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Watch Power Trip The Story of Energy Disasters PBS, Season 2 Episode 2 on Dailymotion (2026).
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00:30Energy enabled many good things. It made us more comfortable. It made us safer.
00:33And it is a solution to many of the world's challenges.
00:36But energy, because it has great power, also can be very dangerous.
00:40And the story of energy includes a lot of disasters over time.
00:44These are tough industries.
00:46There's often dramatic loss of human life.
00:50Studying, learning about remembering energy disasters is absolutely vital to more responsible and greater and greater use of energy.
00:59With every disaster, we learn things.
01:01As each failure occurs, we get more insight into how failures might occur.
01:06We will always rely on energy. For that reason, we have to continue to carefully manage it.
01:12Energy can be produced safely.
01:14The danger of it is why it's a highly regulated industry.
01:17But when things go wrong, there's always lessons to be learned.
01:24To understand ourselves and each other,
01:29we must understand the force behind the global events that shape the world.
01:38This is Power Trip, the story of energy.
01:54Earth is full of untapped energy.
01:57Hidden deep underground.
01:59Or in a waterfall.
02:01Or disguised in a cool breeze.
02:06Our living planet makes its pulse heard throughout history with enormous displays of energy.
02:12We often call these natural disasters.
02:18Our modern energy has allowed us to save countless lives in response to these disasters.
02:24But this was not the case for much of human history.
02:30In the pre-industrial times, life was very hard and people didn't live very long.
02:35Every weather event was potentially a killer.
02:39Imagine a volcano in an era where you don't have electricity or clean water.
02:51There's definitely a sense of traditions holding onto the culture and the history in Iceland.
02:56Because it was very difficult to make a life on this rock in the North Atlantic.
03:17I think there's something noble about the fact that we've managed to survive on this island for a thousand years.
03:25This is a replica of a house in the age of settlement, so about a millennium ago.
03:31They made their houses out of sod and grew grass on top as basically a form of insulation to keep
03:37warm.
03:39Icelanders have, throughout the ages, relied a lot on our natural resources.
03:44Iceland was settled in the 9th century.
03:46Settlers clear-cut the forest to make pasture land.
03:49They burnt the wood for energy.
03:51As the country was deforested, the soil was degraded and we didn't have that source of energy anymore.
03:57Then people would use either peat or actually dried lamb dung as fuel, as a source of heat, and also
04:05of a delightful aroma.
04:07As an island, I think we have a rich tradition of just making use of the resources that we have
04:14around us.
04:15Because oftentimes there's just not a plan B.
04:21Iceland is an amazing story from an energy perspective.
04:24Isolated so far away, living on the edge of disaster at all times.
04:31Our environment is pretty threatening, whether it be volcanoes or glaciers or raging rivers.
04:41We move merrily along in the light of natural disasters.
04:48In Iceland, people live side by side with some of Earth's most powerful displays of energy.
04:55The saga of Iceland is both a lesson in the rewards a society can reap from the resources around them,
05:02as well as a sober reminder that nature can give or destroy.
05:10The current eruption that we have in Fagretelsfeld is of the tourist variety.
05:15It's an attraction.
05:16You know, people like to come and visit it.
05:18Nobody is in great danger.
05:19It's not causing any economic disruption.
05:35Magnitude and significance, the largest eruption in Iceland was in Laika-Gigar.
05:43Laika took place in 1783 to 1884 and lasted for eight months.
05:48Volcanoes like Laika released a significant amount of fluorine into the atmosphere in the gas.
05:55There was a famine associated with it, called the Moduhardente,
05:59it means the haze famine, because all the noxious gases caused fluoride poisoning and grasses.
06:05And at that time, in Iceland, the livelihood was the livestock.
06:09And they basically starved there.
06:12One quarter of the Iceland population died not from direct contact with the volcano, but because of famine.
06:19People had to resort to mass graves, because they were just too weak to bury the dead.
06:28The Laika eruption was really the first time in Iceland's history that this island that people knew vaguely about in
06:34the 18th century
06:35was on everyone's minds and lips.
06:39The effects of that eruption were so devastating that they were felt in Japan and Egypt.
06:46Europe was under a cold spell for two years.
06:49There was ice in the Gulf of Mexico.
06:52This was like a climate apocalypse.
06:56Most of the Northern Hemisphere was covered by a haze, or what people referred to in those days as a
07:02dry fog.
07:03Benzema Franklin was in Paris, in France.
07:06One of the things he realized is that dry fog was actually reducing the amount of incoming solar radiation.
07:13And the way he demonstrated that is actually he took a magnifying glass.
07:17And then he focused the solar beam on the piece of paper, and as you'd normally do when you want
07:22to ignite it.
07:23But he couldn't ignite it.
07:26Today, when tour guys drive through the lava, they point to it and say, this is where the French Revolution
07:31started.
