I imagine it allows for machinery to allow the electricity to flow further than any one wind turbine could allow. Turning up the pressure in the pipe, if you will.
Yup. I think the B1M has become less technical over the years, to appeal to a wider audience. Fair enough, but I think it you're nerdy enough to be here, you can cope with a bit more detail on electricity transmission.
It's an electric transformer: it raises the relatively low-voltage electricity from the turbines to high voltage. It needs to be close to the wind turbines because transmitting low-voltage electricity over long distances is inefficient.
Simon Stevin did a lot more than just invent the decimal points, and his name is more appropriate for this project than almost every other name they could think of. He was among other things also a great and VERY famous civil engineer in the low lands. He made HUGE contributions to both mathematics, physics and engineering. Famous for his designs of fortresses, windmills, HARBOURS and also modernizing the dutch army led by Willem van Oranje. In the Netherlands he is just as famous as all the other greats in science!
And ironically, he actually didn't invent the decimal system nor the decimal notation we use today. He basically wrote a Dutch text about decimals based on obscure Greek and Latin translations of Arabic manuscripts. As for the notation, a small vertical line similar to a comma had been used by Arab and Persian mathematicians for a century, perfectly readable and useable, but this guy came up with a horrible one that looked like this: 3⓪1①4②1③5④9⑤2⑥7. Brilliant guy, but I don't know why Fred zeroed in on his work on decimals.
I've been following since the first video on this channel. And when you guys make so much great content it's hard to remember a great video besides the previous one. This is a great project hopefully more of these will go up where they fit geographically.
Here's a question, does that island land in Belgium's territory? After a quick google, It doesn't seem the island is within Belgium's waters, So does that mean the island is under international waters? Will we need regular military patrol's to keep an eye on these islands? Will there be staff permanently onsite? I wonder because if these things are powering 3.5 million homes and probably lots of businesses as well, aren't they going to need good up keep and be well protected?
The north sea has been equidistantly divided into exclusive economical zones between the countries bordering it because of the oil and gas deposits, so this island should be part of Belgian territorial waters.
You're right, it's not on Belgian territory as such. Territorial waters only extend 12 nautical miles from the shore. It is however in their Exclusive Economic Zone, which runs up to 200 nautical miles from the shore (or until it hits someone else's EEZ, as generally happens around there). In the EEZ, the state has full sovereign control over economic activities like oil and gas and, specifically, over artificial islands. The only difference is that all ships and planes have a right of passage through other countries' EEZs without needing permission and can do things like lay cables or pipelines. This is all covered in the UN Conventions on the Laws of the Seas.
@@gordon1545 Thanks, another question then, since it's in their EEZ but not in their territory, and all ships and planes have right of passage without permission, will islands like these need military patrol? Since any old boat could just rock up and shut the island down if they so felt like it?
Having worked on the London windfarm Array, building the two substation rigs, I find this a good idea, expecially as wind capture is moving ahead with the Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems floating turbine arrays.
But why exactly do we need islands for that and don’t do it at the coast/ very close to the coast? Environmental reasons since coastal regions are more active regarding animals etc?
I believe It’s a docking hub for supertankers and undersea cable connections hub. Basically a floating distribution centre (like a giant oil rig type construction on legs). Will serve as a base for servicing sea based wind turbines and there will be numerous ones in various North Sea locations.
I can't believe I didn't know this channel existed: forward-looking "what's next" projects are my favourite part of B1M. You could probably do more cross-promotion, eg the occassional mention in the video outro
The Danish island will take more time, because it’s much bigger, and will be used for research and a possible fuel hub for hydrogen powered ships. I think they will be working with creating ammonia as well, but don’t quote me on that.
It better be ready in time. From 2026 ICE cars are no longer tax deductable in Belgium. There are around 600,00 company cars in Belgium. If all these cars are to be electric, you need a lot of electricity.
I think a circular design would disperse the sea's energy better. If each identical section is shaped like stones in an archway the more force the Sea applies the stronger the circumference is. And you could still use a production line to build it so costs would be similar. Just needed the engineers to try and think outside that box.
@@ManderSeis It is relevant because in time the water will get behind the wall and then the soil will wash out. Seen it on so many concrete sea walls. Just because it looks like a lot of weight and volume to a human does not mean backfill soil is strong. The sea has relentless mass and time on its side.
These building blocks remind me of updated versions of the Mulberries used in the early days of the D-Day invasion. Better tech and more time to make them more stable, I would think.
Exactly M8 they are, I believe Engineers and architects often look at history and see what good idea's they came up with. And two Mulberry harbours were intitially constructed and towed across the channel only for one to get damaged in a storm, but they did what they were constricted to do
Great project and presentation but still since the first video i dont understand why its needed to be an island? Its a ton of concrete which is propably one of the biggest climate killers and from the animations i would think the island need to be running for s few years to just offset the carbon footprint from the constriction. So why not just use existing islands or build it on the landside doesnt make much sense to me. Even a swimming construction or more like a oil rig which has just a few points which touch the sea bed. Woould be great if you could explain those factors or the necessity to make such a big concrete structure. Great videos keep going
My thing is. I am all for renewable energy. But what happens when the wind mills get to old? Are you judt going to leave them like i have seen many others do? How is this going to affect the ecosystem in the area?
the blades will need replacing before the main structure, so after the first 20 or so years they could just replace the blades, likely with newer designs, as both drones and boats have benefited GREATLY from new blade designs, I can't help but wonder with future meta materials brought on with AI and advanced construction techniques that we'll have significantly better ways to capture wind in the future. They wouldn't let them age out and crumble though - they're key elements of today's infrastructure so losing them would be terrible unless we manage to crack fusion or something else equally game changing, and the energy from wind is somehow obsoleted, though I find that being pretty slim.
