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from the nothing-lasts-more-than-8-years dept.
Mankind has a history of long term projects. The Pyramids, Stonehenge, The Great Wall, getting Mickey Mouse into the Public Domain...
Some of these projects took multiple centuries of effort. Not a single person present at the start of those saw them completed. This is made worse when you consider lifespans that were half or less what they are currently.
But what was the LAST project that spanned lifetimes? Do you know of any going on today?
The Great Wall was started in 300 B.C. and completed some 1900 years later.
As humanity considers things like colonizing other planets and space megastructures we are talking about activities that will take centuries of effort. This turns into millennia as we look at things like terraforming and actually spreading humanity beyond our own star.
Does humanity in the current instant gratification social media quarterly results era have the appetite for projects that our grandchildren won't see completed?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @04:41AM (2 children)
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/over-budget-underused-and-in-some-cases-never-even-opened-these-are-the-globes-multibillion-dollar-mega-project-disasters/news-story/f05b236e123b499ce0cb722138c37eea [news.com.au]
They’re the massively expensive global infrastructure projects that have either busted their budget or are absolutely useless. And some of the biggest balls ups are in Australia.
According to a 2014 analysis by Oxford University economic geographer Bent Flyvbjerg nine out of ten so-called “mega projects” have suffered from cost overruns, many of around 50 per cent or more.
Ref: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1409/1409.0003.pdf [arxiv.org]
Ciudad Real Central Airport, Spain
Cost: $1.5bn, abandoned
Opened in 2009, this $1.5 billion Spanish airport was built as an alternative to Madrid’s busy Barajas hub. Built for 10 million passengers, only a smattering of passengers ever used the state of the art facility.
In 2011, the last airline flew its final service.
Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea
Cost so far: $1 billion
An economic crisis halted work on the hubris hotel. In 2011, an Egyptian telecoms firm paid for the exterior of the building to be glazed so at least it looks complete. But inside it’s still empty and remains the world’s largest unfinished building.
Russky Island Bridge, Russia
Cost: $1.5bn
Dubbed the “billion dollar vanity project” at 1104 metres long the Russky Island Bridge, in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, is the longest cable stayed bridge in the world. Problem is it doesn’t really have a reason for existing.
VC Summer nuclear power station, USA
Cost: $2.5 billion, abandoned
An advanced energy plant in South Carolina, construction at the VC nuclear power station was halted in 2017 with only one-third complete.
Australia’s desalination plants
Cost: $10 billion for many to sit idle
At the height of the early 2000s drought, various state governments went on a spending splurge building hugely expensive desalination plants that could filter salt from seawater and pump it to homes should the dams run dry. Problem is, the dams then went and filled up again.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport, Germany
Cost so far: $10 billion, may never open
The lights are on at Berlin’s new airport but no one is home. The first flights were supposed to land in 2012 but, just weeks out from opening, final safety checks revealed the fire safety system was kaput.
East West Link, Melbourne
Cost: $1.1bn not to build
On face value, $1bn for an 18km long motorway is reasonable. But in the case of the infamous East West Link, which would have gone through Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs, that’s a billion dollars for a road not to be built.
Sydney Opera House
Cost: $1 billion, massive overspend
massive increase in costs made the Sydney Opera House, designed by Jorn Utzon, the world’s biggest ever mega project budget blowout.
“The real regret — and real cost — of the Opera House (was) the overrun and the following controversy destroyed Utzon’s career and kept him from building more masterpieces.”
Not mentioned:
The WPIT project has had billions sunk into it. Accenture is being brought in. [itnews.com.au]. SAP was brought in to work on it [itnews.com.au]. There are still complaints about the system. Billions spent in licensing and IT and contractors. WPIT may very well be the Opera House of our age. If it is ever finished.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday December 25 2018, @05:21AM (1 child)
I can't really take this list of failed megaprojects and overruns too seriously when we have the F-35 [wikipedia.org] showing how to really bust budgets.
The Sydney Opera House is an iconic landmark. The F-35 may or may not kill its pilots. [acsh.org] And it's only a couple hundred billion over budget.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 25 2018, @11:48AM
Shh. We're pretending that the F-35 project doesn't exist.