07:32When Marie Antoinette told the population, let them eat cake, she was referring to the price of bread, but no
07:38one could afford it.
07:40And you could trace some of that to the eruption of Laika.
07:43When the climate changed, it caused crop failures across Europe.
07:48The French Revolution probably would have happened, but it would not have happened maybe at that particular time.
07:55When you go to that lava, you should thank it for the birth of modern democracy.
08:01The Laki eruption in 1783 caused the death of one quarter of Iceland's human population, and the fog covered much
08:11of Europe.
08:12The following winter was one of intense cold, lizards, and heavy rain.
08:17An untold number of people froze to death.
08:21It was a natural disaster amplified by the lack of modern energy resources to aid those in need.
08:29And at the same time Laki's deadly haze spread across the globe, scientists and inventors in Great Britain were making
08:38the breakthroughs that paved the way to our modern energy.
08:44When the Laki volcano erupted in 1783, energy at the time was still primarily biomass.
08:50If you look at France, they had a lot of falling water, so they used water mills and water wheels
08:54to do their industrial work.
08:56And in the Netherlands, they had flowing air, so they used wind wheels or windmills to grind grain or cut
09:02wood or polish glass.
09:04So you look at each country and they used the resources they had, whether it's the wind in the Netherlands,
09:09the falling water in France, or the coal in the UK.
09:17At the end of Elizabeth's reign, England is a little peripheral country on the edges of Europe.
09:24By 1870, it's the richest, most powerful country in the world.
09:29How does this happen?
09:30Coal.
09:34One of the questions with this is, could we have done what we've done in the last 200 years by
09:38cutting down trees and relying on getting whale oil from the South Atlantic?
09:44Nowhere near, you could not sustain an industrial revolution just using wood or whale oil.
09:51Coal was important because of the intensity of the energy which you could extract from it.
09:57People realise just the quantity of coal that they're sitting on.
10:01You know, there's surveys across the country, it produces amazing maps of the whole of the UK, and they're really
10:06just saying, wow, I mean, we can keep mining this for a very, very, very long time.
10:10Britain is really a lump of coal in the North Sea.
10:14Once we get the exploitation of coal, dramatic things happen.
10:20Britain surges ahead of other countries, it becomes vastly more wealthy.
10:24In fact, scholars call it the Great Divergence, because Britain leaps ahead and is able to then build these trade
10:30networks all around the world that further enrich it and empower it as a giant empire.
10:39But here is the sign and symbol of the new order, steam and smoke.
10:44There is power behind it, and behind the power is coal.
10:51When you were powering ships or vehicles with steam, you obviously need the best coal.
10:58The Welsh coal in particular was the best steam-generated coal in the world, particularly in West Wales, where you
11:04had the anthracite coal, which is the harder coal nearly diamond.
11:09We kept the Royal Navy going, the Titanic had Welsh coal on it when it sunk.
11:16The rest of the UK thinks that all Welsh people were singing miners, you know, playing rugby on the weekend
11:22and what have you, but it is a huge thing.
11:24At one time, three-quarters of the population was either directly or indirectly connected with the coal industry.
11:32When the coal industry is actually at its height in the UK in 1913, there's 1.1 million coal miners.
11:41These areas and their communities and their people gave a very significant advantage to the economy at great cost to
11:50themselves.
11:59If you drive around Wales, you'll see statues and these plaques, memorials to the people who died in the Welsh
12:07mining disasters.
12:12These memorials are a way to honor the people who died, trying to lift the economy out of poverty, to
12:18lift their friends and neighbors and family members up in the world.
12:21And that's why we need to remember them.
12:26The U.S. government defines a mining disaster as one in which five or more people died.
12:35By this metric, there have been hundreds of coal mining disasters in the industry's history.
12:43Disasters continue to occur today in some parts of the world still reliant on coal.
12:50In the early days of the industry, it was the people of Wales who took on much of the burden
12:56of learning from mining disasters.
13:00There's around 152 disasters in Wales over the last 150 years, from about 1856 right through to the 1990s.
13:11In many of these Welsh mining towns, like Sengeneth, the mine is the biggest employer and the central piece of
13:17the local industry.
13:18And so when you have a disaster, not only does it really upend the local economy, it kills neighbors and
13:24friends and family members and colleagues.
13:27The worst disaster was in 1913, which was at the peak of while South Wales was exported the same year.
13:35439 people died in a single incident.
13:38I don't think anybody really knows, but they think it was a spark ignited from a storm.
13:45Our coal is very gassy.
13:47Each seam has got its own gas content built into the coal, so as you mine the coal, it releases
13:52the gas.
13:53And I mean, all you need then is a spark and bang.
13:57Half the pit got wiped out.
14:01Not just from the initial explosion, but from the after damp, which is basically carbon monoxide.
14:07So the majority of the people were actually suffocated to death underground.
14:11Down to 12-year-old, that's the starting age.
14:14Then up into the 60s, still working underground.
