This is The World's Most Remote Infrastructure Project

I am currently driving through one of the longest underwater tunnels in the

world

. I have traveled all over the

world

. I've seen some incredible construction

project

s, but

this

is an

infrastructure

feat like no other and in front of me is something I simply won't see anywhere else - an entire roundabout under the Atlantic Ocean. I've never seen a roundabout under an ocean. I've seen photos of

this

, but driving around it right now, far below the water and under a load of rock, is quite unusual. Surprisingly, this is part of an entire network of tunnels found here, deep beneath a small island nation that

most

of you probably won't have heard of: the Pharaoh Islands in the North Atlantic, hundreds of kilometers away. anywhere else and with a population that could fit inside a football stadium, the incredibly beautiful and incredibly

remote

Pharaoh Islands have just completed a series of

project

s that much larger countries could only dream of.

So how have these

remote

islands managed to accomplish a task that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, anywhere else? What are its secrets and perhaps

most

importantly how has it changed the lives of the people who live here? I'm on an epic road trip from the top to the bottom of the Pharaoh Islands to find out, oh my god this is terrifying if they had made it. We didn't start drilling the tunnel and I don't think we would actually live here so now we are at the deepest point of the pH islands, how the hell did they build it?

The power of that water turning those turbines is the potential. Huge these things are out there right now silently generating energy it's hard to convey how beautiful this place is or how fresh the air is here it's amazing this place is amazing coming here it just takes your breath away so I'm standing right now in the Far north of the Pharaoh Islands, what you are about to see is my journey from north to south across land and sea to discover more of this magnificent landscape, see what life is really like here and discover how people get from A to B in This is the most extraordinary place.

Few corners of the world offer a more inspiring road trip. Nestled between Iceland, Scotland and Norway, the small archipelago known as the Pharaoh Islands is one of the most isolated communities in all of Europe, perhaps unsurprisingly because it is seen everywhere. Look, life here revolves around water, the pharaohs have a population of less than 55,000, and there are more sheep here than people. It was originally settled by Norwegian Vikings and possibly by Irish monks before, but today this group of 18 islands is now a self-governing territory of Denmark, the burning question is how a place like this sustains itself and the The answer is by doing what they have been doing for centuries fishing in the cold waters of the North Atlantic, the fishing boats of the Pharaoh Islands are chasing the industry's bills.

For around 90% of this nation's exports and around 20% of its GDP, the Pharaoh Islands are now looking to diversify by using their other prized assets, that incredible landscape to attract more foreign tourists and famous YouTubers, while also wants to make this a better and less isolated place to live for as many people as possible by solving a common problem that remote places like this often face a lack of large-scale

infrastructure

, has always made getting around quite challenging and incredibly dependent on the weather, but things are changing as I'm about to discover this amazing adventure, but unfortunately for me, it all starts with this rather scary looking tunnel.

Driving through this 60 year old 2km tunnel was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. It was filled with darkness and I had no idea how far you had to go. From time to time your mind would float on the enormous wave of all that rock on your car. This really isn't for the claustrophobic. Incredibly, it is actually one of 11 Lane Road tunnels in Pharaoh each. dug to create a path through this rugged landscape, but these terrifying tunnels can only take you so far, as I said, life here revolves around water and until very recently, the only option to get around was to get on a boat, It's really difficult to convey how beautiful it is here or how fresh the air is.

Is incredible. This is one of the many fairies that operate in the Pharaoh Islands. These trips normally last about 20 minutes and half an hour, but obviously if you then need to go to another island. that your commute, your travel time can really add up to the other things, keep in mind that luckily it's a pretty nice day right now, but sometimes the weather in this part of the world can get pretty crazy and these boats don't even sail absolutely. Firstly, such weather can also make getting to the Pharaoh a bit tricky, as I discovered when I first tried to visit in 2012.

Thanks to a storm, I never got further than Copenhagen's airports, as the few connecting flights up to here were cancelled, hopefully one day soon we'll bring you a shore video from the F Islands. Now I'm finally on land and excited to see the incredible feast of infrastructure that ferries have built to help take many of those inter-island ferries . and that unpredictable weather out of the travel equation, what are those projects? Underwater tunnels. I am sitting here at the entrance to one between I am and Stroy, the largest island where the pharaoh's capital is. It is one of the four tunnels that now connects. these pieces of land under the canals and I'm about to go through two of them, they are the newest and the longest and on the way I'm going to find out how they were built, now we are in the asteroid tunnel. and as you can see, it's completely different from the last tunnel I was in, much more modern, there are lights, which is quite nice for a driver.

