Personally, I never imagined, for a single nanosecond, in my entire life, that giant freaking underwater cables were anything else but vastly expensive.
I work for a company that makes similar undersea cables off and on for random customers (we make custom wire/cable as a business). The extrusion machines for the final jacket on the undersea stuff is massive. The extruder screw takes 6 guys and a special cart to install. looking at all those sub components... makes me shudder knowing how easy it is to screw up one production stage and completely ruin all the stages prior... Lol, makes me glad I work primary extrusion (the stages that put the first layer of insulation on bare metal strand) and don't generally have to worry about my mistakes, if any, ruining everyone else's work. Final Jacket on a cable like this probably has multiple process techs/engineers triple checking everything, so the operators probably aren't the ones to get in trouble if something goes wrong (the buck stops at the tech), but still... All those stages... So many single points of failure.
@@toddpacker7058 I will admit the extruders we use are actually quite old but the reason we stick with them is because newer automated extruders don't allow the amount of flexibility you need to make custom wire on the fly. The kind of cables and wires we make often require extremely specific customizations that would be extremely difficult to do on fully automated machines owing to the fact that automated machines usually require custom tooling for every single job.
@@qurkatimilaz3787 they have steel for armoring against tight bending and friction from the seafloor. The isolation is extra-wide as the voltage is pretty high. There's a "semiconductor" layer (not like silicon, in this case it means not very conductive) to control electric fields and prevent arcing. Often there's also glass fiber for communication, fillers to get a round even profile and other plastics for stabilization. The steel armoring also prevents excessive stretching of the cable when laying it down and when moved by the seafloor. Copper and plastics are too soft to carry the weight of the cable itself. Transmission lines also use steel-core aluminium wire to prevent tearing it apart.
@@qurkatimilaz3787 for long distances transfer of electric power, the voltage should be high, to reduce losses. The higher the voltage the lower the current for the same power. So, long distance high voltage lines has established at 400.000volt (400kV). As you imagine in such high voltage, the insulation of a cable inside salty water should be extremely robust. Additionally to that, the cable have added several layers, metallic and polymer, to protect from wear.
@@DonnieDarko2584 to be fair tech in the 1800s was new asf. Steam engine powered ships started in 1807, the first hydraulic crane was 1838. Considering that tech was not very good, and controlled, it's a feat of work. Nowadays we have much more precise instruments, safer measures against situations, and overall a more pressing sense of self-preservation.
Back in the 1980's a company I worked for made two custom platinum wire temperature sensors used on a Japanese cable laying ship. It seems that they would measure ocean floor temperature and opt for colder temperatures for the cable if they could. And the "weather" on the ocean floor changed so slowly that it was nearly constant for their purposes. These sensors were on 25,000 foot cables we had custom made. 4 wires and a central stranded steel wire for strength. The cable was only about 1/2 inch diameter. The extra strength was needed because the weight of the cable itself, if just a normal cable, would tear it apart. Electronics types will know right away why there were four wires. Two to provide a current through the platinum wire, and two wires to sense the voltage across it with as little load as possible.
@@seamali4383 What's a "BASED" comment? And the only reason I don't have a pfp is because I just never bothered, and my ego doesn't need one. Perhaps I could do like some and use a picture of a cat or a car or something. Would that make you happy?
My dad worked in the industrial cable industry his entire working life. He helped create the cable that's buried in NYC, and mining cable that was about 9" diameter...it was several hundred dollars per foot 20 years ago. Very interesting stuff...
@@flat-earther I think it's fascinating that someone in the year 2022 could think that the earth is flat. So....have you never flown anywhere? Once you get to altitude you can see the curvature of the horizon. It's such a ridiculous premise that I'm genuinely fascinated at anyone who believes this.
@@mcesarey So denying the earth's a globe automatically means flat earther? There are reasons to why you think you see curvature in an airplane is because the windows in an airplane are not flat so it makes a fisheye effect just like a gopro fisheye lens. That's why divers use goggles with flat glass because it doesn't distort. An other reason is because you see the same distance 360 degrees around you, i.e. you see a circle, so that also can make you think that the horizon created by the limit of your vision is curvature. Anyways since you are fascinated I suggest watch the series, I have a link to it in my about tab. Either you will learn something amazing or get to laugh at flat earthers, great deal either way.