@@Fenthule i hope they do what you say. But i have family in canada that had to give some of their land to the government for these things and 20 years later the government has left it there to continue being an eye soar, and kill birds.
The farms built now are usually located at the best locations to do so. So I would think it to be unlikely for them to abandon old wind mills there. Take them down and build new ones, sure
as a belgian, I have never heared off this very interesting project. I once saw a proposition for this, but didnt know they would actually do it. Expect it to be done in 2030, 5 times over budget :p
So, where are all of the whacky environmentalists on this issue of an "energy island"? One would think that they'd be decrying the loss of sea floor habitat, etc.
Ah yes, those wacky environmentalists trying to save us from climate change, air pollution and ecosystem collapse... Some environmentalists are dogma driven, others are reality driven. Same as anywhere else. Generally, most know that losing a few hectares here and there far out in the North Sea are worth it to get us off fossil fuels - and dependence on regimes like those in Russia and Saudi Arabia - while maintaining a high standard of living.
I work in environmental science and youre right that this build has impact on the ecosystem. But the same people that work on making sure that offshore wind parks etc dont disturb the environment too much are probably also working on this. Would be interesting to know more about that tho. Its Belgium so they have to have biologists etc working with them on all of it so i wouldnt worry too much.
Yes, but it's still well inside a nation's EEZ (112km) so the nation can build what it likes and take what resources it likes, it just can't keep international traffic out.
Yeah, have fun being on that island during a north sea storm. I don't know how high they plan to make those walls but I am kind of skeptical that they can stop the really high waves during big storms.
The caissons are not a new idea, if we remember back to WW2 and those Mulberry harbours that the allies used on D-Day. I wonder if they got their idea from that??
What’s on the sea bed, that will be destroyed by this construction? The Channel is a very busy shipping lane. What preparations are made for an inevitable sometime collision?
4:22 Actually Simon Stevin wasn't the inventor of the decimal notation we now use, Bartholomaeus Pitiscus was. He wasn't even the first to use decimals (powers of 1/10). As usual in European mathematics, an Arab or Persian did it first and Stevin just introduced their thinking to a broader audience by writing Dutch instead of the Latin or Greek that Arabic and Persian texts were usually translated into. But Stevin's notation, inscribing the exponents of each decimal place value within circles next to their corresponding values, was a trash fire and was quickly replaced by Pitiscus's decimal point notation.
Maybe someone can explain this to me. I thought mainland Europe already had an interconnected power grid? Not exactly sure what these energy islands actually achieve
Power plants of every type always have substations right next to them to crank up the voltage for transmission over distances (since high voltage is much more efficient), the one current exception is off shore wind farms because there is nowhere to build the substations for them in the middle of a sea. Until now.
Could I make three points: (1) on-land wind generation is a lot cheaper/faster to create than off-shore power. (2) These "power-islands" create single massive points of failure while distributed systems, like those on land, are more resilient, in the way that the distributed nature of the internet was designed to survive massive nuclear attacks. We need to bear this in mind when we consider the dangers of some state actors, for example Russia/China and recent wars. (3) These huge schemes cement in only big players having funding, and therefore control over energy production keeping ordinary people out of the loop and money flowing to wealth.
Now I know what is an energy island. but not why is an energy island. Wind parks already have offshore high voltage substations right? what makes this different, it does make it more complex, but I cant figure out why.
Yes, the entire North Sea is actually incredibly shallow with an average depth of 90m and some areas as shallow as 8m. Around 12,000 years ago it was all dry land and people could walk between Britain, Norway and France.
Wind farms produce electricity at relatively low voltages and low voltage transmission lines lose a lot of energy. So I assume the island will receive the low voltage electricity from nearby wind farms, then run it through transformers and transmit high voltage electricity to the mainland.
You can place high energy consuming factories on the island, such as hydrogen production and data centers. I am guessing there will battery storage as well. The new Na-Ion technology sounds promising.
Lego is. They're using very large plastic blocks. If you watch the video closely, you can see how they'll snap the blocks together. Fascinating stuff...
How is the “up time” and efficiency on these open ocean bird choppers? More efficient and effective than natural gas? What do Europeans do with the blades at the end of their lifespan? In the US we stack them up in fields hoping that one day someone will come up with an effective means of recycling/reusing them.
I'm a little concerned about a remote island having such an important role in European energy. We've seen Russia increase its capabilities to disrupt and destroy European offshore pipelines and energy infrastructure and this just seems like another risky venture.
