rises the biggest concrete structure a plan

the Three Gorges Dam is over two kilometers long

and 60 stories tool

it has taken forty thousand workers over 70 years to build

when it fully comes online this one down

will produce over 20,000 megawatts how

twice as much as cool the nuclear power stations in Britain put together

it is the pinnacle damn engineering

home the Three Gorges Dam

owes its success to 5 landmark times

in the heart it leaves lies a major technological innovation

allowed engineers to build and big data

one by one traveling up the scale will reveal the incredible stories behind

the structure

on

and the inventions that allowed them to produce

evermore power

6 ingeniously forward from being

to bigger into the world

things

I'm

here I'm

them

I'm

China is one fastest-growing economies on

to fuel the need to mix ever accelerating industry nation needs more

much in this would be provided by an enormous

down spanning the mighty Yangtze River in central China

called the Three Gorges

our cameras have been granted privileged

access to capture this amazing feat of engineering

in its full glory

the

before they could start building 3 largest the Chinese first had to divert

the Yangtze

River which is almost two kilometers wide and move

over a million people from the area about to be flood

Three Gorges Dam is the biggest hydro-electric project in the world

this damn news 28 million cubic meters a cock maybe one way to look who's to say

saw solid hyper concrete a meter diameter

right around the world lot a concrete

the chinese authorities think it's worth the effort as the Three Gorges Dam will

provide clean

and cheap electric power to millions

to understand how the Three Gorges Dam can produce so much

we need to travel back in time

to nineteenth-century Britain

and a modest stream in Northumberland the power behind the world's

first hydroelectric dam

in the eighteen hundreds while Britain is at the heart of the Industrial

Revolution

this house is the last word in modern lived

it belongs to Lord Armstrong an entrepreneur

and obsessive invent he has fitted his house with state-of-the-art technology

including central heating and mechanical devices that drive elevators

laundry machines and roasting space

but there is one place in the house where modern technology

is sadly lacking as historian and Tony Burke

explains this was Armstrong's

real pride and joy the picture gallery for wonderful Victorian paintings

bit gloomy even in daylight what he really wanted to do

was to bring his guests here in the evening by the flicker candle light

nothing really worked

what Armstrong needs

our electric lights and away to power them

how do you generate electricity that something was known for

fifty years was Michael Faraday a given the secret you move

a magnet in relation to call on work bundle set appear

so how it might work now

here we are here we've got to magnets

on the end this disc and right here is a call love one now

if I make this spin mission to that we should

make electricity on

yet getting reading on a meter we are definitely

taking elect every time the magnet some

this moved past oil generated tiny

electric handsome copper wire make a lot of electricity

you need much bigger Kate and this is what Armstrong board

Thomson vortex turbine agran peace equipment

the thompson turbine needs a huge volume of fast-flowing water to drive the road

Lord Armstrong has available

is a tiny stream trickling through his estate

what he needed was this a lotta water

hud's again this on a small stream a

built a dam mom

Armstrong builds and Perth wall nearly ten meters high

which turns history into a deeply

this massive water pushing down increases the pressure at the moment

Armstrong channels this high pressure water down through a pipe

to the bottom now

he injected into a Thomson to her by with Tara

spins the world

this in turn road takes a shot lead to a generator

the produces four thousand wats electricity

for Armstrong this is only the first step to enlightenment

now he needs to get the electricity from the turbine house at the bottom it is

Dom

all the way to his picture gallery over a kilometer away

Armstrong connect two strands of the copper wire to the generator

to carry the electricity up to as much all in all

uses five tons of copper to power

a single like gold

but he has created a world-first house

let's by the power above water ok

on the other side of the planet in central China the Three Gorges Dam

takes Lord Armstrong's concept to the extreme British engineer Robin Charlwood

has been working on the time since 2003

and is still impressed by its scale

wherein

wanna 3 very large powerhouse Three Gorges Project

in this seven hundred meter long from here

you can see 40

large turbine generators then

me on this one kilometer away second

house then be on that one yet another powerhouse

to be underground at the Rock the Bogside their each one of these

generators cost about $50 million dollars

good idea at this scale this project damn damn damn

have one generator Three Gorges has 32

together they produced by million times more power than

them

to drive them the chinese have harnessed the power

the mighty Yangtze River in the reservoir behind the dam

the river now rises up to 60 stories about

river

water is channeled down gigantic concrete choose to walk the generators

here the torrent water hits the turbines and makes

spent

this motion is in turn transferred to the rotary general