Overall, the asteroid tunnel network is over 11 km long and reduces travel times between Tavan and Rovic village. Over an hour at just 16 minutes, what really makes this tunnel unique is that roundabout that allows drivers to head in one of two directions once they reach Midway Point. The world's first underwater roundabout cleverly divides the asteroid tunnel in two and here is the so-called jellyfish roundabout, you can probably see how it got that name, being here is amazing, right, the construction crews did this by digging in three directions there down, that way and that way to create this central column, it's just the most surreal thing you can imagine.

I don't expect to find this here in the depths, 70 meters underground, beneath the field up there, way above my head. What also makes this more than just a standard rotunda is the decoration that they brought in a local artist to create this sculpture and these figures that represent these silhouettes. fairies, people doing a traditional dance, it's a really nice touch when you're here, it's undeniably impressive, but the other thing that comes to mind is why go to all this effort. You know this place doesn't have a large population and is an immense feat of engineering construction, so why do it?

And once you decided to do it, how the hell do you build something like this? Before we get into that, it's important to take a moment to recognize that this sculpture is more than just 80M of steel and some light effects, it is a unique and priceless work of art that has tremendous value to Fise. There are now countless other valuable works of art out there, but most of them are out of reach for most people unless you've been investing with our Masterworks sponsors. Masterworks investors have earned returns of 14.6%, 16, 4% and 17.6% on works held for more than a year and sometimes longer, this is because their team has decades of experience in the art market and in finance they are taking a dedicated approach to art. as a financial investment and offering you the best of the best Legends deals that even a casual fan would know like basing Picasso and Banky, that's why over 915,000 users have signed up so far and why the stock has sometimes sold out in minutes, but B&M subscribers can still start investing today by using the QR code you see on the screen or by visiting masterworks.io.

So how did lighthouses manage to achieve these incredible engineering feats? Well, a lot of buildings, nothing new here, as I discovered. before, oh my god, oh this is terrifying, since the 1960s they have dug more than 20 covering more than 50 km in total, all as part of a policy to connect as many people as possible by road, the Most of these tunnels are on land, but in 2002, the first underwater tunnel connecting Lost MO with V, where the airport is located, went into service. Then, in 2006, another one was built between me and the board. 2020 saw the opening of the tunnel I am in.

From time to time, the huge Sando tunnel was opened in 2023. There is also a bridge. which was built in the 1970s, links the two main islands through the Gap, which is too short for a tunnel, all of which meant that the ferries knew what they were doing when they built this using one of the loop construction techniques More dramatic integrated tunnels: The drill and blast method has been around since the 19th century and remains a popular way to dig long tunnels through difficult terrain conditions, like those you'll find in Pharaoh. It was the strategy chosen by the Norwegian branch of the Swedish firm NCC, the main contractor.

To put it very simply, the project starts by filling some holes with explosives, lighting the fuse far back, and then cleaning up the debris. The walls are then covered with a layer of concrete that forms a lining for the tunnel that guarantees stability and makes sure it is airtight, you basically repeat that for several kilometers under the ocean, in all honesty, there is a little more than that and that's why I'm about to meet Titer Samuelson, he'll help me find out more about how these structures were built and what it takes to maintain them hello Hello, how are you?

Well, sweet, how are you? Titter is the CEO of the company operating these tunnels, an entity that is owned by fair governments. We have a lot of things that you have in London, but when you live in London you have all these things but you don't use them all the time you are really selling them to me I could actually come live here yeah, I guess you have all the things that we have, but no There is no pollution, congestion, yes, and crime. How long did it take to build this tunnel? It took about 2 years to fly, a little over 2 years and then a year and a half to complete it, install electrical systems, security systems and make the road and so on.

It sounds like a stupid question, but what was the hardest thing about drilling a Tunnel through solid rock under the ocean? It was actually the plan that the Geological Survey had to make before to be sure that it wouldn't do it. If you don't get to the bottom of the sea on your way over the FD, you just have to do all the things the geologist advises you to do, yeah, so it's not there, you usually see an underwater tunnel once you've dug the hole. and lined it up, the battle to keep the water out is not over.

Leaks can still occur even after completion and that means there has to be a system to deal with them. Hidden next to the tunnels are a series of pumps and pipes that direct all that unwanted water back out. This is one of the rooms where that process takes place and it happens to be at the deepest point in all of the Pharaoh Islands, 190 m below sea level. Oh amazing, you can really taste the Atlantic Ocean there. So why does this place exist? Why do you have these pump units? Yes, this is a reservoir here, so the water that runs into the tunnel from the ocean and the sea floor runs here before being pumped out.

