Europe's Deepest Mine is Not What You Think...
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ธ.ค. 2023
- Thank you Squarespace for sponsoring this video.Check out Squarespace: squarespace.com/megaprojects for 10% off on your first purchase of a website/domain
Got a beard? Good. I've got something for you: beardblaze.com
Simon's Social Media:
Twitter: / simonwhistler
Instagram: / simonwhistler
This video is #sponsored by Squarespace.
Love content? Check out Simon's other TH-cam Channels:
Biographics: / @biographics
Geographics: / @geographicstravel
Warographics: / @warographics643
SideProjects: / @sideprojects
Into The Shadows: / intotheshadows
TopTenz: / toptenznet
Today I Found Out: / todayifoundout
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
Casual Criminalist: / thecasualcriminalist
Decoding the Unknown: / @decodingtheunknown2373
Thank you Squarespace for sponsoring this video.Check out Squarespace: squarespace.com/megaprojects for 10% off on your first purchase of a website/domain
No.
Is there a secure platform I can speak with fact boy or 1 of his writers?
@megaprojects9649 please consider doing a video on The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK. It has the largest collection of art from the American West and has been undergoing a massive rebuild in recent years and just recently got fully funded after inflation drove up the budget. A great place, worthy of more attention.
hello, can you make a video about Euronav TI class tankers
INCOMING Head of Pudding ......Fingers in ears and Run Away Run Away
Just looking at the price and complexity of the tunnel and underground facilities tells you all you need to know about the value of polyhalite
I worked at a surface coal mine in Wyoming,USA that used two conveyer systems that totaled 14 miles between the two. Both of these system were on the surface so they were not as hard to build. The thing about conveyers is that they are so much less expensive to run than using many other systems are.
This British mine is fantastic news for the world,it will help to feed the world and thats incredible.
Yes, they are doing it to help feed the world :D
I work in an underground coal mine that crosses from Indiana to Illinois. I think we're ~11 miles in with a conveyor all the way out.
Britain doing a megaproject correctly......what a time to be alive.
give them time
@@matteofabbris7877 as a British person.
Yes.
@@DarkSitesChanneltbf we do them pretty good only problem is they're usually announced decades before being finished so things like inflation, housing market and other unforseen issues ramp up the price.
Except we will probably let the Americans have it like we did our oil
We've done loads of megaprojects correctly, but doing it correctly doesn't make the news quite nearly as much as fucking it up
Great to see this project gain more attention! It's crazy how few people seem to be aware of rapidly decreasing food security. This mine will feed a billion people.
and encourage people to make 10 billion more ! Fertilize Mars !
@@murrayscott9546are you intentionally being a moron?
@@murrayscott9546oh! You are one of those 😂
Well whenever Peter Zeihan? Hears about this I can stop hearing him harp on about running out of potash
@@murrayscott9546why Mars? Earth needs help also.
As much as it's great to have a more environmentally-friendly version of fertiliser, this kind of glosses over the fact that the problem we are having with the desperate need for fertiliser isn't farming per se but the intensivised farming, we've been using in recent decades which is unsustainable and destroys the soil microbiome, slowly making the soil lifeless and unusable.
Btw: Couldn;t the compounds we need from polyhalite be made by evaporating water from brine? We currently have a bit of an issue of disposing of brine from the many desalination plants we have, so why can't we use that?
How about the most natural fertilizer, Manure!
Good to see the Woodsmith Mine getting some Love online at last. Wonder if Britain's Dark matter Lab will move from Boulby Mine to Woodsmith eventually?
It’s unreal and you wouldn’t know it there . I drive past it a lot .
not like it big enough to see 🤏
A video about an epic hole always gets my attention
And it sounds like it's called.. the Booby Mine??
always good for a deep-dive
You dont wanna miss it for sure
🎼 Brothers of the mine rejoice! 🎶
The way he pronounces "Tagebau Hambach“ is so ridiculous. Made my day, great video.
Tagaabachambaag
I pass this place a LOT and am always amazed how much you cannot see from a close road.
About the takeovers, many locals and workers got their entire savings and pensions wiped out when they were sold the idea of investing to basically secure their jobs and then it tanked and got bought out for pennies on the pound.
sadly thats how investing works. My father has invested before and never seen even pennies back. Investments are a risk
@@ashleygoggs5679 agree but this one seemed a bit different, if I remember correctly it was during the £500m funding phase and it was pushed by the company directly to employees and when it didnt reach the target the money was gone and it was sold for maybe 30% value of the funding phase, and for something that is expected to pull out £2B a year worth of one of the rarest minerals in the world, I dont think it should have happened the way it did without some negligence or being fraudulent IMO.