Amatures. Its so smal. If you want to know about building in the north sea you sould look @ de maasvlakte and its extention maasvlakte 2 . the poort of rotterdam build a enormus harbor in the north sea. On top of that they also build 416 GW of wind power and build a giant windmill assembly plant .
Isn't it about time to forget about the production of energy and start focusing on the storage of it? Did you know that one of the reasons Germanys CO2 production seems so low is ecause the power generators on standby (they have a large number on standby to be prepared to kick in when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing) aren't counted (a large number of them use lignite btw). We need batteries, or rather, we need batteries made by easy to come by materials that we have in abundance. Otherwise, we can just forget wind and solar and go all in for fisjon. And forget about gravity batteries, that's just stupid.
We need both. Need a baseload and storage for peak periods. We're working on both simultaneously, there's a lot of innovations around energy storage lately. One of my personal favourites is Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage or A-CAES. The one near me for instance takes an old mine and built a bunch of reservoirs above it and inside of it, then they compressed air and push it into the mine, forcing water in the bottom reservoirs to come up the top, then when power is needed the water flows down through a turbine and essentially acts like pumped hydro. The advanced models also capture the heat energy from compressing the air to increase it's efficiency further, to ALMOST be as good as traditional pumped hydro, which is our most efficient storage method we have - but done in a way that allows it to be built in many places and at scalable sizes. I have to agree "gravity batteries" are dumb though, they're just gadgetbahn.
@@Fenthule There isn't shit happening with energy storage except worthless crap like gravity energy and other completely futile attempts of solving a modern problem with stone age tools. The idiots believing wind and solar is the future destroys our environment on the altar of the climate gods, while at the same time robbing us blind!
We've been using gravity batteries literally for centuries in everything from clocks to drawbridge counterweights. Admittedly, these are much simpler and smaller than what we would need to develop, but it's more a question of scale than proving the concept. Heck, even hydroelectric dams are a large scale gravity battery. Pump the water up into the reservoir during non-peak hours and then use it to spin turbines during peak hours.
Great video, really cool projects that makes so much sense for the offshore windfarm concept, and sharing electricity between countries. I do find it misleading that you are using a picture of a nuclear powerplant at 6:23 and saying: helping everyone move away from fossil fuels. This could have been picture better in your video.
Spreading energy connection is not the best concept. A better concept is reduction of energy use and local power generation. Many local power generators (Wind, Hydro & Solar) can create redundancies that can not be done on a mega scale. Reduction of use can keep costs in check.
The better way is by using thr land in better manner like double use of land and better construction technologies. These will require fraction of the upfront costs when compared to floating cities.
This is near the area in the North Sea for the North Sea Airport. A 24x7x365 airport with 24 north/south and 24 east/west runways on the top. The Terminals along the northern edge with short stay hotels and eateries. Airport cities on the Seas that can operate 24 hours per day for both passengers and Freight. Below the runway level is where all the airport 'functionality' equipment and services for staff, passengers, and freight. The NSA will have dozens of platforms for 400m high speed trains that travel in tunnels to deliver passengers and freight to and from a 1000km radius at a speed of 400kph. This would eliminate all airports from Glasgow/Edinburgh/Dublin/Belfast/Paris/Lyon/Frankfurt/Copenhagen/Malmo etc... Everything within the 1000+km radius would fly in and out of NSA. The flights would be between the four airports in western Europe. NorthSea, West MedSea (off shore south France), East MedSea, and Baltic Sea Airport. All being off shore. All having HSR LGVs at 400kph. Anyone within the radius would travel by train to their nearest and then fly to one of the other three as well as to other Global Airports. There should be no need for airports within these airport service zones as all intercity/interregional/etc would be by actual HSR/LGVs.
As a dutchman whose birthplace was on the maps shown, I'm happy for Belgium getting this and whatnot, but I do kinda want slap our government for not being first with this. There better be a lot of dutch companies involved and/or we'd better end up with the biggest and best energy island in the North Sea or I shall personally harrumph at the state of our nation
I'm nervous about relying on offshore generation. All those cables make for juicy targets for Russian or even Chinese submarines; leaving us very vulnerable.
What will be the purpose of this Island? You forgot to tell. I have understood that the windmills transform solar-energy, captured in windpressure, that makes the blades rotate, and then transform it with the help of magnetes in de dynamo into electricity. That's what we wanted. Then you only need a cable to connect it with the users. The whole island is useless. Correct me if I'm wrong. By the way people can not create Energy. Newton's 1st law. They only can transform it or transport it by means of pieces of glowing coal, and dutch: glowing dry "tondelzwam", batteries, accu's or even H2 (rather dangerous (zepplin Hindenburg), expensive (the circus around it, is produced using fosil fuels, like this island of yours.
too costly to build in western markets where wages are already inflated to cater to our fiat currency fueled lifestyle and not to mention trillions of useless permits and so called nuclear safety regulations - which actually makes the process so much long ! The true development will be happening in China, India and now in the Middle East, as Saudis got a big fat concession from Biden to lump start their civilian nuclear program.