14:24I don't think that seeing anything really recovered since then.
14:27I don't think that seeing anything really recovered since then.
14:27You've still got that feeling that something awful happen to you.
14:40Les hommes qui ont mort, ils n'ont jamais été oubliés.
14:43Le Valle n'aurait pas ici si il n'aurait pas le corps.
14:46C'est tout ce qui concerne le Valle.
14:49Je veux dire, c'était un pire de travail en 1900 et il s'enclosait en 1928.
14:56Il s'enclosait seulement 28 ans, mais il s'enclosait à tuer 500 hommes quand il s'ouvre.
15:02William Harris, qui était mon grand-fâet, il y a là après l'explosion.
15:08Mon grand-fâet était le seul à survivre du l'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
15:11'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un.
15:12Il a survivre-t-un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
15:15'un d'un d'un d'un, ets-un d'un d'un.
15:23Il s'enclosait pas le plus.
15:24Il s'est très difficile, car on ne pas longtemps après les disasteraux,
15:27on a semblé, car on a commencé la guerre première.
15:30Et bien sûr, le premier jour du l'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
15:33'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un.
15:34Donc on a fallé à insignificance.
15:37Mais, vous savez, pas maintenant.
15:39On a fait notre chemin de retour.
15:44Le prix qui a été payé pour coal, il doit toujours être remarquable.
15:57Il est toujours important de vérifier les raisons pour des disasters,
16:01wherever that disaster is, after every major explosion since the 1850s anyway,
16:07il y a toujours un enquiré à eux,
16:09et qu'ils déjaient en détail sur ce qui a fait.
16:12Donc, à l'aider, vous pouvez apprendre quelque chose pour le futur.
16:17C'est ce qu'ils avaient fait l'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
16:20'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
16:23'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
16:25'un d'un d'un.
16:30Donc, quand il est travaillé en détail, il va mettre ça sur sa tête.
16:32Sur le fronte de son cap, il y a un lamp de pegue et ball,
16:36ce qui est ennitant un lamp de feuillet en basique,
16:39et les tabacotiers seuls sont intéressants car ils seuls ont d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un
16:43d'un d'un,
16:44le coller a travaillé, ou des choses comme ça.
16:49Donc, il y a de l'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d
16:51'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un d'un.
16:52Ce n'est probablement le miner ideal, si vous connaissez le monde.
16:56Il a fait des blocs en basique, il a fait des blocs en basique,
17:00il a fait des blocs orange dans les seules,
17:03sur son boulet il a un chelmure,
17:05avec les lampes qui seules sur.
17:07Euprotecteurs, eye protecteurs et aussi,
17:10une poteche bleue autour de son cul.
17:13Il a encore des tabacotiers.
17:20En 1961, on pensait,
17:22qu'il y a mis tout ce qui résumé.
17:24Mais au final du industrie,
17:26on a eu un explosif de Tauwakolri,
17:28on a eu un explosif de Six Bels,
17:29on a eu un explosif de Lewis Merthyr,
17:31on a eu un explosif de Cambrian.
17:33Tout est toujours se situé.
17:38Un désastre de la vie
17:39parce que l'industrie n'a jamais regardé
17:42la montagne sur des montages
17:43comme un problème.
17:45Quand ils produisent la coel,
17:47ils ont de trouver quelque chose
17:48à mettre le bâton,
17:49donc beaucoup de la chose est en fait sur la montagne.
17:53Maintenant, le 7 de la cléon d'Abervan
17:55était un de nombre de cléon d'un de la cléon d'un de Merthyr Vale
17:58et pour quelque chose,
18:00qui a été formé au premier, a mis le dessus sur une stream.
18:03Les cléons étaient sur la side du bâle.
18:05Le cléon d'un de la cléon d'un bâle.
18:08Entre les deux, il y avait la cléon d'Abervan.
18:12En octobre 1966, à une heure de 9h,
18:17le cléon d'un de la malle.
18:18La plupart de la cléon d'un bâle et se dérouillait au pâle.
18:23Pansglass était la scola local d'un premier.
18:26Et pour des generations, tous les familles de village
18:28l'a envoyait leurs enfants là.
18:29Trois cléons ont disparu,
18:31buried sous 60 000 tonnes de cléon.
18:35Quand je reviens sur les pâles et regardais,
18:38c'était horrible.
18:40Vous connaissez que personne n'aurait pu y aller de la cléon d'un sommet.
27:24Sous-titrage ST' 51
29:38aujourd'hui, c'est probablement le pire de l'accident de l'accident de l'accident à date.
29:43À environ 4h00 en la matinée, le réacteur shut down
29:47due à des problèmes de maintenance qui étaient en train de faire.
29:51Le réacteur a commencé à éteir, et un relief valve
29:54a ouvert à éteir la pression que était en train de construire.
29:57C'est l'accident de l'accident de l'accident.
