they hadn't started drilling the tunnel and don't think we would actually live here so we are now on under we now at the deepest point in the pH Islands how on Earth did they build it the power of that water turning those turbines the potential is enormous these things are out there right now quietly generating energy it's difficult to convey how beautiful this place is or how fresh the air is here it's incredible [Music] this place is incredible coming here just absolutely takes your breath away so I'm stood right now in the far north of the Pharaoh Islands what you're about to see is my journey from north to south across land and sea to discover more of this magnificent [Music] landscape to see what life is really like here and find out how people get from A to B in this most extraordinary of [Music] places few corners of the globe make for a more or inspiring road trip Nestle between Iceland Scotland and Norway the small archipelago known as the Pharaoh Islands is one of the most isolated communities in all of Europe perhaps unsurprisingly because you see it everywhere you look life here revolves around the [Music] water the Pharaohs has a population of less than 55,000 and there are more sheep here than people it was originally colonized by Norwegian Vikings and possibly Irish monks before that but today this cluster of 18 islands is now a self-governing territory of [Music] Denmark the burning question is how on Earth is a place like this sustain itself and the answer is by doing what it's been doing for centuries fishing in the cold Waters of the North Atlantic fishing boats from the Pharaoh Islands are hunting that industry accounts for around 90% of this nation's exports and about 20% of its GDP now the Pharaoh Islands is looking to diversify using its other prize assets that incredible scenery to attract more overseas tourists and famous YouTubers at the same time it wants to make this a better and less isolated place to live for as many people as possible by fixing a common problem that farflung locations like this often run into the lack of large scale infrastructure it's always made getting about pretty challenging and Incredibly weather dependent but things are changing as I'm about to find out on this amazing [Music] adventure but unfortunately for me it all starts with this rather terrifying looking [Music] tunnel driving through this 60-year-old 2 km tunnel was one of the toughest things I've ever done it was cramped pitch black and you had no idea how far you had left to travel every so often your mind would drift the enormous wave of all that rock above your car this really isn't one for the claustrophobics incredibly it's actually one of 11 single Lane Road tunnels in the pharoh each carved out to create a way through this rugged landscape but these terrifying tunnels can only get you so far like I said life here revolves around the water and up until very recently the only option to get around was to jump on a boats it's really hard to convey how beautiful it is here or how fresh the air is it's [Music] amazing this is one of many fairies that operates across the Pharaoh Islands these trips normally they take about like 20 minutes half an hour but obviously if you then need to go onto another Island after that your commute your travel time can really add up the other things be mind here is that it's quite a nice day right now thankfully but sometimes the weather in this part of the world can get pretty crazy and these ships don't even sail at [Music] all that weather can also make just getting to the Pharaoh in the first place a little tricky as I found out when I first tried to visit back in 201 22 thanks to a storm I never made it further than Copenhagen airports as the few connecting flights up here were cancelled hopefully one day soon we will bring you a video on the ground from the F Islands now I'm finally on the ground and excited to see the incredible Feast of infrastructure that the feries have constructed to help take many of those inter island feries and that unpredictable weather out of the travel equation what are those projects well [Music] undersea tunnels I'm sit here at the entrance to one between estoy and stroy the largest of the islands where the capital of the Pharaoh is it's one of four tunnels that now connects these pieces of land beneath the waterways and I'm about to drive through two of them they're both the newest and the longest and on the way I'm going to find out how they were built we're now in the asteroid tunnel and as you can see it's completely different to that last tunnel I was in much more modern there's lights which is quite nice for a driver overall the asteroid tunnel network is more than 11 km long and cuts Journey times between tavan and the village of rovic from over an hour to just 16 minutes what really makes this tunnel unique is that roundabout to allow drivers to head in one of two directions once they hit the Midway point the world first undersea roundabout cleverly splits the asteroid tunnel in [Music] two and here it is the so-called jellyfish roundabout you can probably see how it got that name standing here is incredible right construction teams made this by digging in three directions down there over that way and over that way to create this Central column it's just the most surreal thing you wouldn't expect to find this deep down here 70 M underground beneath the field that's up there way above my head what also makes this more than just your standard roundabout is the decoration they brought in a local artist to create this sculpture and these figures these Silhouettes represent fairies people doing a traditional dance it's a really nice touch when you're down here it's undeniably impressive but the other