The BEST episodes of Megastructures season 2008

#1 - Mega Sub

Season 2008 - Episode 24 - Aired 12/31/2008

New technologies improve submarines.

#2 - 747 Breakdown

Season 2008 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/16/2008

For years, when a jumbo jet reached the end of its 30-year lifespan, it'd end up in a scrap yard, or rotting at the end of a runway. But at the Evergreen Air Center in Marana, Arizona, planes past their prime are recycled instead. We'll witness each step.

#3 - China's Ultimate Port (Yangshan Deep Ocean Port)

Season 2008 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/27/2008

In 2002, Chinese engineers and workers tackled one of the biggest construction projects on earth, the Yangshan Deep Water Port. Thirty km out to sea, with 20 km of quay and fifty berths, Yangshan is destined to become the biggest deepwater port ever built. Linked to China by the world’s second-longest ocean bridge, Yangshan’s deep water allows the world’s biggest container ships to come calling. Its massive cranes, cutting-edge control system, and focused personnel are already shattering records for loading and unloading gigantic container ships and it’s not even finished being built.

#4 - The World's Biggest Cruiseliner

Season 2008 - Episode 9 - Aired 6/4/2008

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

#5 - Mega Plane

Season 2008 - Episode 16 - Aired 11/2/2008

#6 - World's Biggest Shredder

Season 2008 - Episode 23 - Aired 12/31/2008

This metal-chomping monster takes up the floor space of an entire factory and it can reduce the equivalent of 450 cars an hour to little more than pulp.

#7 - Impossible Bridges: China

Season 2008 - Episode 10 - Aired 6/11/2008

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.

#8 - Shanghai Super Tower

Season 2008 - Episode 3 - 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.

#9 - Atom Smasher

Season 2008 - Episode 1 - 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.

#10 - Train Wreck

Season 2008 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/24/2008

Railroads are the backbone of American industry. 170,000 miles of track crisscross the country from coast to coast, moving two quadrillion tons of freight every year. But nothing lasts forever, and that includes a couple of 180-ton locomotives. Their engine technology is inefficient so they're headed for the scrap dealer where they'll be cut down and cannibalised. Any salvageable parts must come out intact for resale, while any leftover metals – like steel and copper – will be cut up, melted down and ultimately reformed into new products. In this business, nothing goes to waste. Take an inside look at the unknown world of scrap, where locomotives go to die and be reborn

#11 - Impossible Build

Season 2008 - Episode 14 - Aired 9/3/2008

#12 - Power Tower (World Trade Center Bahrain)

Season 2008 - Episode 20 - Aired 12/31/2008

Engineers discuss the construction of the Bahrain World Trade Centre's two 50-storey, sail-shaped skyscrapers and the ambitious plan to power the buildings using wind turbines.

#13 - Beijing Water Cube

Season 2008 - Episode 6 - 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.

#14 - Deep Earth Drillers

Season 2008 - Episode 17 - Aired 12/20/2008

Mega Green Tech is in search of geothermal power.

#15 - Sun Engine (Man Made Sun)

Season 2008 - Episode 22 - Aired 12/31/2008

The world of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), an evolving technology to harness the sun's rays on a massive scale to power entire communities.

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

Season 2008 - Episode 11 - 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.

#17 - Super Pipeline

Season 2008 - Episode 19 - Aired 12/31/2008

We look at one of the gas industry’s riskiest projects ever undertaken. By 2008, Britain will be connected to Norway via a 1,200 km super pipeline. It’s composed of over one million tonnes of steel and equating to a 1/3 of the world’s combined pipeline production company. Yet all of the work must be completed by robots working 3 km under the North Sea against harsh underwater currents, sub-zero temperatures and abysmal wind and wave conditions.

#18 - Sinking an Aircraft Carrier

Season 2008 - Episode 8 - 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.

#19 - World's Biggest Casino

Season 2008 - Episode 21 - Aired 12/31/2008

World's Largest Casino follows the construction of the world's biggest casino and its second biggest building. It's being sited in Macau, in Southern China, which is being groomed to be Asia's capital of gambling. The Venetian is to be built by the Sands Corporation of Las Vegas, and is to feature a giant hotel with 3000 suites, a 15,000 seat arena, a theatre, event halls, 350 shops along indoor canals hundreds of metres long, an outdoor lagoon for gondola rides, and above all, a huge casino floor the size of eight football pitches. We follow the reclamation of land between two islands for this project, and watch it fly up in record time due to special working methods being devised – from on-site factories, to having prefabricated parts trucked in from China. We see how the ambitious designs are brought to reality, despite the pressures and an environment that's very different from America, both in terms of climate and culture. We go in-depth into the amazing concern for detail in the outfitting and decoration which will turn a giant concrete conglomeration of structures into a place designed to entice people to stay as long as possible. Andwe meet the people responsible for putting the project together, and see how they co-operate to get the resort open on time. But will the public come to visit this US$2.4bn megastructure? There's no guarantee...

#20 - Icelandic Super Dam

Season 2008 - Episode 12 - 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.

#21 - Dam Busters

Season 2008 - Episode 18 - 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.

#22 - Beijing Olympic Stadium (Building Green Beijing)

Season 2008 - Episode 13 - Aired 8/5/2008

2010 environmental improvement plan in Beijing, China

#23 - Bridge Breakdown

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

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