30:00Si l'accident de l'accident de l'accident, la pression de l'accident de l'accident de l'accident.
30:06And they didn't understand why.
30:09And that led them to make mistaken decisions
30:12to turn off pumps that would have kept the core covered in water and kept it cool.
30:19The byproducts of nuclear fission ends up being naturally radioactive.
30:24This radioactivity shows up as heat.
30:26We always have to have some kind of a flowing water
30:30that continues to remove this heat.
30:33If you don't remove that heat from the reactor core,
30:37then you're in danger of actually melting the fuel,
30:40which can be potentially catastrophic.
30:42Two water pumps that help cool reactor number two shut down.
30:46Some 50,000 to 60,000 gallons of radioactive water...
30:50The public basically suffered no health exposures whatsoever,
30:54and it led to a real tightening up in terms of the safety regulations.
30:58Public support for nuclear power after Three Mile Island
31:02dropped dramatically.
31:03It was unsettling for the public to see the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
31:08seemed confused about what was going on.
31:11So it was a crisis of confidence.
31:15With Three Mile Island, the fact is that the human operators
31:20did make a number of mistakes,
31:22which eventually the engineered systems overcame.
31:28Chernobyl, very, very different.
31:35First of all, a reactor that never would have gotten licensed
31:40in any Western country.
31:42If you have a government entity regulating safety
31:46at the same time that it's government ownership,
31:48there's really no good adversarial relationship.
31:53That tension does lead to safety.
32:00At Chernobyl, the plant operators were carrying out a series of tests
32:06on the safety systems.
32:09The way in which that test was executed
32:11interacted with a flaw in the reactor design itself.
32:17It led to a buildup of pressure in the core, a steam explosion,
32:21the fuel itself in the core melted.
32:23There wasn't a containment structure around the Chernobyl reactor.
32:28It took a full 18 days before the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev,
32:31made any public pronouncement on the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
32:35Where things really went wrong is beyond the plant itself.
32:39The bureaucracy stretching all the way to Moscow, I suppose,
32:43made a series of bad decisions.
32:45They delayed evacuations.
32:47They didn't form the international community.
32:51That turned what would have been a very serious accident
32:54into something that was truly a disaster.
33:03The Chernobyl accident was at a reactor
33:06that is fundamentally different than the technology we use in the United States.
33:11Nevertheless, the NRC did an extensive review of our operations here.
33:16Ultimately, we determined that ongoing programs,
33:19especially because of Three Mile Island,
33:21largely captured most of the questions
33:24that were raised because of Chernobyl.
33:27A lot of work went into this human-machine interface,
33:31training operators to make the right decisions
33:33on their unforeseen scenarios.
33:36But as these 400 plants across the world
33:38accumulated experience,
33:40what turned out to be true is that
33:42actually the events that happened within the reactor
33:45are not the ones that you should worry the most.
33:53I was born and raised in Koreyama, Fukushima.
33:56I've experienced earthquakes when, like, from childhood,
34:00but it was an order of magnitude different experience.
34:05We lost the power just after the earthquake.
34:09In a nuclear power plant,
34:11the safety systems need the power to be on.
34:13But one of the first things that happens
34:16in a natural disaster is a power outage.
34:18Once the tsunami hit,
34:21backup diesel generator got flooded,
34:23and then we could not circulate the coolant.
34:29If you look at Three Mile Island,
34:31Chernobyl, and Fukushima,
34:33they're really all so different.
34:35With Fukushima, the problem was not the operators.
34:38It was not the engineering of the nuclear power plants.
34:41They had a thousand-year tsunami,
34:45which just came sweeping over the plants.
34:50Because there was radioactivity being released
34:53to the environment,
34:54the government decided that it was prudent to evacuate.
34:58An historic earthquake and tsunami has taken place.
35:02During that rushed evacuation,
35:04many people lost their lives.
35:10Nuclear accidents anywhere
35:12tend to have an everywhere kind of flavor.
35:16I was Secretary of Energy,
35:18and I did visit there in late 2013,
35:21helping with the environmental cleanup,
35:23the groundwater cleanup,
35:25but also understanding the accident,
35:28looking at some of the remedial steps
35:30that could be taken.
35:31And that leads to another set of innovations going on today.
35:36Technologies which are essentially immune
35:40to those kinds of accidents.
35:46There is a bit of a silver lining.
35:49Each disaster altered the trajectory of the industry.
35:54Hopefully, every successive accident
35:56will be much less serious than the previous ones.
36:01In the U.S., there's two reactors
36:03being built in the state of Georgia.
36:05Those reactors already have built in
36:07those passive safety systems
36:09that doesn't require any electricity
36:11for the heat removal.
36:13And so those plants actually would sail through
36:15a Fukushima-type disaster with no issue.
36:22Very few people have actually died from nuclear energy,
36:24so it's one of the safest options we have.
36:27But it's scary for people.
