Finding the *BIGGEST* Reason To Feel Hopeful About Climate Change

Join Joe in this exploration of a true titan of modern engineering: the world's largest crane. With a lifting capacity of 5,000 tons—equivalent to hoisting a SpaceX Starship Heavy—this giant ring crane at Rotterdam's Mammoet headquarters is a true powerhouse that plays a crucial role in the renewable energy revolution, building massive offshore wind turbines that help combat climate change. And yes, they may let Joe drive it.

CLARIFICATION (Aug. 7, 2024): In this video, we used "largest" to describe the physical size of the crane. We understand from subject matter experts that cranes are more usually classified based on lifting capacity, so we wanted to note here that there are a few cranes with higher lifting capacities. We all have even more reason to feel hopeful about climate change and the potential positive impact of enormous cranes!

Hosted by Joe Hanson from Be Smart, Overview uses stunning 4k drone footage to reveal the natural and human made marvels shaping our planet--from a 10,000-foot view--literally.

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[macedonian]

I think the coolest thing about that crane is; not only its massive size, but that it can be broken down into shipping container sized pieces and taken anywhere. The design constraints they must have had to meet that requirement must have been brutal. Props to the engineering team at mammoet.

[vincentgrinn]

the fact that theyre able to assemble the entire turbine from a dock and then tow it out to sea is incredible, like thats some wiiild stability from the floating platform to keep itself upright, while moving, without ground anchor cables

[ElectricityTaster]

Finally a crane able to lift your momma.

[fka-Kaya]

Producing energy from renewable sources isn´t gonna cut it though, we also need to decrease consumption. The largest part of that is simply wasted energy, through bad housing insulation, inefficient machinery, combustion engines in general etc.

[kristiankeller]

Imagine unloading a whole ship full of containers, and all the manifest says is "counterweight for crane" 😆

[Falstaff]

“We know how to fix this . . . “ once we figure out how to make it profitable enough to bother.

[carlosvargasbatman]

“I used consumption to fight consumption.” -Thanos

[prettypic]

When I was little, I used to think the big crane at the ports looked like swans. Later, my teacher told me that those cranes were roughly the size of skyscrapers, and the scale of it all blew my mind

[nielskersic]

I believe they have a fleet of about 10 of these. They also have a crane concept that could lift up to 18000 tons. Even the one in the video is “only “ 5000. Absolutely crazy numbers

[willemvandebeek]

I thought this crane was in Texas or some other US state. I was quite surprised it was in my own small country the Netherlands, hahaha! 😅

[chrisconklin]

Great presentation and thank you. Your last sentence was: "If we choose bigger and cleaner...". We can also choose smaller and cleaner. Let us not make the same mistake. Part of our problem is a highly centralize electrical power grid with massive power plants. I view the future as more a more decentralized network, where wherever possible energy is produced near the point of consumption. Sunshine and wind are free - power to the people.

[kthfox]

"thats well over a quarter of a mile without the crane moving" challenged my sense of reality so hard i dissociated became nauseated for an instant.

[Thatboytrey]

When PBS is searching for hope you know it’s bad

[MutualMischief]

The bottlenecks for dealing with climate change are not technical but political and social, this has been the case for decades if not over a century. Has the development of more powerful and technically sophisticated tools been associated with a lessening of our negative impact on existing natural systems so far?

If you try and maintain our social system as is but "green" it, you will lock in 3 - 4 degrees of warming by the end of the century at best, and pay for any mitigation/limitation via the suffering of poorer countries (in terms of financial wealth, value of assets owned by citizens as a whole and per capita). All socialisms are not sustainable but only socialism can be sustainable, regardless of how well meaning many professionals in many fields are.

Systems whose internal dynamics (competition between privately owned capitals - capital being the private ownership of means of production [factories, land, tools, intellectual property etc.] + the exploitation of dispossessed living labour which owns only itself or is owned by capital outright - in the service of expanding the overall capital of each individual owner [some lose and fail at this]) require the greater and greater manufacturing of physical commodities (this has not been alleviated by digitisation) cannot be sustainable.

[dj]

Very cool.
The modular design should make it easier to create variants for more specialized applications as well.

[hypotheticalaxolotl]

Huh. You know, I always assumed that tower cranes had more capacity than mobile cranes. Figured the mobility required a trade-off of capacity since you couldn't ground it as stably. Colour me wrong, then!

[vladdevener]

One word to describe all of that that comes to mind is INCREDIBLE.

[johncheresna]

What happens when the thousands and thousands of wind towers add an unbearable amount of noise into the ocean, destroying all life around these world saving machines???

[theck]

Thanks for this information and talking about climate change and what to do about it right now.

[opossumboyo]

This episode did not sit well with me. PBS Terra has recently produced excellent content that is (rightfully) critical of the industrial response to the climate crisis. This episode felt like a complete rubber band in the opposite direction; in fact, the entire experience felt like an advertisement for the company that made the crane.

Methods of building massive structures like this will be used far more to produce things that consume fossil energy than to create renewables. Per the law of Jevon’s Paradox, it doesn’t matter if we produce renewable energy if we are only going to use it to make even more things.

We need to slow down carbon production drastically, not increase it. This technology does not do that no matter how you use it.