The BEST episodes of Megastructures season 2008

#1 - Icelandic Super Dam

Season 2008 - Episode 9 - Aired 6/18/2008

This episode looks at the Karahnjukar Hydroelectric Project in Iceland - an audacious engineering feat that includes the building of Europe's highest dam, the drilling of 30-mile-long tunnels and the construction of a gigantic underground power plant.

#2 - The World's Biggest Cruiseliner

Season 2008 - Episode 16 - Aired 6/4/2008

Looks at the technological designs and construction of the huge cruiseliner "Freedom of the Seas".

#3 - Beijing Water Cube

Season 2008 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/21/2008

Just in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, workers are feverishly putting the finishing touches on the National Aquatics Centre – the Beijing Water Cube. A stroke of design genius, this Olympic Megastructure is a steel honeycomb-like frame enclosed entirely by a unique skin, modelled after soap bubbles. Using 90 kilometres worth of steel in 22,000 beams following no conventional straight lines, the Beijing Water Cube must be topped with 100,000 square metres of bubbles. Looking for a truly unique covering, the design team focuses on ETFE – a light-weight plastic invented to protect spaceships from cosmic radiation. Among ETFE’s unique properties, dot patterns on its surface can trap solar energy in the winter and reflect solar energy in the summer, keeping the building cool. The Beijing Water Cube is the largest ETFE construction in the world, and because of its honeycomb-like structure, 3,500 ETFE bubbles must be cut individually, and sized. Factor in that the dimensions have been created in Germany and must be translated into a Chinese database and the Beijing Water Cube becomes a bit of a logistical nightmare. Beijing’s Water Cube represents a true morphing of molecular science, architecture and structural engineering.

#4 - Shanghai Super Tower

Season 2008 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/14/2008

The design and construction of the Shanghai World Financial Centre which, at 101 floors high, will be China's tallest structure.

#5 - Deep Earth Drillers

Season 2008 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/20/2008

Mega Green Tech is in search of geothermal power.

#6 - South Pole Station

Season 2008 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/9/2008

Welcome to the South Pole, one of the most isolated places on the planet. For decades, the South Pole has been a haven for astronomy, climatology, and other science fields. Now, nearly 50 years after the first research station was built, a team of mega-builders is daring to construct a 21st century science research facility: the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

#7 - Sinking an Aircraft Carrier

Season 2008 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/29/2008

A specialist demolition team attempt to create the largest artificial reef in the world by sinking the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. As they battle through thick steel plating and hazardous waste, the workers are aided by marine architects, divers, engineering units and local authorities.

#8 - Impossible Build

Season 2008 - Episode 17 - Aired 9/3/2008

#9 - Impossible Bridges: China

Season 2008 - Episode 22 - Aired 6/11/2006

Go inside the construction of China's three ultimate bridges: the Lupu, the world's longest arch bridge; the Runyang, the country's largest suspension bridge; and the Sutong, soon to be the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world.

#10 - Smart Tunnel

Season 2008 - Episode 23 - Aired 7/14/2007

#11 - North Branch Correctional Institution (Hi-Tech Prison)

Season 2008 - Episode 8 - Aired 6/15/2008

The North Branch Correctional Institution (NBCI) will house 2,000 violent criminals. Its security measures are much more than technological marvels they are the features that will protect the lives of prison guards and revolutionize rehabilitation programs for inmates.

#12 - Mega Breakdown: Italian Bridge

Season 2008 - Episode 12 - Aired 9/10/2008

A historic bridge is being taken down and recycled, but the demolition team faces challenges while doing it.

#13 - Atom Smasher

Season 2008 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/3/2008

Follow expert scientists and engineers as they complete work on a Large Hadron Collider, a machine that will be able to capture pictures of atoms.

#14 - Dam Busters

Season 2008 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/30/2008

A team of experts mobilises to demolish, excavate and recycle a 25,000 ton dam built of concrete and steel. The pressure is on: they have just half the time needed to complete the job. Worse yet, their biggest challenge stands behind the old dam – one million cubic yards of boulders, gravel and sand that the river has stacked against it for nearly a century. To remove this blockade, the team gambles on a radical, dangerous plan that's never been tried before: turning the energy of a perfect storm against the debris. If they are not successful, a generation of endangered salmon returning to spawn may be wiped out.

#15 - Beijing Olympic Stadium (Building Green Beijing)

Season 2008 - Episode 15 - Aired 8/5/2008

2010 environmental improvement plan in Beijing, China

#16 - Bridge Breakdown

Season 2008 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/15/2008

Demolition of the (1927) Carquinez Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area

#17 - Mega Plane

Season 2008 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/2/2008