Which is why you don't invest if you know nothing about financial economics. I am still hesitant about it even with a bachelor's in business and economics and being well on my way to a master's in economics. You need to be able to afford to lose everything (this ignoring the pension system which is an entirely different can of worms in itself.)
@@nicolainielsen7700 even Cassandra misses once in a while and ignorance can be bliss, just ask Peter Thiel 🤣
Yes due to the locals not wanting it, and putting so many barriers in the way
edit: People are correcting me that this isn't a Nitrogen fertilizer replacement, so this is still nice, but big-badda-boom is still a fertilizer problem we need to approach carefully.
Fertilizer that doesn't cause container ships or warehouses to explode sounds pretty awesome. Also I'm impressed by the scale of the operation under a (deliberately) lame exterior. Really cool!
Just about a year ago in the middle east a warehouse full of fertalizer exploded and destroyed a lot of the city around it.
@@matthewbaynham6286Yea I've seen the videos and it's absolutely terrifying. Replacing that with a bunch of gravel/sand that's non-explosive is a game changer.
@@danielhale1 polihalide has no nitrogen content so i am afraid it sadly wont be replacing amonium nitrate.
It’s NOT a fertilizer and does not replace nitrogen!
It’s a soil amendment that replaces minerals in the soil. That’s it. Nitrogen is still required to grow our food!
Polyhalite might be a nice fertilizer to replenish sulfate, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, however it won't replace ANY of the "explosive" shiploads of ammonium nitrate as the latter replenishes nitrogen, something that is completely absent in polyhalite yet on many soils is THE most limiting nutrient (consequently nitrogen fertilizers make up more than half of the global fertilizer consumption).
Ammonium Nitrate isn't legal in most of Europe, due to its tendency to explode. Nitrogen can be obtained through other means though and I wouldn't be surprised to see a future form of extraction from the air, since the majority of our atmosphere is made of Nitrogen. We humans also need nitrogen, we just can't obtain it from breathing, so we have to ingest it.
@@Arterexius The vast majority of nitrogen fertilizer is made using the Haber-Bosch process, ie. we *are* already pulling the nitrogen straight from the air and we have been doing that for more than a hundred years.
Love all your channels,and your silky tones keep me watching your gr8 content .so nice one simon and team ❤❤
Looking at the map alone, it appears the literal entirety of Denmark has Polyhalite potential. Given that Denmark also is almost entirely comprised of farmland, it's clear exactly how extremely valuable that info is
Mined over matter! I fully believe that this sort of development can be done while respecting the environment. Kudos to GB and the companies doing the project! The world really needs this right now.
Ok this is actually incredible and still so "new" that this makes it very interesting for production!
Wow. Such an amazing Megaproject and the second nearest to me from this channel. The first was Hadrian's wall if you wanted to know.
Can't be the only one to think this but if I am.....go me
Would the lads done making the tunnels fancy taking on a half made train line from London to Leeds at a reasonable price......asking for a friend living in London house number 10 I think (maybe not for 2 long more)
How long before we have the "JSPH" Protesters all over North Yorks? It certainly is a beautiful part of the world there, not forgetting Fylingdales though! That's another high tech installation belonging to the MOD, hope it doesn't interfere with their ops!
There is only one TBM,the one launched from Wilton. The 2 TBM option was scrapped a long time ago and was never delivered.
That video was pretty deep!
Wow! Cool subject covered well! 👌 👍🏼
Can't wait for Britain to completely privatise it and not see a penny!
and then buy back on the brink of bancrupcy
It literally says in the video, the project is being built by Anglo American, a private company.
It is private.
@@bujler ...... no shit🤨 👏🏻.....👏🏻.....👏🏻
looks like a giant Death Star exhaust port
This kind of stuff!
More of this kind of stuff everywhere!
Wonder how bgga share the Roal Familly has innit ? Sounds right up their alleyr !
The workers will be encouraged to use the bus or carpool while the supervisors get to drive, eh?
sounds so british to me
really? In that case you haven't got a clue what Britain is actually like in the 21st century!@@matteofabbris7877
Don't worry, from 2027 they will be able to get the conveyor belt in.
