The Red Sea Dam: Generating 50x the Power of a Nuclear Plant

In 2007, a group of scientists proposed building a 100-kilometer-long dam across the Red Sea that would generate 50 gigawatts of electricity. Discover how it works, how it could help the environment, the obstacles the project faces, and what it would take to build it in this exciting video.

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[SerginhoPMoura]

Well I've heard some bad ideas to solve energy shortage problems in my life but this surely takes the cake.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

On top of the huge ecological impact, the Red Sea is also one of the most important sea trade routes in the world. And we all saw what the Ever Given did to Suez trade back in 2021! This reminds me of how disastrous China's mass-building dam policy was. During the Great Leap Forward, China built 62 dams in Henan with the help of Soviet experts. The construction of the dams focused heavily on the goal of retaining water and overlooked their capacities to prevent floods, while the quality of the dams was also compromised due to the Great Leap Forward. Not to mention, the "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture" campaign destroyed forest cover. I think you can see where this is going.

In 1975, during Typhoon Nina, the Banqiao Dam (which was designed for a calculated one in a thousand year rainfall event of 300 mm/day), got way more than that in just one day. This resulted in the collapse it and all the other dams in the area. Over 10 million people were affected with a death toll of up to 240, 000, the collapse of over six million homes, and the Communist Party concealed the disaster's details until the 1990s.

[leaguemastergg]

This idea makes The Line look like a work of genius.

[thechosenone]

When I read the title I thought this idea was crazy. But after watching the video I think it's downright insane.

[RandomTrinidadian]

So They want to dam to one of most important trade routes???

[Morndenkainen]

I don't particularly understand this brand of stupidity, but I do admire their total commitment to it...

[clairenollet]

Even before Simon mentioned the Aral Sea, I immediately thought of it. When the Aral Sea dried up after decades of mismanagement, the salt sediments got picked up by the wind, including any pollutants therein, and there's a big increase in thyroid cancer in the region, not to mention the significant rise in local temperatures. Drying up the Red Sea would provoke a similar environmental catastrophe.

[theenergizer]

I am planning to build a dam from Alaska to Antartica, right through the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

[stian]

This makes the line seem like a very good is so many downsides that i dont even know where to begin

[thorns]

In Olkiluoto 3 with all the cost overruns and issues, Findland just got 1.6GW for 6 billion dollars.

That is less than 190 billion dollars for the same amount of power this project claims, and you can place these wherever you have cooling available.

So not only is this project a total environmental and logistical disasters, it is also expensive. It might however be less expensive than the same amount of wind/solar with batteries (heck, they would probably need this dam as a pump storage).

[nicholaskotlarczyk]

Would it not be cheaper in concrete and material usage to make 50 nuclear power plants ?

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

Well dam, that's a crazy idea! Sealing the Red Sea is the equivalent of shutting down the Panama Canal. This is a horrendous disaster in the making for both the environment AND global trade! It's like they looked at the Aral Sea and said, "I'll do you better". Not just Egypt's success because of the Suez, but Djibouti's economy has done tremendously well because of its location at the mouth of the Red Sea. Countries like France, the US, and even China and Japan all have bases there because of the country's strategic importance. All of this success would disappear if this dam became reality. So they'd need more than just a little "compensation".

[mattpeacock]

This sounds like an ecological disaster way beyond any carbon offset.

[furanduron]

The guy who thought this one up: "Man, I should do something stupid today."

[kilo]

No chance in hell they can build that for $200 Billion. No way. It would push $1 Trillion easily.

[Timmycoo]

I remember reading about this and thinking just how crazy the idea was lol. The fact it would affect the globe was insane.

[bbbb]

Not a hope in hell of getting countries to agree to borking the Suez canal.

[Cyberplayer]

I am more convinced of the need for energy dense generation of electricity now than I have ever been. This is another example of why it is necessary, all the objections revolve around the amount of land, water, etc used to make it. Dam the Red Sea and Damn the consequence I see what you did there.

[korimiller]

50 gigawatts does seem like a lot of power. Except it's not going to get to that level initially, nor in the short-term, nor in the medium term. 300+ years to get the full output is a long time, particularly with the rate to technological development. This whole project seems like a massive long term loss even with the proposed power gain (assuming a better method of generation isn't found before it hits its stride.)

[adamesd]

This sounds like madness. Real mad scientist stuff.