36:28I don't always know how to respond
36:31to the question of,
36:32is it too dangerous?
36:33Yes.
36:34When new countries decide
36:35that they want to build
36:37and operate nuclear reactors
36:38for the first time,
36:39they are potentially developing
36:41the capability
36:42to make a nuclear weapon.
36:44And so this is why
36:45nuclear energy is very tightly regulated,
36:48not just from a safety standpoint,
36:50but also from a non-proliferation standpoint.
36:54But that is also a significant potential for good.
36:59Nuclear is so promising
37:00because it has supreme energy density,
37:03and it doesn't generate air pollution,
37:05and it doesn't emit greenhouse gases.
37:08When people think of nuclear power,
37:09they think of these hyperbolic towers
37:11that have these plumes of what looks like smoke.
37:13But actually, that's not smoke.
37:14That's just water vapor.
37:16The pollution from burning fossil fuels
37:18is itself an energy disaster
37:20that kills millions of people a year.
37:24In China, there is a tremendous amount
37:26of air pollution and water pollution
37:28that is directly associated
37:29with fossil fuels.
37:31Reports suggest that breathing the air
37:34in Beijing on an average day
37:35is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes.
37:38The rates of cancer have gone through the roof
37:40over the last 20 or 30 years.
37:42It's a disaster
37:43from a public health perspective.
37:45That air pollution globally is a killer.
37:47Seven million people a year die prematurely
37:49from air pollution.
37:50But in the end, it's better to have energy
37:53or else everyday life becomes a disaster.
37:56We think of disasters as an incident,
37:59an explosion, a fire, a mine collapse,
38:00but there's also the disaster of climate change
38:02where it unfolds over centuries.
38:05Nuclear is so promising
38:06because it has supreme energy density,
38:1020,000 times more energy
38:11from a kilogram of nuclear fuel
38:13compared to a kilogram of coal,
38:15much more energy than you get from oil or gas.
38:17It's just so much energy
38:18and so little material.
38:19But also, when you react it
38:21and then you use the fuel,
38:22it doesn't generate greenhouse gases.
38:24It doesn't generate acid-forming gases.
38:26So if you have nuclear power,
38:27you're not getting acid rain,
38:29you're not getting climate change.
38:32There is no completely risk-free source of energy.
38:38Hydroelectric power is central
38:40as a renewable source of energy
38:42and is cleaner than fossil fuels.
38:45In most cases, hydroelectric power is safe.
38:49But while hydropower brings us massive benefits,
38:53it's not without its risks.
39:01Hydropower is the renewable energy source
39:04with the highest accidental deaths,
39:07largely because of a single catastrophic event.
39:12In the late 1800s,
39:14there was the rise of a bunch of electric appliances,
39:17things like light bulbs and motors
39:18that were really good for life,
39:20and that required the need to generate electricity.
39:23As a country, if you have mountains
39:25and a lot of falling water,
39:27like the Fox River in Wisconsin
39:29or Niagara Falls,
39:30you can dam it up and harness that power
39:32to generate electricity we could use
39:34for these electric appliances.
39:35And that led eventually to a dam-building frenzy.
39:41In the United States,
39:42a lot of the dams were built
39:43by the Bureau of Reclamation
39:44or the Army Corps of Engineers,
39:46two big federal government agencies.
39:47They could say,
39:48we're going to build a dam,
39:49we're going to do it here,
39:50and they didn't really care
39:51who they were going to flood
39:51or have to push out of the way to get it done.
39:55The dam-building frenzy followed in China.
39:59Through the ages,
40:01waters from the mountains
40:02have been fed to the fields of the valley.
40:04For here,
40:05irrigation is one of the ancient arts.
40:08For centuries,
40:10the muscles of men
40:11have raised the water as needed
40:13for crops that have never failed.
40:16Immediately upon coming to power in 1949,
40:19Mao Zedong looks around
40:20and sees a Chinese nation
40:22that is dominated by household farms
40:24with people producing just enough
40:25to feed their families.
40:26And he says,
40:27this is no way
40:28to build a modern superpower.
40:31So at first,
40:32he says,
40:32well,
40:32this is a hundred-year process
40:33where we're going to catch up
40:34to countries like Britain,
40:36the Soviet Union,
40:37the United States.
40:38But starting in the 1950s,
40:40Mao says,
40:40actually,
40:40we should do this within 15 years.
40:42Within China,
40:43Mao Zedong draws up
40:45a ruthless program
40:46to change an agrarian nation
40:48into an industrial power.
40:50He will move whole villages
40:51and set up communes.
40:53This eventually becomes
40:53the Great Leap Forward,
40:54which officially starts in 1958.
41:00China wanted to build dams
41:01for a whole host of reasons.
41:03This map gives some clues
41:05to China's great problem
41:07of being able to feed
41:08its 500 million people.
41:11Much of China is mountain,
41:12desert,
41:13infertile soil.