This is a solid rock. Tunnel you have dug, why does water enter? Why do you have to pump water? Yes, the water comes out through cracks in the rocks entering the tunnel. Small amounts of water. Relatively small amounts of water. We can listen to the PPS now. Yes. but normally they are just running at night, yes, because we have more green energy at night. Now this complex system is not unique. All the underwater tunnels in the Pharaoh have bombs like this, including the new one, but before I Go and see I'm interested in understanding where all that green energy comes from and that means heading to Manor, the power station of this covered nation of lakes and rivers surrounded by fierce tides and prone to strong Atlantic winds, the Pharaoh Islands.

It is the perfect place for renewable energy. Now you don't have to go far to see examples of renewable energy generation in the Pharaoh Islands. You can see the waterfall behind me and the speed at which the water is falling down this mountain. The same thing is happening. In these pipes here the water comes down from those pipes tothrough this building which is a hydroelectric power plant dating back to the 1950s. The energy from everything that goes through the hydroelectric power plant spinning those turbines generates clean, renewable electricity, so here you get an idea of the rate at which water passes through this system is like that waterfall I just showed you, but they've tapped into it again, they've been doing it here for some time since the 1920s, in fact, it's been growing in 2023.

In a record year for green energy production, with more than half of electricity generated by renewables by 2030, the Pharaohs are planning to go much further by doing something that most countries would have little hope of achieving: The idea is to have all the electricity generated onshore in the Pharaoh Islands be renewable by then. Now I'm here in Vest Mana, which already has a hydroelectric plant and a wind farm, but it's here that engineers are testing a new method, another way to harness the power of another abundant resource: the ocean. Since early 2024, Minesto in partnership with SCV, one of the few energy companies present on the Ferrose Islands has been preparing to launch the world's first utility-scale Tidal Dragon, which is a special type of technology that generates electricity using the power of the Tite and the first installation of its kind anywhere in the world is taking place right out there, in the water, behind me, first.

A special base is built on the seabed, then a mini power station called a kite is brought to the site by boats before being tied to that base, the tidal flow and onboard control system making it move through of the water in a figure of eight spinning a turbine as it goes that generates energy that passes through an underwater cable to a control station connected to the sand that we have discussed in the title uh Energy for quite a few years. I said that 10 to 15 years the potential is huge in the pheros, but also the fact that we have a TimeWise phase change in the links between the different lines, if we install tidal turbines in different places, they can provide us with what we normally call generation base load and this one here is one of those comet looks.

Like it and believe it or not, this is actually a small one, so it can generate around 100 Kow, but the biggest ones that are now in the ocean are generating 1.2 megaw, it weighs around 2.7 tons, but the largest ones weigh 28 tons, it's crazy to think. that these things are out there right now, under the waves, quietly generating power for the W fer, so all offshore electricity generation will be green by 2030 and as a small society we believe we can do it and maybe play a model to follow. For the entire world to go 100% green by investing heavily in green energy, Phoh Island has shown that it not only cares about the well-being of its residents but also has the future of the planet in general in mind and yet, to despite being the place that keeps the nation running to find the true center of power.

I need to get back to the other side of this island and that's where the capital of this nation is. This is Torch Havav, one of the smallest capitals in the world. For around 14,000 people, this is the oldest and most historic part of this city. It's just fascinating to see the buildings, the architecture and just exploring this amazing little piece of Fise culture, so you keep walking from that historic neighborhood and you get to where it is. much more the center of T shavan is a little more modern than you expect but then the little things hit you like that that building behind me which is the parliament of the Pharaoh Islands that is where the 33 MPS of this nation meet looks like a town hall For most of us, despite its modest size, Taven is by far the most populated part of Pharaoh, but to get the full phoh experience I need to go further south, somewhere that's the complete opposite, so now I'm driving through the Sando tunnel, which is the newest one. tunnel which opened in December 2023, this is the longest tunnel measuring an incredible 10.8 km through the rock.

With this incredible amount of infrastructure, people now have a much easier way to get from the main island to Sando, which was previously only accessible by ferry. What is even more notable is that this Sando Island across the street only houses 1500 people and today only 3-400 cars per day are going to use this tunnel. You can see at this moment nothing has passed me, nothing behind me, nothing in front of me. It's huge, incredible engineering feet, but it's dead, there's no one here. These new tunnels are a remarkable achievement for such a small nation and are engineering masterpieces, as you can probably imagine, they came at a cost.

