Discover How 5 Megaprojects Are Destroying Our World

Something inside of all of us wants to write our names in the sand of time. Or preferably, use explosives of some kind to write our names in the very cosmos itself. If it’s big, and it might go boom, people like it. Yet… not all megaprojects are created equal. So without further ado: here are 5 megaprojects that are actually environmental disasters.

#MegaprojectsAreDestroyingOurWorld #sideprojects

[SamIAm]

I would have loved to hear what was being said about the oil and gas pipeline 😂

[euchiron]

Mad respect to the lip readers. You got at least part of the message

[dustinchriswell]

Sounds like the gas companies got to Simons editor

[dansanger]

The problem with oil pipelines is that we're still using so much oil. As long as we're using oil, we'll need to transport it. If we don't transport it via pipeline, we'll have to transport it via trains or ships or trucks. Regardless of how we transport it, there will be spills. Pipelines might be the least harmful way to transport it. But the best solution is to transition to other, less polluting sources of energy.

[Varizen]

Simon, my man... Some of your editors are not doing so hot... What is the deal with cutting your audio for a section? Also, one of your editors is abusing a wavy distortion effect WAY too much some some videos lately and it's getting irritating and nauseating as it makes it hard to pay attention to the details even being talked about in the images used to illustrate a point. You need to have a word with the editors. This is the 2nd video this week where a whole section has music instead of your narration.

[BlackHearthguard]

For those who can't get the subtitles to work and want to know what Simon is saying under the music in the pipeline section, I've typed out a transcript below:

How difficult could it be? You produce oil and gas in places like Canada, Kazakhstan, Alaska or the Gulf of Mexico and you send that gas via pipeline to receiving facilities in Texas or Oklahoma or Germany to be refined and used for everything from heating homes to making plastics and industrial lubricants. It's just a pipeline, how complicated could it be? Currently there exists about three and a half million kilometers of oil and gas pipelines in the world, spanning 120 countries. A whopping 65% of those are in the United States, with Russia having about 8% for comparison.

These long distance pipelines move all manner of important industrial products besides oil and gas: Including ammonia, alcohol, fuel and even beer and milk in some places, but the vast majority of the world's pipelines send oil and gas. Why so much pipeline, was partly due to the efforts of everyone's favourite corporation, Enron, who dominated the U.S pipeline business in the 80's and 90's, and popularized the use of pipelines as a cheap alternative to shipping materials by tankership or truck. This extensive pipeline network also helped Enron manipulate the international gas market, but that's probably for another Mega Projects video, but as you might expect from a network of metal pipes transporting volatile chemicals across the world, day in, day out, accidents can happen and they happen a lot.

Oil and gas contains solvents, particularly if they're composed of volatile aromatics such as naphtha and benzene.

[LuckyShelf]

From 12:05 a nice piece of free music plays?

[catrie]

What's with the random music in the middle? Did you have to hide talking about Enron?

[Kellen]

Would have loved to see the giant dams and water movement in China being mentioned. Considering that they caused so far massive drought there as well as literally changed how the entire planet moves, I think that would count

[willmfrank]

I put the captions on at 12:05 so I could at least read what I couldn't hear. This is what it said:
"You produce oil in places like Canada, Kazakhstan, Alaska, or the Gulf of Mexico
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
spills can occur for a variety of reasons..."

[martinstallard]

1:07 cruise ships
3:52 satellite internet
6:24 salted nukes
8:25 the Soviet transformation of nature
11:54 oil and gas pipelines
13:19 music ends

[leftyeh]

Pipelines don't rust. I've seen 80 year old lines that were still in great shape. Generally they get eroded from the INSIDE, because of bad operators and cavitation. They also don't really move from temp, as they're buried deep enough to stabilize the temp through the year. They take the lines very seriously. If you scratch a pipe, it has to be cut out, new pipe welded in, and x-ray checked.
Of course, all the pipeline work I did was in the moving, wiring all the motors and sensors. It's fascinating, that a good company can see 20 gallons of oil missing over a few hundred miles, shut down and clear the line, and find and repair the leaks. They monitor flow and volume constantly, and it's all able to be done on site at the pump stations, or remotely over a private satellite connection.

[jodiecrosby]

Can we have this one remade and re-released please.

[dickmcshan]

Happy Christmas, Simon! What the heck happened with the oil and pipeline segment?

[moonwolfv]

What was with the music in the oil/gas pipelines section? I thought maybe the video had been edited/hijacked by someone else who didn't want you talking about such things.

[seli]

Simon had second thoughts about some of the points in the oil pipeline section...

[matthewlaberge]

Glad to hear I’m not going insane. I was in bed watching this video and all of a sudden the music starts and I’m wonder which of my other devices have taken over my AirPods, by the time I checked them all the music ended and I realized it was embedded into the video. Would have loved to hear what Simon said…

[emilymoore]

Merry Christmas Simon & Basement crew

[myrodin]

12:05 - 13:20 Simon or Sam its decent elevator music, but can we have fact boi back?

[thatguy]

Simon saying “I don’t normally comment this much” is hilarious. Dude, you literally rant about everything, that’s literally why I keep watching 😂