thing that jumps into your head is why go to all this effort you know this place has not got a huge population and this is an immense feat of engineering construction so why do it and once you decided to do it how on Earth do you build something like this before we get into that it's important to take a moment to recognize that this sculpture is more than just 80 M of Steel and some light effects it's a Priceless one-of-a-kind piece of art that holds tremendous value for the Fise now there are countless other valuable artworks out there but most of them are out of most people's reach unless you've been investing with our sponsors at Masterworks Masterworks investors have seen returns of 14.6% 16.4% and 17.6% on Works held longer than a year and sometimes more it's because their team has Decades of experience in the Art Market and in finance they're 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massive Sando tunnel opened in 2023 there's also a bridge which was constructed back in the 1970s it links the two main islands across the Gap that's just too short for a tunnel all of that meant the feries kind of knew what they were doing when they built this using one of constructions more drama IC building techniques the drill and blast method has been around since the 1800s and remains a popular way of digging long tunnels through difficult ground conditions just like the ones you'll find in the Pharaoh it was the strategy chosen by the Norwegian arm of Swedish firm NCC the main contractor for the project to put it very simply you start by in some holes filling them with explosives lighting the fuse standing well [Music] back and then clearing away the debris next the walls are covered in a layer of concrete forming a lining for the tunnel ensuring stability and making sure it's watertight basically you repeat that for several kilometers under the ocean in all honesty there's a little more to it than that and that's why I'm about to meet titer Samuelson he's going to help me discover more about how these structures were built and what it takes to maintain them hi Hi how are you you back good sweet how you doing titter is the CEO of the operating company for these tunnels an entity that's owned by the fair governments we have a lot of things that you have in London but when you are living in London you have all these things but you don't use them at all all the time you're really selling it to me actually I might come a live here yeah I guess you have all the things that we have but you don't have pollution congestion yeah and crime how long did it take to build this tunnel it took uh approx 2 years to blast little bit more than 2 years and then uh a year and a half to to do the completion install electrical systems safety systems and doing the road and so on it sounds like a a stupid question but what was the hardest thing about drilling a tunnel through solid rock under the ocean uh it was actually the plan the Geological Service that you had to do before to be sure that you didn't come up to the Sea bottom on your way uh over the FD you just have to do all the things that the the geologist uh advise you to do yeah so it's not there usually you see with an undersea tunnel once you've dug the hole and lined it the battle to keep the water out isn't over leaks can still happen even after completion and that means there has to be a system in place to deal with them hidden away next to the tunnels are a series of pumps and pipes that direct all that unwanted water back out again this is one of the rooms where that process takes place and it happens to be at the Deep point in the entire Pharaoh Islands 190 M below sea level oh wow amazing so you can taste the Atlantic Ocean there really so what is why does this place exist why do you have these pump units yeah this is a reservoir here so the water which is running into the tunnel from the ocean and the Sea bed it runs in here before it's pumped out this is a Solid Rock Tunnel you've dug why is there water coming in why do you have to pump water out yeah water is coming uh through cracks in the Rocks coming into the tunnel small uh amounts of water relatively small amounts of water we can hear the PPS now yeah but normally they they are just uh running over the night yeah because we have more uh green energy during the night now this complex system isn't unique all of the undersea tunnels in the pharoh have pumps like this including the brand new one but before I go and see that I'm Keen to understand where all that green energy is coming from and that means heading over to vest Manor the PowerHouse of this nation covered in lakes and rivers surrounded by Fierce tidal waters and prone to strong Atlantic winds the Pharaoh Islands is the perfect place for Renewable Power now you don't have to go far to see examples of Renewable Power Generation on the Pharaoh Islands you can see the the waterfall behind me and the rate of which water is falling down this mountain same thing is happening in these pipes over here the water is coming down from those pipes through this building which is a hydroelectric power plant dating from the 1950s the power of all that going through the Hydro power plant turning those turbines is generating clean renewable electricity so here you get an idea of the speed at which water is passing down through this system it's just like that waterfall I just showed you but they've harnessed it again they've been doing that here for some time since the 1920s in fact and it's been growing 2023 was a record year for green energy production with more than half of the electricity generated by Renewables by 2030 the Pharaohs are planning to go a lot further by doing something most countries would have little hope of achieving the