Winsford salt mines had 140 miles of tunnel below Cheshire according to the BBC documentary I watched 9 years ago. Still collecting road salt from there today.
I’m home sick with Covid and I just woke up to see this video waiting for me to watch it , made me feel a little better.
Good luck Houpfully you will recover quickly 👍
protect society. get the jab. stay indoors.
Man, covid is still a thing?
@@notmadeofpeople4935
Yeah Covid is when 2 Social media people do a link up video
Vid&Co/Co-Vid 👍👍
Get well soon
At 11:55 "you might have the world's deepest mine to thank for the food in your local grocery store."
Food available in the grocery store?
So, Brexit has ended?
Of course excellent projects like this show that Britain can do things very right, and its why its not very well known or reported about.
News organisations all over the world focus on problems (except in totalitarian states).
A wealthy country with a good education system is meant to execute major engineering projects. That’s normal.
This mine is fascinating and cool but ‘project goes according to plan’ is rarely news.
Simon is the Emperor of TH-cam😎
Agree
Or the harlot, depending on how you look at it ;)
That conveyor would be an amazing ride.
LETS FUCKING GO!!! I love mega projects that perfectly seem with the natural landscape around it!!!
After watching brain blaze on loop I get confused when he does a sensible video
same with watching the good old "onion news network" (when they still made the news show) & then real news
The maintenance for that conveyor system should prove interesting. Roller bearings require grease and the lube system will have to be pretty skookum.
it's got what plants crave
electrolytes 🪴
I want to know how they plan to maintain 15 *miles* worth of conveyor bearings
They'll give the work experience boy a torch and a can of 3-In-One and tell him to get on with it.
@@steve.b.23 They'll build a conveyer belt underneath it for the boy to use to inspect the bearings and replace the worn ones. 😏
WD-40
@@steve.b.23 lmao
Quick google will tell you that the world's longest conveyor belt system is 61 miles long. I think they'll cope with 15 miles.
What are they filling the mine voids with after extracting large amounts of polyhalite?
Very cool and educational! Might be an interesting investment opportunity as well! 🤔
but shares..go long!
Just for clarity. This will not replace the explosive portion of the fertilizer mix. NPK is fertilizer. This will replace more or less the the P and the K, but not the N. Nitrogen still comes from petroleum-based sources.
Perfect video for this channel
“Not what you think” haha I love it
I’m trying to figure out the sustainable bit. Sustainability means being able to put back what you took out.
Watching this video was like watching archived film in an episode of Doctor Who that the Doctor and his companion watch in a museum to explain what caused the underground aliens to rise up and fight back and kill all the humans before they are wiped out themselves.
Just me being that nerdy, then?
Nah, I got you Fam. :)
All Whovians get you 💜
This is so cool!
Nice! A local MegaProject to me as I live in Teesside.
Sunny Stockton here, but originally from Guisborough.
I'm in Middlesbrough
Was there a big fire around the mine? All the black and brown looks like the aftermath of a forest fire.
Possible, but probably not. I think it's probably bracken which goes brown in the winter. However, fire is a controversial aspect of the management of some moorland in the UK, used to suppress growth and keep it a suitable habitat for introduced game birds on shooting estates. This is very environmentally damaging and contributes to problems such as biodiversity loss, bad air quality during burning and rapid water runoff making flooding in the lowlands worse. If you look at the damage caused to provide a leisure activity for a tiny percentage of well-off people, I find it astonishing that this practice hasn't been banned. However I doubt they would do it around expensive industrial infrastructure like this.
This sounds like good news, and I always love good news.
Question is, how to change polyhalite into water soluble K2O [Potash] useful spreadable fertiliser or its equivalent? It has valuable sulphur that replaces sulphur that used to be airborne due to industrial and cars burning high sulphur fuel, which is a bonus.
Look at the chemical makeup in Wikipedia. It can be used straight as polyhalite. All the elements in it are soluble and soil processes will make it available to roots.
@@brianjonker510 Sounds good. If it as spreadable as muriate of potash then there are no downsides.
@@hedydd2 As a straight product it will lead to an excess of sulfur if this is the sole product used to meet potassium requirements.
@@brianjonker510
Yes, the sulphur content is very high. It should suit the modest extra potash requirement of intensive dairy farms that spread a whole lot of slurry on cut ground.