The tunnel for this cost around €80. e million, which is just under $200 million, was the largest investment ever made in Pharaoh, but for large projects it's actually not that bad, the Sando tunnel was about the same price, but when you look at the per head cost of both tunnels, it's about more than $7,000 for every person in the islands now compared to the US. In 2022, bipar and infrastructure bill funding reached about $1,000 per resident in MO states, so where did that money come from? Yes, the government set up a limited company that the government owns and then injected over a 10-year period €50 million and then we have funding from UK-based and mainly American pension funds funding the project, so what we got the financing in 2016 and then we started building the tunnels and TOS repaid it, yes, the total loans are repaid in 2014.

Wow, within 16 years, the entire project is repaid. That's amazing now, when you drive through an incredible construction like the Sando Tunnel, you expect to show up. in a larger city or community, but the first place you arrive is Scopen, which is a small town of only 500 people and it is the strangest thing to pass through a tunnel 11 that has been dug into solid rock under the water behind me and then leave. In such a small place, has it really been worth it? I am on my way to reaching the end point of my journey to try to find out.

I have come here to meet a family that has lived in Sando since before. the newest tun was built to see what they do with everything well thank you welcome thank you for inviting me in thank you like a cake or I would love some cake yes very nice of you to bake it for us yes. No one has ever made me a cake, so that's a first. What is life like here? We've lived in the sand for four four years. Now it's quiet, yes, it's nice, quiet. Life in the town. We have both been living abroad in different places.

What was it? like here, before the tunnel, you have to take a ferry to go to the mainland. I think we were still adjusting but it used to take a long time to drive to the ferry, wait, maybe if the weather wasn't nice then it wouldn't sail and yeah the ferry ride itself was half an hour so you usually just say that it takes half an hour to get here but it's like waiting and you have to wait for the fairy and yeah following this schedule and when I moved here I worked at Tound I drove myself or took the bus it would probably take like 3 hours of travel definitely our store from videos younger it's pretty easy baby nice we could be under construction I have that effect on people you just fall asleep yes yes we had two children since we lived here pregnant women who were giving birth had to go to the farm 2 weeks before the due date if everything went well, yes, otherwise maybe before that, to be able to stay close to the hospital, so they would provide us with an apartment in the hospital, that also has a big impact on family life when you're in a kind of vulnerable situation, especially if you already have kids, then yeah, so how does the tunnel change things?

How do you feel about the new tunnel? we hadn't started drilling the tunnel uh I don't think we actually lived here so that's a pretty big yes yeah yeah of course Barbara and her family aren't the only ones benefiting since this tunnel went through over 90 % of FES's population is now connected by road and it looks like that 1960s strategy is finally starting to pay off; There is even talk of the construction of another tunnel in the future that would become the longest, by far, linking Sando with the southernmost island of Suduroy It. It would be at least 22 km long and could cost almost half a billion dollars So is this a one-off or could we see other nations try something similar and isolate communities in much larger countries that also need new infrastructure?

For inspiration, including one not far away, the Shetland Islands off the north coast of Scotland, Shetlanders here often look to the Pharaoh Islands as a model for their own future. They have a lot in common with the Pharaoh Islands, a remote location in the North Atlantic. a small population spread over several islands and an economy that is based on fishing, so the question arises as to whether a network of subtunnels could be effective there, one Action Group certainly thinks that they believe Shetland should have a system of its own and they have even published a report on how to do it, but with no autonomous government giving it the green light so far, it remains little more than an idea, for now the pharaoh has set a standard for construction in hard-to-reach places that goes To be very hard to beat, being able to take the trip I just did in a nation of this size is nothing short of extraordinary to cross Seven Islands completely by road, thanks to truly world class construction, there really is no place like life of the pharaohs. very relaxed I think we live a calm and silent life, of course everything is smaller, as if it were a much smaller scale, we have this fair with nature, we live near the sea, it is very easy to go fishing, walk through the mountains, probably the safest country in the world.

In the world we're normally in we say we leave the key in the car at night because if someone steals the car, where should they go? We are very connected to our families and many people are quite close to family, good for the children. Growing up on the islands is also a really nice place when you come to a place like the Pharaoh Islands, it's easy to imagine that you might somehow be stuck in the past and missing out on the latest developments in construction or engineering, but that couldn't be be like that. Nothing could be further from the truth: working in this stunningly beautiful but incredibly unforgiving environment, construction crews have achieved Miracles and the impact of their work has literally changed the shape of this little Other Nation for the better.

What I've been most impressed with is how decisions around these projects are really made with everyone's benefit in mind and that's not really understood when big infrastructure projects take this incredible journey across this nation and uncover this history. which has really made me understand once again the power of construction. and proves that when it comes to this incredible industry and what it is capable of, nothing is off limits. This video was sponsored by Masterworks. You can skip the waitlist at the link below. Don't forget we are raising awareness of construction mental health crises and supporting charities in this space through our get Construction Talk initiative.

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