this is fitted with a massive magnets which moved past copper coils in the

casing

to generate electricity

just wanna these machines makes as much

electricity as a small nuclear power plant

132 generators together

produced enough power for $60 million Chinese

this project is setting a new benchmark in the international hydro-electric

industry

it's almost twice the size of the next largest project

it out Brazil cause is only the first a whole series that make it at

are under construction here in China

back in 1878 dead and I'm showed that even the smallest

dream can be harnessed to produce electricity

but to generate power on a larger scale engineers had to wrestle with bigger

returns

to build a dam that could produce a 128 make

once French engineers had to persuade the raging

Dordogne river to run courts

France in 1940

the outbreak of the First World War plunged the country into a deep

energy crisis with that cold feels occupied by the germans

the French are forced to import coal from abroad

to feed their power plants and keep the country

going so after the war they decide to boost the nation's power supply

with electricity from a hydro-electric dam but building a concrete dam in the

fast-flowing Dordogne river

presents quite a challenge and this is all a mighty river Dordogne

here on the beach now you call

just Paul concrete in the Middle River they wanted their damn

here but not to get one damn they had to build three

for civil a temperate damn goes in here

what's called a copper damn that stops the river flowing

be cut to stop it is gonna go over the top unless you do something different

bill

a diversion channel right round at and then

to stop it backing back up again you put in a second cofferdam

he annual spacing between which you can drain

and its there you can build your main damn

at the door died

engineers blasts two tunnels through the rock to carry the diverted river

they drop steel cages containing

rocks into the river to make that temporary coffered up

then they strengthen it with concrete

now is the river behind the dam begins to rise

it drains through the tunnel

to stop this water from backing up the engine is built a second cofferdam

once the water drains from the river bed between the dams

it leaves a perfect Dreisbach to build remains

was completely engineers discovered when the into the central part

that actually the riverbed was solid will good bills

straighten top

layer by layer giant concrete structure

rises 30 stories up from the river

the engineers then close the diversion tunnels

and allow the reservoir to fill up and submerge the coffer dams

their job done

finally they can open the gates to the turbines

and stop producing Tricity

when the Marais aged I'm is finished

it produces a 128 megawatts enough to help power train line to only all

and supply the city of Paris 400 kilometers away

with electricity

the Yangtze River is over 6,000 kilometers long

and in places several kilometers wide

the biggest River in China it presents enormous logistical challenges to the

dam engineers

as the Yangtze

rises behind the Three Gorges Dam it will flood over a hundred and fifty

thousand acres of land along its banks

so the chinese have to relocate over a million people from the land behind the

time

thousands of new houses have to be built for the displaced citizens to live it

then the engineers can begin damn River

wrist and here among some in the rocks and these

precast concrete blocks that were used to tree

the coffer dams to control a river during the construction

the Three Gorges Project controlling the river

to allow the construction of this huge project was clearly a major undertaking

and with the Yangtze rivers 1 largest rivers in the world

very fast very deep so building is confidant's and

to allow safe construction was a major operation the Chinese claim that this

was the largest most difficult diversion

ever undertaken for hydro-electric project I'm

you look at the scale of it they were absolutely right this was huge

you

the engine is begin work on a series of stone cofferdam

to block off part of the axe was leaving a channel open for the rest in the river

to flow through

they build the first two sections of the main down on the drive reverb

then they dump tons of earth into the river

and on top of it build another cofferdam this time

from concrete

with the river held in check behind its they can finally bill

the last section at the bath

then they must remove the cofferdam

so that water can flow through the turbines and the main to

having built such substantial cover them structures it's a major challenge how to

remove these things

so in the in the earliest stages where they were built to

very large rocks like this then that could be handled with

big X greater equipment relatively conventional

but in the final stage where they had a solid concrete wall to remove

this required some serious innovation up

unlike the cofferdam in my rage the Chinese version is Jim told to simply

leave it in place

so the Chinese engineers build it leaving holes for explosive charges

on the 6th June 2006

they fill them with 290 tons dynamite and hold their breath

up

what has taken months to build takes only seconds to destroy

as the cofferdam crumbles and unleashes the water stored behind

you

it's the final test for the Three Gorges Dam

and it holds

back in 1935 them are aged I'm proved that engineers could divert rivers to