41:15The great river valleys
41:16are often subject
41:17to disastrous floods.
41:19And the population is growing
41:20at the rate
41:21of several millions a year.
41:24Mao sets down
41:25these targeted plans
41:26about output,
41:27and it's all quantitative.
41:29It's how much earth
41:30are you moving?
41:31How much cement
41:32are you producing?
41:33And that's how
41:34you ultimately get fed.
41:35You know,
41:35you get your food ration
41:36by producing
41:37your quota of output.
41:38And so it causes
41:39all this kind of cheating
41:40among a population
41:41that also has
41:42no prior experience
41:43building something
41:44as massive as a dam.
41:46Between 1950 and 1979,
41:50approximately 87,000 dams
41:53were built in China.
41:55The Bangchao Dam
41:56is a microcosm
41:57of the problems
41:58of a central planning project
42:01like the Great Leap Forward.
42:08The Bangchao Dam
42:09is one of a number
42:10of dams
42:10that's built
42:10in the 1950s,
42:12but the scale
42:13was just unprecedented
42:14in China's history
42:15at that point.
42:16It's a massive undertaking.
42:17It requires thousands
42:18of workers,
42:19in many cases,
42:20digging literally
42:20with shovels
42:21and their own muscle power
42:22to try to build
42:23this humongous dam.
42:25The Soviets provide
42:26technical expertise,
42:27but there's a number
42:27of flaws.
42:28There was an engineer
42:29named Chen Xing,
42:30and he was one
42:32of China's leading experts
42:34on how to harness hydropower,
42:36how to build dams.
42:37Chen Xing said,
42:38we need to have
42:39more sluice gates,
42:40the kind of overflow gates
42:41that allow water
42:42to pour through
42:43so that if there is
42:44some massive weather event,
42:46tremendous rainfall,
42:47that the dam
42:48isn't overwhelmed.
42:49He wanted 12
42:50of these sluice gates.
42:52They ultimately ended up
42:53only building five of them.
42:55He tried to warn people,
42:56and he was silenced
42:57and taken off the project.
43:00Where there's a culture
43:01of silencing,
43:03of criticism,
43:04an inability of people
43:06to say,
43:06hey, wait a minute,
43:07this is not being done
43:08with the proper safety precautions.
43:09It just sets itself up
43:11for a massive disaster.
43:17In 1975,
43:18there was a typhoon
43:19that only comes around
43:20once in a millennium.
43:21Some people say
43:22that the raindrops
43:23were so large
43:24that it was killing birds
43:25that were trying
43:26to fly through it.
43:27It was just
43:28a tremendous amount of rain
43:29concentrated in a small
43:30amount of time.
43:31And it completely overwhelms
43:33the dam.
43:34The dam breaks.
43:37Being in the path
43:38of that water
43:38would have probably felt
43:40like the end of the world.
43:41A wave,
43:43the height of a tall building
43:44coming at you
43:45at the speed of a car.
43:47And there were
43:48a number of villages,
43:49small cities
43:50that ultimately
43:51get washed away.
43:54The Bingchow Dam disaster
43:56is the single worst
43:57energy incident
43:58in the history of humanity.
44:00In addition to the hundreds
44:01of thousands of people
44:02who perish,
44:03more than 10 million people
44:04were displaced
44:05by that dam collapse.
44:06But it was a secret
44:07for a couple decades.
44:09It happened in the mid-70s
44:11and the world didn't know
44:12until the 90s.
44:13That's how close
44:14the information was
44:15coming out of China.
44:23Hydropower has long
44:24been harnessed
44:24to produce electricity.
44:30It has evolved into a fixture
44:32in energy production
44:33currently supplying
44:35one-sixth of the world's electricity.
44:45We often take it for granted
44:47that energy will be available to us.
44:50But power plants,
44:52power lines,
44:53gas lines,
44:54even whole power grids
44:56can fail.
44:58Disruptions to our energy systems,
45:00whether by sabotage,
45:02negligence,
45:03or natural disaster,
45:05can be deadly.
45:08It was probably 2 or 3 o'clock
45:10in the morning
45:11when we were woken up
45:13by the gust
45:14of almost 200 miles per hour winds.
45:16Knocking out power everywhere.
45:18All of the electricity
45:19is out tonight.
45:21After the hurricane,
45:22the biggest toll
45:23was not directly
45:25the result of the winds
45:28or of the storm.
45:29It was people
45:30who did not have access
45:31to the burn necessities.
45:35Blackout leaves
45:35a lot of people
45:36without water
45:37because the water treatment
45:39plants needed power.
45:41After a few days,
45:43you know,
45:43everything spoils
45:44in your fridge
45:45or you eat everything
45:46that you have
45:47and then you need
45:49to go out and get food.
45:52Communications collapsed
45:53completely.
45:54Banks were closed
45:55for more than a week.
45:56If you had no catch,
45:58you could not do
45:59any transaction.