idea is to have all electricity generated on Shore in the Pharaoh Islands to be renewable by then now I'm here in vest Mana which already has a hydrop power plant and a wind farm but it's here that Engineers are trying out a new method another way of harnessing the power of another abundant resource the ocean since the start of 2024 minesto in partnership with SCV one of the few energy companies actually on the Ferro islands has been preparing to launch the world's first utility scale tidal Dragon that's a special kind of technology that generates electricity using the power of the Tite and the first installation of its kind anywhere in the world is happening just out there in the Water behind [Music] me first off a special Foundation is built on the seabed next a mini power plant called a kite is carried out to the site by boats before being Tethered to that Foundation the flow of the tide and onboard control system cause it to move through the water in a figure of eight turning a turbine as it goes that generates power which passes through an undersea cable to a control station connected to the grit we've looked into title uh Power for quite some years I was say 10 to 15 years the potential is enormous in in the pheros but also the fact that we have a TimeWise phase shift in the ties between the different straights if we install tidal turbines in different places they can Pro provide us with what we normally say base load generation and this right here is one of those kites looks like and believe it or not this is actually a baby one so this can generate about 100 Kow but the big ones that are out in the ocean now are generating 1.2 megaw this weighs about 2.7 tons but the bigger ones are 28 tons it's crazy to think that these things are out there right now under the waves quietly generating energy for the fer W so all electricity generation on Shore will be green by 2030 and as a small Society we think that we are able to do so and maybe play a role model uh for the whole world becoming 100% green by investing heavily in green energy the phoh island has proved it doesn't just care about the well-being of its residents but has the future of the wider planet in mind too and yet despite this being the place that keeps the nation running to find the real Center of power I need to head back over to the other side of this island and that's where the capital of this nation is this is torch havav one of the smallest capital cities in the world only home to around 14,000 people this right here is the oldest and most historic part of this city it's just fascinating to see the buildings the architecture and just explore this incredible little piece of Fise [Music] culture so you keep walking down from that historic quarter and you come into where's much more the center of T shavan it's kind of more modern than you expect but then little things hit you like that that building behind me that is the parliament of the Pharaoh Islands that's where this nation's 33 MPS meet it looks like a a town hall to most of us despite its modest size Taven is by far the most populated part of the Pharaoh but to get the full phoh experience I need to go further south to somewhere that's the complete [Music] opposite so I'm now driving through the Sando tunnel which is the newest tunnel it opened in December 2023 this is the longest single tunnel measuring an incredible 10.8 km through the rock with this incredible feed of infrastructure people now have a much easier way of getting from stroy that main island across to Sando which was previously only accessible by ferry what's even more remarkable is that this island Sando up ahead is only home to 1500 [Music] people and only around 3 to 400 cars a day today actually going to use this tunnel you can see at the moment nothing's come past me nothing behind me nothing ahead of me it's a huge incredible feet of engineering but it's dead there's no one here these new tunnels are a remarkable achievement for such a small nation and they're masterpieces of engineering as you can probably imagine they came at a cost the esto Tunnel cost about €80 million e which is just under $200 million it was the single largest investment ever in the pharoh but for big projects it's not actually that bad the Sando tunnel was about the same price but when you look at the cost per head for both tunnels it comes to over $7,000 for each person on the islands now compare that with the US in 2022 funding from the bipar and infrastructure law came to around $1,000 per resident in MO States so where did where did that money come from yeah uh the government established a limited company which the government owns and then they injected over a 10 years period 50 million EUR and then we have a financing from Fair UK based and mainly American Pension funds financing the project so we got the financing in place in 2016 and then starting to build the tunnels and it's paid back by TOS over yeah total loans are paid back in 2014 wow so uh 16 years from now the total project is paid back that's incredible now when you drive through an incredible feet of construction like the Sando tunnel you kind of expect to come up in a bigger city or Community but the first place you hit is scopen which is this small village of only 500 people and it's the strangest thing to go through an 11 tunnel that's been blasted out of solid rock underneath the water behind me and then come out in such a small [Music] place so has it really all been worth it well I'm on my way to sander the final point of my journey to try and find out I've come here to meet a family who've lived on Sando since before the newest tun was built to see what they make of it all good thank you welcome thanks for having me come on in thank you like a