Imagine if they could be used as anchor points for norway style floating submerged tunnels. To daisy chain between the Uk and france/the low countries. Or between italy and croatia in the adriatic, as they too have offshore wind resources. Or uk to ireland 😊
Fred, I love your videos but please do not take shortcuts next time because now I think I will question your other videos: 00:05 The European Union building you pictured is literally the only one NOT in Belgium 02:19 King Felipe is the King of Spain. It is King Philippe (or Filip), pronounced the same way as your dead king. 04:30 Simon Stevin might have invented the decimal point. But he was a MASTER in hydraulic engineering... WINDMILLS hint hint*** I am also not sure if "Belgian" is applicable since the country didn't exist back then so Flemish or Dutch would be more fitting. But his "nationality" is not that important, just putting it out there.
And easier to connect wind farms to it. Otherwise those wind farm developers would need to arrange a cable network to the coast for each farm individually and deal with the legal hassles that causes. Here you just have the cable to the island and the connection from the island to the mainland is already there. Similar setup as is already in place on land, but is missing on the sea
As someone who thinks nuclear power is a great source of electricity, our current nuclear power plants are just too old to continue operating. The current plans are basically to keep them operating as long as deemed safe by the operators. New nuclear power plants take too long to build sadly, so solutions that can be constructed faster like wind turbines are needed.
You have to wonder WHY is the sea level rising as numerous countries including ironically Pacific Islands are filling the ocean with soil thus the sea water displaced MUST go somewhere. Where you ask well UP it is not climate increasing the sea level but humans. Did the International Community demand that an Environmental Study including effects was submitted for this project.
Aren't land reclamation projects damaging for the environment? Where are the environmentalists complaining about the damage? Is it suddenly ok to greenlit a project like this if you portrait it as "renewable energy"?
Transmitting electricity across low voltage power cables is far more damaging for the environment because electricity waste requires more power plants and more fossil fuel burning.
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Please do a video about if geothermal will be increasing its contribution in Europe or the world
Best beer comes from Bavaria!
Need part 2 and explain how that actually works
I've still got no clue on how the energy island actually functions. Seems like we got half the amount of information we need to paint a picture.
I imagine it allows for machinery to allow the electricity to flow further than any one wind turbine could allow. Turning up the pressure in the pipe, if you will.
@@redstonerelicthat's correct, but the how and why would have been nice for people that don't know that.
Yup. I think the B1M has become less technical over the years, to appeal to a wider audience. Fair enough, but I think it you're nerdy enough to be here, you can cope with a bit more detail on electricity transmission.
Same here.
It's an electric transformer: it raises the relatively low-voltage electricity from the turbines to high voltage. It needs to be close to the wind turbines because transmitting low-voltage electricity over long distances is inefficient.
Simon Stevin did a lot more than just invent the decimal points, and his name is more appropriate for this project than almost every other name they could think of. He was among other things also a great and VERY famous civil engineer in the low lands.
He made HUGE contributions to both mathematics, physics and engineering. Famous for his designs of fortresses, windmills, HARBOURS and also modernizing the dutch army led by Willem van Oranje. In the Netherlands he is just as famous as all the other greats in science!
And ironically, he actually didn't invent the decimal system nor the decimal notation we use today. He basically wrote a Dutch text about decimals based on obscure Greek and Latin translations of Arabic manuscripts. As for the notation, a small vertical line similar to a comma had been used by Arab and Persian mathematicians for a century, perfectly readable and useable, but this guy came up with a horrible one that looked like this: 3⓪1①4②1③5④9⑤2⑥7. Brilliant guy, but I don't know why Fred zeroed in on his work on decimals.
Awesome to see a video about my country!
(King Felipe made me chuckle)
As someone who has lived in Belgium, 2024 is incredibly optimistic. Projects are often slow moving.
Specifically with all those farmers and landowners in the way.
I live in Belgium like 5 min minutes away from the North Sea
Groundhogs day is one of those timeless classics.
Thank you for making a video about my country. Hopefully no delays with this project.
you know it's belguim where going have delays form NIMBY's and politics
@@alexanderangryboy Who lives in the backyard of that energy island in the North Sea?
I've been following since the first video on this channel. And when you guys make so much great content it's hard to remember a great video besides the previous one.
This is a great project hopefully more of these will go up where they fit geographically.
This video seems to be missing a lot of information - especially the 'why' and the systems that will go onto the island.
I always learn something from your videos.
Here's a question, does that island land in Belgium's territory? After a quick google, It doesn't seem the island is within Belgium's waters, So does that mean the island is under international waters? Will we need regular military patrol's to keep an eye on these islands? Will there be staff permanently onsite? I wonder because if these things are powering 3.5 million homes and probably lots of businesses as well, aren't they going to need good up keep and be well protected?
That’s a good question
The north sea has been equidistantly divided into exclusive economical zones between the countries bordering it because of the oil and gas deposits, so this island should be part of Belgian territorial waters.
You're right, it's not on Belgian territory as such. Territorial waters only extend 12 nautical miles from the shore. It is however in their Exclusive Economic Zone, which runs up to 200 nautical miles from the shore (or until it hits someone else's EEZ, as generally happens around there). In the EEZ, the state has full sovereign control over economic activities like oil and gas and, specifically, over artificial islands. The only difference is that all ships and planes have a right of passage through other countries' EEZs without needing permission and can do things like lay cables or pipelines.