46:03The blackouts started
46:05to be hours,
46:07days into weeks.
46:09Weeks turned into months.
46:154,645 people died.
46:19The mortality rate
46:21in the four months
46:22after Hurricane Maria
46:24raised by 62%.
46:27And ever since,
46:29what we've experienced
46:30is constant blackouts.
46:35In Texas,
46:37it's a full-on
46:37humanitarian crisis.
46:39People are just fighting
46:39to stay alive
46:41after a weather disaster
46:42has knocked out power
46:43to millions of people.
46:44In February of 2021,
46:46much of North America
46:47was hit with a very
46:48severe cold snap.
46:50And what was unique
46:51about that storm
46:53was that it lasted
46:54for over a week
46:55of continuous freezing
46:57or sub-freezing temperatures
46:59across the entire state.
47:01Power plants in Texas
47:03started to falter.
47:05Those that own
47:06and operate power plants
47:07in Texas are prepared
47:08for extreme heat.
47:09They're less prepared
47:10for sub-freezing temperatures.
47:12There's a popular narrative
47:13that this was the result
47:14of the failure
47:15of wind and solar farms.
47:16That is not true.
47:17You saw coal piles freeze.
47:19You saw coal plants trip off
47:20because they couldn't get
47:21the necessary water intake.
47:23You saw gas plants fail.
47:25because wellheads froze off.
47:27There was a nuclear plant
47:28that tripped offline.
47:29There were fluctuations
47:30in the availability
47:31of wind and solar.
47:32And so all of a sudden,
47:34faced with the reality
47:35that there was so much
47:36generating capacity offline,
47:38the Texas grid operator
47:39had to call for utilities
47:40to cut power to customers
47:42to keep supply
47:43in line with demand.
47:46Our water system relies
47:48on electricity
47:49to pump water
47:50to our homes.
47:51And so if the power grid
47:52goes out,
47:53soon thereafter,
47:53you lose access
47:54to potable water.
47:56And you can imagine
47:56how challenging it is
47:57to try to boil water
47:59if you don't have power.
48:04People died from the cold.
48:06They died from needing
48:08medical treatment
48:08and not being able
48:09to get to the hospital
48:10because of the icy roads.
48:11They died because the power
48:13went out and they couldn't operate
48:14the medical equipment they needed.
48:16Officially, about 250 people died.
48:18Unofficially, more than 700 people died
48:20from this disaster.
48:24A power outage quickly reveals
48:27how our lives are built
48:29around energy access.
48:31But people can live
48:32their entire lives
48:34in congested cities
48:35or remote areas
48:37plugged into a grid
48:38without ever seeing
48:40the source of the energy
48:41they consume.
48:43Behind everyone's electric outlets
48:46lies a vast, complex infrastructure
48:49that requires constant maintenance.
48:53Mismanagement can have
48:54disastrous consequences.
49:01California is a state
49:02that has been prone to wildfire
49:04for as long as the land
49:05has been there.
49:06That has become more true
49:08as the climate has changed
49:09and we've seen longer droughts,
49:11more intense heat waves.
49:12and that has made it
49:14so that the risk of a very deadly
49:15and destructive fire
49:17has become heightened
49:18and all of the state's utilities
49:20have had power lines
49:22that have ignited large-scale fires
49:23over the last 10 years.
49:25But some of the most deadly
49:26and destructive have been started
49:28when PG&E's power lines have failed.
49:33PG&E has had a number of challenges
49:35over the last two decades.
49:38There was an energy crisis
49:39in California in the early 2000s
49:41that ultimately pushed it
49:42to seek bankruptcy protection.
49:44The few years in which it's emerged
49:46from bankruptcy,
49:47they were focused on delivering returns
49:48to shareholders.
49:50The company was also focused
49:52on procuring wind and solar contracts
49:55basically at the behest of the state.
49:58Wind and solar power were much more expensive
50:01than they are today
50:02so the company faced additional pressure
50:04to keep expenses low.
50:07The company is still tasked
50:10with maintaining the infrastructure.
50:12It's a sprawling service territory.
50:14It covers 70,000 square miles.
50:16Part of it involves managing trees
50:18that have the potential
50:19to touch live wires,
50:22looking at the strength of the structures,
50:24the integrity of the hardware.
50:26November of 2018,
50:28Hook on a transmission tower
50:30that was 100 years old
50:31broke and dropped a live wire
50:33that showered the ground with sparks.
50:43The component that broke
50:44had never been replaced.
50:46The company had known of the risks
50:48and yet done very little
50:49to mitigate them.
50:53Destroyed the town of Paradise
50:55and several nearby towns
50:56in the Sierra foothills
50:57north of Sacramento.
50:58Eighty-four people died.
51:03If you look at the three disasters
51:05in California,
51:07Texas with the freeze,
51:08and Puerto Rico with the hurricane,
51:10they seem so different.