cake or I would love a bit of cake yeah very kind of you to bake it for us yeah I've never had someone make a cake for me so that's the first what's life like here we have lived in sand for four four years now it's quiet yeah it's nice uh quiet Village Life um we've both been living abroad in different places what was it like here before the tunnel you have to get a ferry to go to the mainland I think we were still like adjusting but um but it used to take a lot of time to drive up to the ferry wait maybe if weather wasn't nice then they wouldn't sail and yeah the ferry ride itself was half an hour so usually you just say it takes half an hour to get here but it's just like the waiting and you have to wait for the fairy and yeah following this the schedule and when we moved here I worked in tound drove myself or taking the bus would probably use like 3 hours commuting definitely our youngest video store quite an easy baby nice we could be getting into construction I have that effect on people you just fall asleep yeah yeah we had two kids since we lived here pregnant women uh who were giving birth had to go to tound 2 weeks before due date if everything went smooth yeah otherwise maybe before that uh in order to stay like close to the hospital so we be provided with an apartment at the hospital so that also makes like a huge impact on family life in a when you're in a kind of vulnerable situation uh especially if you have kids already then yeah so how's the tunnel change things how do you feel about the new tunnel uh if they hadn't started drilling the tunnel uh I don't think we would actually live here so that's quite a big yeah like that's [Music] yeah of course Barbara and her family aren't the only ones to benefit since this tunnel went in over 90% of the FES population is now connected by Road and it feels like that strategy from the 60s is finally starting to pay [Music] off there's even talk of another tunnel being built in the future that would become the longest by far joining Sando to the southernmost island of suduroy it would be at least 22 km in length and could cost almost half a billion dollars so is this a oneoff or could we see other nations try something similar well isolate communities in much larger countries that are also in need of new infrastructure are already looking to hear for inspiration including one that's not too far away the Shetland Isles off the northern coast of Scotland shetlander often look here to the Pharaoh Islands as a model for their own future it has a lot in common with the Pharaoh Islands right a remote North Atlantic location a small population spread across several islands and an economy that's built on fishing so it col begs the question could a sub tunnel Network be effective there too well one Action Group certainly thinks so they believe the Shetland should have a system of their own and they've even published a report on how to go about it but with no autonomous government to give it the go-ahead so far it remains little more than an idea for now the Pharaoh has set a standard for construction in hard to- reach places that's going to be very tough to beat being able to do the journey I've just done in a nation of this size is nothing short of remarkable crossing Seven Islands entirely by Road thanks to some truly world-class construction there's really no place like the [Music] Pharaohs life is very relaxed I think we live a calm and quiet life of course everything everything is smaller like it's a much smaller scale we have this fair with nature living close to the Sea it's very easy go out fishing walking in the mountains probably the safest country in the world to to be in normally we say that we leave the key in the car at night because if somebody steal the car where should they go we are close connected to our families as well many people are quite yeah close to the family good for a kids to grow up in the islands as well it's it's really a nice place when you come somewhere like the Pharaoh Islands it's easy to imagine that it might be somehow stuck in the past that it's missing out on the latest construction or engineering advancements but that couldn't be further from the truth working in this breathtakingly beautiful but incredibly unforgiving environment construction teams have pulled off Miracles and the impact of their work has literally changed the shape of this small Other Nation for the better what I've been most struck by is how decisions around these projects are really being taken with the benefit of everyone in mind and you don't really get that with big infrastructure projects taking this amazing journey through this nation and uncovering this story has really brought home to me once again the power of construction and it goes to show that when it comes to this amazing industry and what it's capable of nowhere is off [Music] [Applause] limits this video was sponsored by Masterworks you can SK skip their wait list at the link below don't forget that we're raising awareness of construction's Mental Health crisis and supporting charities in this space through our get construction talking initiative there's a video series on our Channel and you can find support or donate over at get Construction talk.org And as always guys if you 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Channel: The B1M

Views: 2,308,825

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, faroe islands, europe, tunnels, infrastructure, undersea tunnels, undersea roundabout, subsea tunnels, denmark, scotland, shetland, norway, iceland, torshavn, minesto, tidal energy, sweden, hydropower, energy, renewable energy, green energy, ncc, sev

Id: EruSZNI4th4

Length: 32min 13sec (1933 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2024