Planet Green
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The Ultimate Power Builders defy the four basic elements—earth, air, heat, and water—to engineer big, ambitious and environmentally-friendly projects that will shape the Earth's landscape for future generations, while providing unlimited supplies of energy.
Watch as a carbon neutral city in the Middle East, a skyscraper in China which produces its own power and water, an energy plant that harnesses the power of the atom, and many others evolve into green mega-structures.
New Episodes!
Scratch City: Sunday, March 14th at 9pm/e
Abu Dhabi is the biggest of the United Arab Emirates sitting in the heart of the oil rich Persian Gulf. Oil represents more than two thirds of this city state's economy and with such easy access to all that black gold, the citizens of Abu Dhabi have become one of the most polluting on earth. Cheap fuel means big cars, year round air conditioning and sweet water which is produced by an energy intensive desalination process. And yet Abu Dhabi recently announced one of the most ambitious development projects in the world. The construction of Masdar, the world's first zero carbon, zero waste, car free city.
Power Tower: Sunday, March 14th at 10pm/e
In downtown Guangzhou, China, one of the greenest structures on earth is rising. Known as Pearl River Tower, the 71-storey building will rely on just wind and sunlight for its power supply. This green skyscraper epitomizes the super tall corporate headquarter buildings of tomorrow as an iconic, high performance structure, that is designed in such harmony with its environment that it potentially produces as much energy as it consumes.
Earth Power
Before running out of oil, we better have a look under our feet where there lies a clean and inexhaustible source of energy: the heat of the Earth!
The volcanic and wet country of Iceland has plenty of steam to turn into electricity, it's the Saudi Arabia of geothermy. Plants are popping up and growing fast. Markus, a foreman in charge of building cooling towers, essential pieces on the giant plant of Hellisheidi, deals all year long with a tight schedule, non English or nor Icelandic speaking workers, storms and a lethal poisonous gas. Gretar, the geologist, has to map the underground and inform drillers how to provide daily more power to the plant. All of them together are tapping tens of steam wells one mile down and deeper, laying miles of pipe and installing always more generators. Iceland plans to become before 2050 the first nation to free itself from fossil fuels.
In France, pioneers are working on a new technology. Far away from active volcanoes and steam reservoirs, they drill much deeper, up to 3 miles and inject water into hot rocks to make their own steam. Their latest breakthroughs will allow geothermal plants to produce power at half the temperature of the steam in Iceland. But as this method has never been tested before, solutions need to be found every time a problem arises, which is? quite often. Polo, with a 10 year experience on the project, Xavier, who's his first job it is after graduating in mechanical engineering, and all their international European crew face adversity and never give up. So far, it's only a small-scale pilot plant, but with big dreams: showing the world that this clean and renewable energy could be used by many of us.
Sun on Earth
A huge global increase in energy consumption is inevitable. Renewable energies alone will not satisfy our needs. While nuclear energy is often associated with fission and its dangers, scientists across the world are trying to master its bright side. Nuclear fusion is a safe, clean and unlimited source of energy. But unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to master.
There are different ways of going about it. Three main competing paths are currently being explored :
-Tokamaks, which confine a hot plasma at a temperature of one hundred million degrees in a steady state within a magnetic field.
-Lasers, which are used like hammers to compress a target and make it explode.
-The Z-pinch machine, which attempts to light a nuclear fire by compressing a tiny pellet of gas through an intense X-ray pulse.
While the construction of Iter, the international super tokamak is about to start in Southern France, teams are working flat out to solve physics and engineering problems. Let's follow the team of the Tore Supra tokamak as they develop their machine and install new heating antennas.
At the Megajoule Laser, 240 giant lasers are being assembled. They will fire a target in a 30-feet diameter metal sphere. Everything must be immaculately clean as a speck of dust could burn and ruin extremely costly equipment.
In the Sandia laboratories, as the entire Z-machine has just been modernized to double its power, the team is already looking towards the future. In collaboration with Russia, revolutionary components are being tested.
Putting their rivalries aside, all these scientists share their knowledge of plasma, the fourth state of matter after its gaseous phase. Only when the secrets of plasma are mastered will the gates to fusion open.
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