51:11But they're all part of a broader trend
51:12of intensifying weather extremes.
51:17After Rick and Maria,
51:18around 200,000 people left.
51:21Some came back.
51:22Many didn't.
51:24I don't think that's something
51:26that can be measured
51:28in any other way
51:29than how important is
51:31the access to a reliable energy supply.
51:35Do we need to build back
51:37what we had before
51:38or do we need to look
51:40into the future?
51:43Reliability issues
51:43are very challenging
51:45and they actually
51:46really don't lend themselves
51:47to a clear-cut political narrative.
51:50Wind and solar power
51:52are inherently intermittent.
51:53They don't produce power
51:54all the time.
51:55You know, fossil-fueled-fired assets,
51:56they, too,
51:57have reliability challenges.
52:00And so,
52:01as we change the types of energy
52:03that we rely on,
52:04comes a whole new set of questions
52:05that we need to explore.
52:09We've had a number
52:11of energy transitions.
52:14The dominant fuel source
52:16changed rapidly
52:18from wood to coal.
52:20However,
52:21wood has never gone away.
52:22When oil came in,
52:24it didn't eliminate coal.
52:26The energy transition
52:28we're talking about today
52:29is different.
52:32I would argue
52:33that it's not
52:34some one-size-fits-all lens,
52:36but just the opposite.
52:38Addressing the energy transition
52:40calls for different
52:42regional approaches.
52:51Nature has been
52:52practicing engineering
52:54for a much, much longer time
52:56than we have.
52:57It has perfected
52:59so many aspects
53:00of that engineering.
53:01We are a living proof
53:03of that
53:03in so many ways.
53:05I think we should
53:06look at what nature does
53:08and try to mimic it.
53:13In Iceland,
53:14I think we've come
53:14quite a ways
53:15in terms of just
53:16recognizing the potentials
53:18of all of these resources
53:19that we have around us
53:20and actually having that
53:21transform our way of life
53:23completely.
53:25If you think of
53:26the Lockheed Volcano
53:27in 1783
53:28and how dangerous
53:28that would be
53:29without energy
53:30to deal with it,
53:30we don't want to go back
53:31to that world.
53:32The Icelandic people
53:33have taken this very dangerous,
53:34powerful force,
53:35volcanic eruptions,
53:37and harnessed it in a way
53:38to get the energy they need.
53:41Here we have
53:42the Headless Hevy
53:43geothermal power plant
53:45and it's actually
53:46one of the largest
53:46geothermal power plants
53:47in the world.
53:49It produces
53:50303 megawatts
53:51of electricity
53:52but also
53:53about 1000 liters
53:54per second
53:55of hot water
53:56that is piped
53:57to Reykjavík
53:57for the district
53:58heating system.
54:02Even though geothermal
54:03is considered
54:04green energy,
54:05it still emits
54:06some CO2.
54:07We are developing
54:09a method
54:09to capture
54:10and prevent it
54:11from going back
54:12to the atmosphere
54:13by turning it
54:14into stone.
54:16Iceland
54:17is the perfect
54:18spot to develop
54:19this method
54:19because it is
54:21mostly made
54:22up of basalt.
54:23So it's 90%
54:24of the rocks
54:25that we need
54:25to turn CO2
54:27into stone.
54:28It's kind of like
54:29a sponge
54:30so it's very convenient
54:31and it can store
54:32a lot of CO2.
54:34There is not
54:35a solution
54:36to the climate change
54:37but hopefully
54:38this is one
54:39of the solutions
54:40that we need.
54:48All around the world
54:49we all have
54:50a common desire
54:51for safety
54:52and comfort,
54:53peace and prosperity.
54:55The rise
54:56of availability
54:57of modern energy
54:58helped reduce suffering
54:59and really gave us
55:01great civilized
55:02quality of life.
55:04These energy
55:05disasters are scary.
55:07From each disaster
55:09there's a lesson
55:10to learn.
55:11And it's important
55:12that while we
55:13pursue having
55:14more energy
55:15available for more people
55:16that we're honest
55:16with ourselves
55:17and each other
55:17about its risks.
55:21As the need
55:23for energy grows
55:24so does the risk
55:25of disasters.
55:27For the first time
55:29in human history
55:30the world
55:31must come together
55:32to face
55:32collective energy
55:34challenges.
55:35On the table
55:36are decisions
55:37about how to invest
55:39trillions of dollars
55:40to manage
55:41a massive transition
55:42in a way
55:43that ensures access
55:44to clean,
55:45affordable,
55:46reliable,
55:47and above all
55:48safe energy.
55:50The decisions
55:52being made
55:52in this decade
55:53will have
55:54far-reaching consequences
55:55for billions of people
55:57over centuries to come.
55:59in that decade
55:59and for the future.
56:02And the
56:02the
56:03the
56:09as
56:09the
56:09the
56:10the
56:11and
56:21the
56:21the