This is all covered in the UN Conventions on the Laws of the Seas.
@@luipaardprint EEZs are not territorial waters - territorial waters are up to 12 nautical miles, while EEZs are up to 200 nautical miles.
@@gordon1545 Thanks, another question then, since it's in their EEZ but not in their territory, and all ships and planes have right of passage without permission, will islands like these need military patrol? Since any old boat could just rock up and shut the island down if they so felt like it?
If the construction of this Island is as fast as the Ghent railway station, we might eventually be the 37th island in the world by 2073 :p
I suppose you don't want this to float, but with sea levels rising and higher tides, those better be some pretty high walls...
Having worked on the London windfarm Array, building the two substation rigs, I find this a good idea, expecially as wind capture is moving ahead with the Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems floating turbine arrays.
But why exactly do we need islands for that and don’t do it at the coast/ very close to the coast?
Environmental reasons since coastal regions are more active regarding animals etc?
Thank you for making a video about my country. Hopefully no delays with this project.
As usual, a very enjoyable video 👍
I believe It’s a docking hub for supertankers and undersea cable connections hub. Basically a floating distribution centre (like a giant oil rig type construction on legs). Will serve as a base for servicing sea based wind turbines and there will be numerous ones in various North Sea locations.
I can't believe I didn't know this channel existed: forward-looking "what's next" projects are my favourite part of B1M. You could probably do more cross-promotion, eg the occassional mention in the video outro
The Danish island will take more time, because it’s much bigger, and will be used for research and a possible fuel hub for hydrogen powered ships. I think they will be working with creating ammonia as well, but don’t quote me on that.
It better be ready in time. From 2026 ICE cars are no longer tax deductable in Belgium. There are around 600,00 company cars in Belgium. If all these cars are to be electric, you need a lot of electricity.
I think a circular design would disperse the sea's energy better.
If each identical section is shaped like stones in an archway the more force the Sea applies the stronger the circumference is.
And you could still use a production line to build it so costs would be similar.
Just needed the engineers to try and think outside that box.
That isnt really relevant because the island will have soil as counterpressure.
@@ManderSeis It is relevant because in time the water will get behind the wall and then the soil will wash out. Seen it on so many concrete sea walls. Just because it looks like a lot of weight and volume to a human does not mean backfill soil is strong. The sea has relentless mass and time on its side.
@@windsweptfilms yeah I think the engineers working on this know what they are doing. Stay in school kid.
You are not wrong on the basic premise, it’s just not that big of a problem in this instance.
@@disklamer
Time will tell.
Me living in Belgium and learning about this now
These building blocks remind me of updated versions of the Mulberries used in the early days of the D-Day invasion. Better tech and more time to make them more stable, I would think.
Exactly M8 they are, I believe Engineers and architects often look at history and see what good idea's they came up with. And two Mulberry harbours were intitially constructed and towed across the channel only for one to get damaged in a storm, but they did what they were constricted to do
Great project and presentation but still since the first video i dont understand why its needed to be an island? Its a ton of concrete which is propably one of the biggest climate killers and from the animations i would think the island need to be running for s few years to just offset the carbon footprint from the constriction. So why not just use existing islands or build it on the landside doesnt make much sense to me. Even a swimming construction or more like a oil rig which has just a few points which touch the sea bed. Woould be great if you could explain those factors or the necessity to make such a big concrete structure. Great videos keep going
Being Belgian, I doubt this will be ready as per scheduled time .. :(
Hear hear!
Greece also has an energy island, called Revythousa.
Thanks for the content.
My thing is. I am all for renewable energy. But what happens when the wind mills get to old? Are you judt going to leave them like i have seen many others do? How is this going to affect the ecosystem in the area?
the blades will need replacing before the main structure, so after the first 20 or so years they could just replace the blades, likely with newer designs, as both drones and boats have benefited GREATLY from new blade designs, I can't help but wonder with future meta materials brought on with AI and advanced construction techniques that we'll have significantly better ways to capture wind in the future. They wouldn't let them age out and crumble though - they're key elements of today's infrastructure so losing them would be terrible unless we manage to crack fusion or something else equally game changing, and the energy from wind is somehow obsoleted, though I find that being pretty slim.
@@Fenthule i hope they do what you say. But i have family in canada that had to give some of their land to the government for these things and 20 years later the government has left it there to continue being an eye soar, and kill birds.
The farms built now are usually located at the best locations to do so. So I would think it to be unlikely for them to abandon old wind mills there. Take them down and build new ones, sure
as a belgian, I have never heared off this very interesting project.
I once saw a proposition for this, but didnt know they would actually do it.
Expect it to be done in 2030, 5 times over budget :p
Im from the future and it is said that the initial budget already tripled
So, where are all of the whacky environmentalists on this issue of an "energy island"? One would think that they'd be decrying the loss of sea floor habitat, etc.
Ah yes, those wacky environmentalists trying to save us from climate change, air pollution and ecosystem collapse...
