The Race to Replace a Cracked Dam

I've been to a huge dam high in the Swiss Alps, but I'm not here for the snow, ice or scenery. I'm here for one of the most challenging and epic construction sites in the world. Here they are building a huge new dam in the most unforgiving place: the site is 2,000 meters above sea level, it is hours from any major city and you can only get to this place for a few months a year because winter it looks like this. Okay, campers rise and shine, don't forget your cleats. because it's cold out there it's cold every day but wait a minute why are they building a shiny new dam when there's clearly already a dam right behind it?

Well, that original structure is almost a century old and it has a crack and it is damaged beyond repair, it cannot be fixed, it cannot be demolished and if nothing is done right about it, things would not go well, so that here we are building a dam in front of a dam to play something as massive as a dam in the middle of a mountain range would happen if they really didn't bother I came to Switzerland to find out I can't stop smiling because I'm on my way to see a incredible construction project in the most incredible of places everything about it The project is epic, including the journey to get here.

Look at these waterfalls. Death challenges Rose. Snow bouncing. It's like something. I have a bomb movie. Do you expect me to talk? I hope you die now. I'm not Sean Connery and believe me. It's not an Aston Martin, but I'm here on a very special mission. About 20 miles in that direction is a historic piece of infrastructure that served the people of this region well for almost a hundred years without a problem. So far, just below is Spittleam Dam, one of two artificial walls that were built long ago to form this huge body of water known as Lake Grimsor, why does any of that matter?

It may not be as famous as the dam. It looks exactly like it does in America, but this structure has its own place in history. You see, spitalam is one of the world's first large arch gravity dams. It was built here in the mountains between 1925 and 1932 and is actually older than the iconic Hoover Dam. which we all know and love, which was completed three years later at 114 metres, Spitlam was also one of the highest dams in the world when it was completed, the vast structure was built by around 600 construction workers almost entirely by hand. by an Earth and the Earth's gravity dam is Well, let's back up a bit, it's where a dam curves upstream and narrows using its own weight and supporting bracing to force most of the water pressure behind it against the rock walls of the canyon in which it sits.

They are ideal for when we are in an area of ​​particularly hard rock like this part of the Alps and require less material than similar methods. The completion of this incredible structure meant that the new artificial lake could be created and is now used to generate hydroelectric power. Now this lake is absolutely huge. It has a volume of 94 million cubic meters, making it one of the largest reservoirs owned and operated by the Kwo energy company and one of the largest reservoirs in all of Switzerland, but about 30 years after it was completed This amazing structure made a rather shocking discovery.

In the 1960s, when the area was becoming popular with tourists and filmmakers, some tests were carried out on the dam that produced very worrying results. Researchers found a large ancient crack on the lake side of the structure; In reality, it was more than a crack. What is called vertical separation, in other words, a huge chunk of material running almost from top to bottom has begun to separate from the rest of the dam, the mass of concrete, there is a smaller horizontal crack below the crest of the dam. dam and also over the years has been getting worse and there are concerns about what could happen to the structure in the event of an earthquake.

Yes, Switzerland welcomes them. In fact, it averages over a thousand per year. Most of them are too small to even notice. In fact, there could be For all I know, it could be happening right now, but the one that occurred in 1991, for example, was large enough to cause damage to buildings. Now at this point, I know what you're thinking, why go to all that effort to build a big new dam? facing the original dam, why not just repair the original dam or fix that crack somehow? That was the original plan, to break up the material that is already separating and repair it with some new, better concrete to make it even stronger than before, but it turned out to be too risky, research showed that doing that could lead to the so-called alkaline aggregate reaction that could cause long-term damage to concrete.

On top of all this, literally, sediment has started to build up behind the dam and is now building up around the lower discharge area which is not good because if this area becomes completely blocked it will be more difficult to release water from the reservoir if necessary, At worst, secret rice garden centers are relaxed, and what would happen if they simply removed the dam? Well, that would mean that all that water would have to go somewhere else and since it is used to generate hydroelectric power, that would leave a gap in the energy grids that would leave them with only one option: build a completely new dam in front of the old dam. and then Flood the huge space between them using a tunnel.

