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Megaprojects


Priory_of_Sion

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Are huge projects a good thing for a country/society? Looking at the most important pieces of infrastructure in most nations, it seems that megaprojects are extremely important and help countries advance. 

 

However there is a big risk. However, I am a gamblin' man so I'm not one to pass up on some awesome structures.

 

What megaprojects are the most impressive? Which proposed megaproject is the coolest? 

 

The Manhattan Project gets my vote for most impressive. The North American Water and Power Alliance is one that is the most outlandish to me, therefor the coolest. 

 

 

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Interstate Highway System? That seems like a BFD that folks take for granted.

I think huge projects are a good thing, but modern societies seem too short-sighted to really take advantage of them.

The Interstate is taken for granted and probably needs a big renovation in a lot of places. 

 

Has societies always been obtrusive to megaprojects or is it just a modern phenomena? 

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How many of y'all have seen Grand Coulee Dam? THAT is a mega-project worthy of all of the Woody Guthrie songs sang about it.

 

 

Now days we try to dig a total under the Seattle waterfront through fill in a seismically unstable earthquake zone.

 

http://mynorthwest.com/11/2503465/A-Bertha-timeline-From-conception-to-today

 

For the record, they dug a railroad tunnel under Seattle 100 years ago using picks and shovels and these jamokes can't get it right with 21st Century technology.

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As always, there are consequences to these things. Grand Coulee pretty much put paid to any Upper Columbia River salmon run.

On the plus side you got free electricity for the Hanford nuclear reservation, for aluminum plants that produced the raw material for Boeing planes and enough irrigation water to turn Eastern Washington from a desert to an agricultural bread basket.

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Friendly reminder that thanks to that electricity, the US could supply the Manhattan Project with an amount of electricity on the order of tens of percent of the total energy production of Nazi Germany.

 

Yeah. When you need something the size of Grand Coulee to produce the electricity needed in the enrichment process needed to build an Atom Bomb (I prefer calling it an "Atom Bomb" as opposed to "Atomic" or "Nuclear" cause it sounds old timey), the Allies will eventually notice.

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I recall that Leonardo da Vinci did a study for a series of canals on the Arno river.  It was supposed to open up new navigable routes to the sea for the Florentine Republic, and by taxing those routes, pay for itself relatively quickly.

 

And thus set the precedent for taxpayer funded sports stadium, convention center and concert hall since...

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The planned Phoenix towers and surrounding artificial island it will be built on, which is planned to bring tourism to the city of Wuhan in central China. Along with other buildings on said island, the taller of the two towers (the male "phoenix" Feng, the opposite being called the female phoenix of "Huang") will be 1 kilometer high, run off it's own energy, and filter out air pollution around it. It will also have things such as the largest suspended in mid air resturaunts, the worlds tallest kaleidoscope, and the pinkest goddamn building award ever.

 

After much planning, It's expected to be done in 2018 assuming no delays, and design work is being aided by a joint effort with the British firm Chetwood.

 

24406_1_PhoenixTowers1.jpg(Chetwood's concept from their website.)

 

24406_3_PhoenixTowers3.jpg(Chinese interpretation)

 

24406_2_PhoenixTowers2.jpg Examples of how the building will sustain it's own power, among others on the island.

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That projects looks rather fugly to me. Might be good for Wuhan to help mitigate smog, but is looks so damn bad. 

 

BURN IN THE PHOENIX' FLAME!

 

But, in all seriousness, Chetwood has alot of say on the looks so ...... #BlametheUK

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  • 2 months later...

Well, fans of mega projects, here's something relatively new to give you a hard on. Silk Road 2: not quite electric boogaloo (theres also canals this time!)

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/20/us-pakistan-china-idUSKBN0NA12T20150420

 

(There's some internal concerns in both China and Pakistan over the location of the routes being potentially targeted by terrorist cells though.)

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