Some environmentalists are dogma driven, others are reality driven. Same as anywhere else. Generally, most know that losing a few hectares here and there far out in the North Sea are worth it to get us off fossil fuels - and dependence on regimes like those in Russia and Saudi Arabia - while maintaining a high standard of living.
I work in environmental science and youre right that this build has impact on the ecosystem. But the same people that work on making sure that offshore wind parks etc dont disturb the environment too much are probably also working on this. Would be interesting to know more about that tho. Its Belgium so they have to have biologists etc working with them on all of it so i wouldnt worry too much.
Wow the umbrella doing something outside the box🌂☂️☔🧐
Isn't 45km offshore considered international waters?
_Arrr!_ 🏴☠
Yes, but it's still well inside a nation's EEZ (112km) so the nation can build what it likes and take what resources it likes, it just can't keep international traffic out.
It seems a very expensive and environmentally damaging way of setting up what is (as far as I can tell) the renewables equivalent of an oil rig.
Thanks for the video!
Yeah, have fun being on that island during a north sea storm. I don't know how high they plan to make those walls but I am kind of skeptical that they can stop the really high waves during big storms.
It's nice to see actual football pitches used to express the size of something big!
This would be a awesome build to film on site during construction. If you could get the permissions
The caissons are not a new idea, if we remember back to WW2 and those Mulberry harbours that the allies used on D-Day. I wonder if they got their idea from that??
What’s on the sea bed, that will be destroyed by this construction? The Channel is a very busy shipping lane. What preparations are made for an inevitable sometime collision?
4:22 Actually Simon Stevin wasn't the inventor of the decimal notation we now use, Bartholomaeus Pitiscus was. He wasn't even the first to use decimals (powers of 1/10). As usual in European mathematics, an Arab or Persian did it first and Stevin just introduced their thinking to a broader audience by writing Dutch instead of the Latin or Greek that Arabic and Persian texts were usually translated into. But Stevin's notation, inscribing the exponents of each decimal place value within circles next to their corresponding values, was a trash fire and was quickly replaced by Pitiscus's decimal point notation.
super cool that I have done some work on this project
Maybe someone can explain this to me. I thought mainland Europe already had an interconnected power grid? Not exactly sure what these energy islands actually achieve
Hubs for wind farms.
Power plants of every type always have substations right next to them to crank up the voltage for transmission over distances (since high voltage is much more efficient), the one current exception is off shore wind farms because there is nowhere to build the substations for them in the middle of a sea. Until now.
Brilliant!!
Could I make three points: (1) on-land wind generation is a lot cheaper/faster to create than off-shore power. (2) These "power-islands" create single massive points of failure while distributed systems, like those on land, are more resilient, in the way that the distributed nature of the internet was designed to survive massive nuclear attacks. We need to bear this in mind when we consider the dangers of some state actors, for example Russia/China and recent wars. (3) These huge schemes cement in only big players having funding, and therefore control over energy production keeping ordinary people out of the loop and money flowing to wealth.
Now I know what is an energy island. but not why is an energy island. Wind parks already have offshore high voltage substations right? what makes this different, it does make it more complex, but I cant figure out why.
I love this channel. Very interesting and I always learn something
Very interesting!
Will they use Sahara sand?
Is the north sea so shallow in this area that they are "filling" the site for foundations? (honest question)
Yes, the entire North Sea is actually incredibly shallow with an average depth of 90m and some areas as shallow as 8m. Around 12,000 years ago it was all dry land and people could walk between Britain, Norway and France.
@@krashd Wow, that's interesting, and it makes sense, thank you for the answer, had nearly forgotten about this xD
The future is land recovery from the sea.
At the expense of losing sea front land when water levels rise due to water displacement from every artificial island that is built!
Why is an island required? Is it for battery storage of the wind farms?
Wind farms produce electricity at relatively low voltages and low voltage transmission lines lose a lot of energy. So I assume the island will receive the low voltage electricity from nearby wind farms, then run it through transformers and transmit high voltage electricity to the mainland.
You can place high energy consuming factories on the island, such as hydrogen production and data centers. I am guessing there will battery storage as well. The new Na-Ion technology sounds promising.
Nice how you put Slovenian parlament building in. 6:28 🙃
Which company's are building the energy island and with what materials?
Lego is. They're using very large plastic blocks. If you watch the video closely, you can see how they'll snap the blocks together. Fascinating stuff...
Should they be putting square edges in the north sea? And why not take advantage of the wave energy hitting the structure?
seems like i'm an undersea cable now, nice 6:00
How is the “up time” and efficiency on these open ocean bird choppers? More efficient and effective than natural gas? What do Europeans do with the blades at the end of their lifespan? In the US we stack them up in fields hoping that one day someone will come up with an effective means of recycling/reusing them.
What is the environmental cost of building these islands?
Looks very similar to the Phoenix breakwaters that were used to build the Mulberry Harbours June 1944.
I bet they are using turbines below to harness tidal power.
In the middle of the busiest sea lane on the planet? I hope they succeed and there're no misshaps after it's built!
How much co2 will it take to build all these islands?
I'm a little concerned about a remote island having such an important role in European energy. We've seen Russia increase its capabilities to disrupt and destroy European offshore pipelines and energy infrastructure and this just seems like another risky venture.