The original dam I am currently on will remain. After all, it is a part of history, but the job of carrying the weight of all that water will be taken on by the new one. Damon, younger and fitter now, when I say that it sounds very simple, but believe me, it's not. It's going to take a lot of time and money. Fortunately, the country's households are a whopping 800,000 millionaires and that in a population of only 9 million people. We have had to adapt recently, the country's major financial institutions since 1856 collapsed earlier this year. In fact, Bloomberg reports that families worth more than 500 million Swiss or otherwise are changing their strategies by seeking other safe haven investments, with another area of ​​interest being collectibles with the largest In fact, thousands of b1m subscribers They are employing a similar strategy with our sponsor masterworks' art investment platform.

Masterworks has amassed impressive returns on works sold and has acquired over 300 paintings, while a single return is no guarantee of future returns. a Cecily Brown piece comes out just a few days ago with an annualized net return of 77.3 percent. Masterworks now has $8.1 billion in assets under management and b1m subscribers can skip the waitlist at the link in the description. Now back to the Damn video, I've been to a lot of construction sites, but I've never seen anything like this in terms of cost. The new US$140 million dam is quite small compared to typical megaprojects, but its sheer scale and the challenges its teams face are immense right here.

It is where construction is taking place with the old dam rising behind it. Construction has been underway since 2019 and is expected to be fully completed by 2025. Now, obviously, a lot has changed in the damn design since the 1930s, the original dam was built with a single arch, which is that one. You can clearly see a huge curve from here, but look at a cross section and the lake shore of the dam rises in a straight line. Now its

replace

ment will be a double curvature dam, meaning it will also curve in a vertical direction. It means that the walls of the dam can be made thinner, that is, less materials and at the same time have the strength necessary to retain all that water.

The new dam will be the same height as the old dam, but will be strong enough to expand it further in the future if there are ever plans to do so. grow the reservoir construction, that's all like that, it started with clearing the space for the new dam, now being Solid Rock, the team used controlled explosives and did it right next to the old dam that is holding back a huge lake full of water without damaging it. In one of the most complicated construction maneuvers ever undertaken from there, the vast dam wall rises as a series of staggered 15-metre-wide towers over the course of four summers.

It is built that way so that each segment can dry or cure faster and increase the overall strength of the walls of the foreign damn direction. In total about 215,000 cubic meters of concrete will be used. Next, a huge tunnel is being dug through the mountain that will allow water to be discharged from the reservoir and sent downstream if levels ever rise too high. high, but before the excavation can be completed, the reservoir must be completely drained sending all that water to the hydroelectric power system. Crews will then clear the sediment on the lake bed and dig the rest of the tunnel before allowing the reservoir to refill naturally.

After that, they will gradually flood the area between the two structures and the new dam will take on the task of containing the weight of the lake, the old dam will then be able to enjoy its retirement in the same place where it always was and finally lost its Battle of almost a century with the lake behind the scenes or rather within the scene, several access tunnels are forming through the middle of the dam, creating the slightly scary place where I am now, that's right, I am currently standing in the middle of the dam with huge amounts of concrete around me right there is the old dam and on the other side is several million cubic meters of water, which when you're standing in a place like this is a great thing to think about.

There is a huge amount of work here and enormous pressure to do it well and quickly - as you can imagine, one of the biggest tasks is to carry that amount of concrete up a mountain - but they found a clever way to do it right behind me. blasting concrete at the site that was built specifically for this project and is using granite from the construction of a nearby power plant in the production of the concrete material, an example of how the construction process of this project is being shaped by its extraordinary location. Driving from the top of the dam at this time towards this site it is not completely alone here in the mountains perched high above, there is the Grimsel Hospice, a luxury hotel that has also been here since the 1930s and you have to drive about another.

Dam to get to now Switzerland is an amazing place for a relaxing getaway, but when you have a dam to build, things can be tough, the teams here work almost continuously in shifts of 20 hours a day, seven days a week, that's because For about half the year this place is completely covered in snow and work on the dam has to stop completely, so now they are working twice as hard while they can, yes foreigner, I am here in summer now, believe it or not. I don't believe it. I really know what snow is like. One person who knows this is Lucius Garmin.