@@flat-earther So, you'd assume you'd look out your window in the plane before the plane takes off and see that trucks, cars, people are NOT curved. Even the wing of the plane is not curved. A camera lens is curved, but see's flat. Even your own eyes are curved/round, strange you don't see fisheye effect everywhere you look.
Whoa, I didn't even realize anchors and fishing vessels pose such a threat to underwater cables. I thought earthquakes and water currents are more common danger. Great video!
There is such a tiny risk of an anchor hitting a cable that it's basically negligible. Fishing boats though can cause damage. Luckily all the major cables have their locations public and most fishing boats of that size would know not to damage the seafloor in those areas.
@@TextiX887 in the open sea, yes. But near land there is actually significant risks, especially since throughout all the steps involved the anchor may traverse a fair distance along the seafloor. That's why you usually see buoys, moiré beacons and the like where cables approach the shore. With big fat "no anchoring" signs.
@@hieronymusnervig8712 Agreed. Two of ours were snagged by anchors and dragged far out of position. One of them was actually dragged into an area that the harbor maps showed was completely clear of underwater cables and it collected 4 more anchors over the course of under 20 years.
Looks all very familiar! What that means is that technology hasn't moved on all that much since the 1980s when I was doing this stuff. The details of the production and laying machinery have all been upgraded and I'm sure the tolerances and maximum workable lengths have improved a bit but the basics are the same.
An error in the commentary. The first transatlantic cable, was used to send a telegram from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. The message (100 words if I remember correctly) took several hours to transmit. Not a few minutes.
Yeah, the entire cable acted like a giant capacitor, so it really slowed the speed down. Dots and dashes became slowly rising and falling pulses and not sharp
Theirs a dc line running between center north Dakota and Duluth Minnesota. There is no sub stations or other devices along the way. Its interesting that one pole can be severed and lying on the ground and the line still functions normally. The terminals on each end are so sophisticated that even the engineers have a hard time understanding it. The whole terminal was created by an outfit in norway(I think). That line has been in continuous operation since the mid '70s.
Consider that the first telecommunication cable laid between Newfoundland and Ireland didn’t work so, back to the drawing board and it was replaced. Imagine months of work at sea and an enormous financial investment simply failing to operate.
IIRC it did work but was destroyed by incompetence in operating it . Incidentally also IIRC it was tested on way, no point laying thousands of kilo meters of wire to find out it does not work.
Always leave a bit of slack. Just in case the cable is unexpectedly hit. I'd like to see how they locate and repair damaged underwater cables. Splicing is just as interesting. Do they assemble a prefabricated, pressurized vault and splice it on the sea floor or do they pull out slack in the cable and splice it on a ship?
Would probably try to avoid any spices/connections on the sea floor and just make it a straight run. But if had too, i'd say they'd pull slack up and splice on ship then set back down on ocean floor
When damaged, they send a robot to the sea floor attach 2 sets of floats, and cut in the middle. Install 2 joins and a new short additional length of cable then drop it back to the sea floor.
i saw a few websites that map them on google, but it doesnt look exact. i bet thats intentional though, a group with bad intentions could easily cripple a whole nation with the precise locations.
They are clearly shown on navigational charts, but it's amazing how many people don't know how to read them. It's almost like they consciously try to snag them with an anchor.
lol.... $400 a foot... That's pretty good considering all the production stages needed to construct that cable. The company I work for makes a custom cable for a customer that requires, no joke, a plastic compound premixed with platinum powder that gets extruded onto their silver plated wire. The compound alone is $28,000 a pound. We have to save every last bit of scrap and send it back with the finished wire to the customer. the finished wire weighs just about a half of an ounce per foot. Not counting the cost of the bare strand, that's $875 per foot.
@@woofowl2408 You know, I haven't the slightest idea what they could be using a platinum infused plastic insulated cable for. It defies all logic to me and everyone on the production floor. I'm sure the customer has some reason for it, but nobody I've been able to ask has the slightest guess. It doesn't provide shielding, the metal has to be contiguous which a powder isn't. It can't be used as a drain (grounding) because the breakdown voltage of the plastic in between the particles is too high, but it's too low to provide reasonable insulation against spurious high voltage. It doesn't even get a second layer of some other metal free plastic before we ship it, so I assume they are using it as is. The ability to add any additional layers would mean they wouldn't need us to put on the platinum plastic layer first. So yeah I have no idea why they do it.