It would need missile defense capabilities
I don't see the difference with any other piece of infrastructure. They are all vulnerable and need proper protection.
I think it means security will be tight so that’s a good thing
Russia needs to go.
The US Gov't destroyed the pipeline
Four megatons? A drop in the ocean.
Does the energy used on construction somehow stored in the island to be transmitted back to where it was built???
Yes, they put it into little boxes and float them to market.
Amatures. Its so smal. If you want to know about building in the north sea you sould look @ de maasvlakte and its extention maasvlakte 2 . the poort of rotterdam build a enormus harbor in the north sea. On top of that they also build 416 GW of wind power and build a giant windmill assembly plant .
why not install off shore nuclear power stations?
Isn't it about time to forget about the production of energy and start focusing on the storage of it? Did you know that one of the reasons Germanys CO2 production seems so low is ecause the power generators on standby (they have a large number on standby to be prepared to kick in when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing) aren't counted (a large number of them use lignite btw). We need batteries, or rather, we need batteries made by easy to come by materials that we have in abundance. Otherwise, we can just forget wind and solar and go all in for fisjon. And forget about gravity batteries, that's just stupid.
We need both. Need a baseload and storage for peak periods. We're working on both simultaneously, there's a lot of innovations around energy storage lately. One of my personal favourites is Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage or A-CAES. The one near me for instance takes an old mine and built a bunch of reservoirs above it and inside of it, then they compressed air and push it into the mine, forcing water in the bottom reservoirs to come up the top, then when power is needed the water flows down through a turbine and essentially acts like pumped hydro. The advanced models also capture the heat energy from compressing the air to increase it's efficiency further, to ALMOST be as good as traditional pumped hydro, which is our most efficient storage method we have - but done in a way that allows it to be built in many places and at scalable sizes. I have to agree "gravity batteries" are dumb though, they're just gadgetbahn.
@@Fenthule There isn't shit happening with energy storage except worthless crap like gravity energy and other completely futile attempts of solving a modern problem with stone age tools. The idiots believing wind and solar is the future destroys our environment on the altar of the climate gods, while at the same time robbing us blind!
We've been using gravity batteries literally for centuries in everything from clocks to drawbridge counterweights. Admittedly, these are much simpler and smaller than what we would need to develop, but it's more a question of scale than proving the concept.
Heck, even hydroelectric dams are a large scale gravity battery. Pump the water up into the reservoir during non-peak hours and then use it to spin turbines during peak hours.
I wonder how such a small nation grew so rich and advanced...
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein... small is best.
Colonization
@@anonymousinfinido2540 Yeah I'm pretty sure King Leopold and friends stole most of that.
@@at0mly hmm yup
@@at0mly Belgium was already rich before that tho.
6:27 Ah yes, because no competition always leads to new innovation.
It does though. It's a myth that you need competition to have innovation. There are endless examples that disprove it. Look at CERN.
your show is too short to have 2 commercials !
Great video, really cool projects that makes so much sense for the offshore windfarm concept, and sharing electricity between countries. I do find it misleading that you are using a picture of a nuclear powerplant at 6:23 and saying: helping everyone move away from fossil fuels. This could have been picture better in your video.
I believe that that is actually the coal-fired Sofia Iztok Power Plant.
@@TheMedievalArcher I see, I was not aware that this powerplant, did have cooling towers. I must therefore ask to be excused.
@@nielsfs A lot of fossil fueled powerplants have cooling towers. Most, in fact.
Spreading energy connection is not the best concept. A better concept is reduction of energy use and local power generation. Many local power generators (Wind, Hydro & Solar) can create redundancies that can not be done on a mega scale. Reduction of use can keep costs in check.
Yes, windmills in the middle of dense cities. Brilliant...
@@stephensaines7100 - have you seen wind power stations that are designed to take advantage of higher wind caused by building height?
The better way is by using thr land in better manner like double use of land and better construction technologies. These will require fraction of the upfront costs when compared to floating cities.
Building right in the middle in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Disaster waiting to happen!
The Dogger banks are getting repopulated ten thousand years after the flood.
This is near the area in the North Sea for the North Sea Airport. A 24x7x365 airport with 24 north/south and 24 east/west runways on the top.
The Terminals along the northern edge with short stay hotels and eateries. Airport cities on the Seas that can operate 24 hours per day for both passengers and Freight.
Below the runway level is where all the airport 'functionality' equipment and services for staff, passengers, and freight.
The NSA will have dozens of platforms for 400m high speed trains that travel in tunnels to deliver passengers and freight to and from a 1000km radius at a speed of 400kph. This would eliminate all airports from Glasgow/Edinburgh/Dublin/Belfast/Paris/Lyon/Frankfurt/Copenhagen/Malmo etc...
Everything within the 1000+km radius would fly in and out of NSA.
The flights would be between the four airports in western Europe.
NorthSea, West MedSea (off shore south France), East MedSea, and Baltic Sea Airport. All being off shore. All having HSR LGVs at 400kph. Anyone within the radius would travel by train to their nearest and then fly to one of the other three as well as to other Global Airports.