Lucius has lived in this region for over 20 years and now he is a tour guide for people visiting the area's sites, including the dam and power plants, apparently the best. Their way of explaining what happens here in winter is by showing it from above and the best way to do that is to go up on one of these foreign tourist attractions, yes, it was built so that workers could be transferred here because in winter you don't have a chance to get up to here on the road so you have to take several gondolas all the time.

I'm from London, we get, you know, maybe a foot of snow, it's like the worst snow we get, how much snow do we get? talking here, but it's very different, but sometimes we get three meters of snow up here, three years of three meters of snow, yeah, basically, when the cold hits here, you need more than just a thicker pair of socks, the place almost disappears under the snow if the project was not closed those who work at height would have to endure icy winds of 200 kilometers per hour there is a threat of avalanches pouring concrete would be almost impossible none of that sounds good you know, they stopped the construction site at mid October until the meeting I and they can't keep up the construction because of the snow and it's a lot to ask for work with huge piles of snow apart from the remoteness of it all the nearest city Lucerne is about 50 kilometers away behind numerous steps mountain road with sharp curves that can make it very difficult to get the right materials, equipment and people to the site, even when the sun is shining.

I pulled behind me the two huge red tower cranes standing 92 meters above this site, which we built in sections brought here by 70 different trucks through the winding Grimsel Pass. The only route they could take and because there is not much space on this side, they had to assemble fromimmediate, there's no room for storage, so timing those deliveries perfectly was an immense challenge compared to average construction projects, it all seems like a lot of hard work. But like all major infrastructure projects, there's a bigger reward here, and just out of sight, far below the surface of its reservoir, this dam plays a vital role in keeping the lights on across Switzerland.

The battle takes place in a turbine room deep in the mountain below the reservoir and to get there I have to pass through here now I'm driving down a mountain and under a huge reservoir look at this exit we're going under a lake we're down here to see one of the machines in the hydroelectric power plants that maintain Switzerland is working, so we have arrived at a rather noisy place. What is this? Where are we now? We are now at the Crystal 2 power plant, which is located 100 meters below the level of Lake Grimson with our 13 power plants, we maintain 21 turbines. and five very important pumps, we have the possibility of maintaining a perfect balance between the consumption and production of electricity in Switzerland.

This place is amazing, it was built almost 50 years ago and is a very good example of a pumped storage energy plant, but what does that mean in very simple terms? It is where two or more lakes or reservoirs at different altitudes are connected allowing water to flow from one to the other as the water is forced downhill, spinning turbines that generate electricity when there is not much of it. of energy demand, the excess energy is used to pump water back to the higher lake and then when energy is needed, the water is released again. In general, hydropower is a more consistent energy source that does not experience the same peaks and troughs in supply as Wind or Solar Power Kwo has a whole host of systems that do this here in the Swiss Alps, generating power several times from the same water that flows from the mountains.

The water comes from Lake Orbanar, 500 meters above us, and then here at this power plant. running all four machines at full power, there are 100,000 liters per second, rushing through these tunnels, one hundred thousand liters per second, which is mind-blowing, as is the Spit Lamb Dam above it, Grimsle II is another incredible feat. of engineering, but surprisingly there are around 200 dams across Switzerland and an incredible 700 hydroelectric power plants like this one, many of them hidden out of sight, helping to quietly power the country. What you like most about living in this part of the world is just the mountains the mountains just the mountains these these areas how It's hard here and I just love it.

Construction projects can sometimes raise questions about whether they are really necessary or not, but that is not the case here. This historic structure simply has to give way to a new and improved version. Yes, this country is incredibly unique. Few places on Earth have the landscape, the climate, all the experience to build and maintain hundreds of dams and Hydra plants, but it is not a type of infrastructure unique to Switzerland and, as magnificent structures like this around the world begin to age, it could be that Drastic measures must also be taken in other places in time.

What these incredible teams are achieving here in this impressive and unforgiving environment truly speaks to the power of construction and its ability to impact and shape the lives of millions of people. The views are beautiful. damn epic too, also responded that this video was sponsored by Masterworks. You can skip their waitlist at the link below. We're raising awareness of the construction mental health crisis and supporting charities in this space through our construction talk initiative. There are a number of videos on our Channel and you can find supports or donations at getconstructiontalking.org and as always guys if you enjoyed this video and want more of the ultimate channel construction video channel that takes you to the heart of the Swiss Alps. that subscribe button below foreign