Petition for the editors to add 20 seconds to all videos so that Simon can breathe normally
thanks for not deafening me on the outro
Oh boy. That conveyor belt is going to be a pain in the ass. I’ve worked on hundreds of them, they break, a lot.
1:20 - Chapter 1 - Polyphalite
3:00 - Mid roll ads
4:00 - Back to the video
5:05 - Chapter 2 - Out of sight
10:10 - Chapter 3 - Around the world
I don’t know why you do what you do but I love it
Poly-halite ,,means Halites um , group 7 elements , Chlorine mostly, but flourine, Iodine ,,,,Good for crops that need halites ,,Berries etc
almost expected a Halite investment to be pushed at the end there! 🤣
Being as polyhalite is a finite resource, like oil, coal, Himalayan Pink Salt etc., I'm not quite sure how this is a "sustainable" industry.
I do get that it will probably last a couple of hundred years and appears to be much more environmentally friendly than most other fertilisers. However, there will still need to be a replacement at some point.
You can say that about literally everything
Touché, Simon, I was convinced it was a scientific mine of some sort. So I indeed didn't know what it actually was
mega-fascinating 🙂 !!!
Great idea, let's just hope Anglo American plc haven't just taken it for the price of there shareholders. And keep there promise of giving back to the country of orgin. As they seem to be blaming everyone but themselves in Zambia with the extraction on copper...
I remember the north Selby coal mine being the deepest for a short period.
And who owns the mine we don’t own anything in our own country 🥱
Anglo American , he said so several times in the video, which considering its a major construction project is probably better than the UK government having anything to do with it.
@@medler2110 and what do we get out of it ?….
@@windingroadelven I didn't mention getting anything out of it.
@@windingroadelven A massive boost in your economy, which in the long run will improve your life. People, (especially big corporations) need to stop thinking in the short term. Not to mention if it replaces traditional fertilizers, that's really great news for the whole world, because they are VERY toxic to the humans that work with it and the environment.
"Good things come to those who wait" - Abraham Lincoln
@@superkirk11 so it’s owned by Americans….. I highly doubt we get anything out of it except rent.
Great! We've pushed off the agriculture Armageddon by about 100 years...which doesn't sound that great now that I'm reading it back to myself.
Edit : forgot how to grammar for a second there.
What happens to the excavated area? Does it just remain naturally hollowed out? Or does it eventually cave in? Or do they leave supports in place? Wouldn't any seismic activity, or just the slow pressures of geological forces eventually create some sort of problem?
This is no different from any other traditional mine in that regard. Wikipedia is your friend there.
@@FreeManFreeThought Most " traditional mines" collapse over time. And this is definitely not a traditional mine.
I think it's been thought out well as in the vid they said they tried to avoid danger to houses
At 1.6Km deep sounds like a good place to store nuclear waste. Also the ground should be around 50C at that depth maybe heat for homes may be a useful thing.
Luckily Britain isn’t really subject to much seismic activity being one of the few countries hundreds if not thousands of miles from the edge of tectonic plates. Any earthquakes in the UK tend to be very minor and rarely cause any damage or are even noticed.
A lot of old mines were just left but this being a newer project I imagine there’ll be supports and probably back filling when it’s exhausted of resources.
It also quite some way from inhabited areas and stretches out under the North Sea rather than further inland.
Although it could pose some minor issues, it’s unlikely that it will ever cause any serious harm or danger if it were to collapse.
It also has europes deepest laboratory
Dark matter
I thought that was Bulby.....
For a moment there I thought Simon was gonna pivot to talking about the Lost Mines in France, you know, the ones filled with high explosives meant to blow up German trenches in World War 1.
That long belt system is going to be a disaster to keep running.
Finally some happy news
I live nearby glad yorkshires still making a mark on the world in this day and age, hopefully bring abit more prosperity to the north
Simon I wish you ranted on all your channels hahahah. Somehow, it makes me pay attention more. Still love all your content though!!
Very interesting
I thought he said Booby Mine, but it's actually Boulby Mine, how disappointing
I'm always surprised when people seem to know "what I think" - how do you know that?
It sounds like a great project, but curious, if they are taking a layer out of the ground, how are they filling the excavated area to prevent it collapsing? 🤷♂️
Because, of course, mining engineers, who have been at the mining game for hundreds of years, haven't got a clue about how to do that and just dig willy-nilly.