There should be no need for airports within these airport service zones as all intercity/interregional/etc would be by actual HSR/LGVs.
nah pass
Building near tons and tons of nerve gas bombs on the sea bed???
best beer? thats a joke LMAO
german american here
Anyone with American blood wouldn't recognise a real beer if it poked them in the eye, and even German blood can't offset such a handicap. Soz 🤣
As a dutchman whose birthplace was on the maps shown, I'm happy for Belgium getting this and whatnot, but I do kinda want slap our government for not being first with this. There better be a lot of dutch companies involved and/or we'd better end up with the biggest and best energy island in the North Sea or I shall personally harrumph at the state of our nation
I'm nervous about relying on offshore generation. All those cables make for juicy targets for Russian or even Chinese submarines; leaving us very vulnerable.
American subs is mabey a better answer!!!
And Martians. Be scared, be very scared. Run away and hide!
By 2030 Russia will be neutralised and China will never be our enemy unless the US are stupid enough to keep poking it.
How many artificial islands will it take before water displacement causes flooding of low lands World wide?
WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES STILL HAVE NOT LEARNED FROM THE ENGERY CRISIS! INVEST IN THORIUM!
sooo we have a mexican king now? guess with all the stuff passing through antwerp it kinda fits
What will be the purpose of this Island? You forgot to tell. I have understood that the windmills transform solar-energy, captured in windpressure, that makes the blades rotate, and then transform it with the help of magnetes in de dynamo into electricity. That's what we wanted.
Then you only need a cable to connect it with the users. The whole island is useless. Correct me if I'm wrong.
By the way people can not create Energy. Newton's 1st law. They only can transform it or transport it by means of pieces of glowing coal, and dutch: glowing dry "tondelzwam", batteries, accu's or even H2 (rather dangerous (zepplin Hindenburg), expensive (the circus around it, is produced using fosil fuels, like this island of yours.
Come on, this channel is better than measuring things in football pitches. You can do better than that.
Just make nuclear power plants... wtf are our politicians doing??
too costly to build in western markets where wages are already inflated to cater to our fiat currency fueled lifestyle and not to mention trillions of useless permits and so called nuclear safety regulations - which actually makes the process so much long !
The true development will be happening in China, India and now in the Middle East, as Saudis got a big fat concession from Biden to lump start their civilian nuclear program.
Nice but when there is no wind back up power supply is needed!
It's off shore, why would there be no wind?
Imagine if they could be used as anchor points for norway style floating submerged tunnels. To daisy chain between the Uk and france/the low countries. Or between italy and croatia in the adriatic, as they too have offshore wind resources. Or uk to ireland 😊
I strongly do not agree. That beer is everything but not tasty. 🇸🇰🕊🍀🧑🌾🧑🌾🧑🌾
Fred, I love your videos but please do not take shortcuts next time because now I think I will question your other videos:
00:05 The European Union building you pictured is literally the only one NOT in Belgium
02:19 King Felipe is the King of Spain. It is King Philippe (or Filip), pronounced the same way as your dead king.
04:30 Simon Stevin might have invented the decimal point. But he was a MASTER in hydraulic engineering... WINDMILLS hint hint*** I am also not sure if "Belgian" is applicable since the country didn't exist back then so Flemish or Dutch would be more fitting. But his "nationality" is not that important, just putting it out there.
What about the ecological destruction caused when building this project?
Things mf do just just because they don't accept that nuclear is awesome.
I don't get it. They act as relays? What do they actually do?
As a place to put transformers
There will be produced hydrogen, when the windmills produce more energy than what the grid needs.
Maybe eventually for hydrogen production yes, but mainly to transform the electricity to extremely high DC voltage, to make transport more efficient.
And easier to connect wind farms to it. Otherwise those wind farm developers would need to arrange a cable network to the coast for each farm individually and deal with the legal hassles that causes. Here you just have the cable to the island and the connection from the island to the mainland is already there. Similar setup as is already in place on land, but is missing on the sea
The connections to the other energy islands are a nice bonus for providing an additional route to distribute surplus energy among countries.
And Belgium shutting down their nuclear power plants. What a good example of energy :P
As someone who thinks nuclear power is a great source of electricity, our current nuclear power plants are just too old to continue operating. The current plans are basically to keep them operating as long as deemed safe by the operators. New nuclear power plants take too long to build sadly, so solutions that can be constructed faster like wind turbines are needed.
You have to wonder WHY is the sea level rising as numerous countries including ironically Pacific Islands are filling the ocean with soil thus the sea water displaced MUST go somewhere. Where you ask well UP it is not climate increasing the sea level but humans. Did the International Community demand that an Environmental Study including effects was submitted for this project.
The Danish one in the North Sea(another one will be built in the Baltic sea) should be finished in 2028.
Aren't land reclamation projects damaging for the environment? Where are the environmentalists complaining about the damage? Is it suddenly ok to greenlit a project like this if you portrait it as "renewable energy"?
Transmitting electricity across low voltage power cables is far more damaging for the environment because electricity waste requires more power plants and more fossil fuel burning.
The uk has 26 gw already from offshore wind.
BUT, will it be cheaper electricity than coal?