There is no need to fill it in. It's in 1500 m depth. There are so many rock layers above it that even if it caved in, nothing would happen to the surface. It's not like they excavate giant caves there.
It’s been done for thousands of years
I hope they have to pay a lot of tax being as we all own this mineral and they are not having to purchase it, just mine it.
That conveyor tunnel is gonna need to be cleaned...often. My only real question is this. What does mining at those depths do to the earth around it ? I dont know the geography of britain, or if there are any tectonic plates or whatever nearby. Obviously, the tunnels support much of the weight of the displaced earth & all, but still, it creates open space where there previously wasnt any. This does take a toll, if only over 10s or 100s of years. Which is the basis for my question. What might the long term effects of this mega mine be for the grand/great grand children living there ?
This mine has a Tom Scott site visit all over it
10:15 my auto generated closed caption "scheduled to begin production in 20127". Big Project indeed!
How much will this cost to set up? 23miles of steel and concrete for the tunnel alone. Doesn't seem that profiable or environmentally friendly at all. Then, it has to be shipped half way round the world. There is another mine a few miles away. & I beileve ICI have had trouble finding customers to buy all it produces. I'm just saying, but what do i know?
Absolutely fantastic project.
I thought they covered this. That guy is the narrator for so many channels its hard to tell
10:08 name of the song?
Is this polyhalight a zeolite mineral?
Is that a serious question, or is this a geology joke?
And Howard Hughes was going to use that big odd-looking ship to mine manganese nodules from the sea floor. What's really going on down there? Making a bloody-big underground cavern. A lot of people could live down there.
The Zechstein sea expanded all over northern Germany as well. And there are companies already digging out the salt. I guess there is also a big layer of that mineral underneath it. And they are not at the edge of the remains of the Zechstein sea. They are right in the middle.
Essentially any or the northern European countries that are in or border that area has access to their own deposits as well.
Deepest mine on the continent, unless you ask a Brit.
Never expected Teesside on an episode of Mega Projects lol
If you fell into the hole would you pass out before you hit the floor?
Wait. Was that a shot of a "gorgeous national park"?
National Parks in the UK are not like US ones, they usually include a lot of farmed landscapes.
not what you think definitely felt this title
This is so cool. Can more mines be built for it or is that one deposit all there is to dig out?
Its mostly one huge deposit. There are similar compounds in other places however Polyhalite is basically the holy grail becuase it has everything plants needs for fertilisation without any drawbacks. Most deposits dont have all the minerals needed and there for would need to be dosed with another fertiliser to make up for the difference.
@@ashleygoggs5679 Cool so now the mine is dug it makes more sense to expand it underground than build another entrance? That's wicked. I believe to UK has quite a lot of unexploited mineral wealth. It seems this project shows it's possible to get at it without massive environmental issues so perhaps this success will spark interest in other areas.
@@ashleygoggs5679 what plants crave....
@@bashisobsolete.pythonismyn6321it’s got electrolytes
@@ashleygoggs5679 We struck eco friendly -oil..that'll the economy for next 100 years starting 2027!
Thanks. It did indeed have a shaky start the early investors in Sirius had a serious haircut and lost much of their investment.
Good to see it proceeding, Anglo have the money and power to see it through to reality.
I definitely spread some of that before it was fully commercially available, but I don’t know the outcome of the trials, clearly it worked
15 miles worth of conveyor is a terrible idea.
It's the next Bond villain's secret bunker.
Looks like these corporations don't watch this channel. No shady contracts, no years of delays, no horrendous over-budget. You sure this is a true "megaproject"? 😁😜🤟
Not What You Think posted on the wrong channel 💀
"Aaaand this week's episode of Not What You Think Is... Noooot What You Think!"
Shut up. 😂
LOL. I thought the same thing.. but it is a mega project. Now Simon has to make a Not what you think projects channel. Soon we will get multiple hours daily of just Simon teaching us stuff
...What the heck are you talking about? Simon's channels are the ONLY channels on youtube.If you're seeing anything else posted,it's likely because you're still trapped in the matrix.Base reality is just Simon.
@@jeffdroogdead joke
I work on the woodsmith project building the tunnel and there isn't a second TBM we only have 1
Just so unfortunate that those of us that invested in it in the early days lost every thing.
1:56 evaporate but eh you almost got away with it ...