We take things like this for granted . The magnitute and marval of voltage and power distributation beyond imagination . Nicely done here in this brief presentation .
I becomes even more mind boggling if you ever carried a 128 Ampere Cable, you need a forklift for anything over 10 meters and then remember that is used by a big Stage, not a fucking Island.
I would love to find one of these decommissioned cable in shallow water. Just imagine how much you could make off just a couple hundred feet of one in scrap!
Think about the amount of man power and resources used to lay these cables, now imagine trying to take sections of an abandoned one, lol sounds good in theory but fuck that 😂
@@no0ne69_3 Yeah. Even with the right tools (And I work for one of these companies) it can take between hours to a whole day to dismantle a small section of cable.
@@TextiX887 they literally run it through the machine cutter and it cuts it in half how can u say 'i takes hours to whole day for a smalls ection' theres a guy taht cuts it with small cutter then runs it through machine
@@Rhyme905 They likely have the blades on the cable cutters rotated out and resharpened frequently, considering in many cases they are cutting through metals (albeit mostly soft ones). Then before any splitting can really begin, you'd need to remove any galvanized steel reinforcement, otherwise there's no real way you're cutting into that in any efficient manner. I suspect mostly, that the cost of recovering is just pulling it out of the water- not sure how much force it would take, but those cables look like they might be tens of ton of weight to pull one up - and if you can pull it up, where are you going to store it? Will you cut it at some point, dive, and try to pick it up again, or pull the whole thing up in one go? I'm not saying it's impossible for just an average person to do, but if you feel like you're capable of doing that on the kind of budget and resources that an average person has access to, then you likely shouldn't stay an average person, and should seek employment doing something extraordinary.
The first time I saw a drum of fiber optic cable I was like "Damn, that's a long piece of fiber." Never in my life have I seen so much cable in one place. At work we're used to a few hundred meters if even that on some huge rolls that could easily crush you if they rolled on top of you.
This video ignores a very intriguing point: when a few miles of cable are laid down, there HAVE to be splices. No spool of wire can contain 10-50 miles of cable. How do they make a splice? I was hoping to see that operation that has to be done on the ships while at sea.
You are right that would have been interesting to see. Incidentally when the first transatlantic cable was laid, half of it was contained in two ships that started laying from the middle of Atlantic going to opposite directions. So you can fit an enormous amount of cable in single vessel. Not sure if it was spooled at all back then. But certainly they made several splices, one at the middle of the Atlantic and at least once the cable broke, they fished it up, repaired it and continued.
@@Axel_Andersen But that was telegraphy, not power. There's a big difference between transmitting a weak data signal versus transmitting kilowatts of power.
@@Rhyme905 you cant have a machine without small cogs... you need people making the things work and you need people who are thinking higher... if everyone thought higher NOBODY would want to stock our shelves or pickup our garbage from the curb meaning we'd all starve and be trapped with all of our trash... everything is perfect the way it is.
My mind boggles that Russia has more spy submarines and is leading country in that technology than any other country. The main focus are under sea cables.
5:50 It seems kinda unrealistic to recycle hundreds of kilometers of cable with the methods they show here. It’s like cutting grass with nail clippers. They need some giant machine which just automatically feeds the cable and rips it apart into all the different materials, without manual intervention.
I am a blood-cell inside these incredible vains of information-flow around the globe. And thanks to these incredible cables of artisan engineering I can sit here watch how they made it on my streaming video from UA-cam. All at the comfort of my home. What a time to be alive.
Good documentary! Only one small piece of feedback: try to use the metric system for measurements, because most people who watch this don't know the American way of measuring.
Eu trabalhei um pouco com instalação desses cabos, do final de 2019 e começo de 2020, foi meu último trabalho de campo ! O vídeo também deveria mostrar o trabalho de emendas e testes das emendas, o que é o mais crítico e difícil nessas instalações, verdadeiras pedreiras !
Toni, minha curiosidade e como se aplica pra um trabalho desse, tendo em vista que nao e todo dia nem em todo lugar que se passa um cable submarino. a experiencia deve ter sido unica, parabens.
I was involved in load in the Cable in to Cable tank of a cable lay barge before it departed to project in Alaska. Not so sophisticated Job but atleast Got knowlegde how Cable was laid in seabed.
TY for sharing. There might be cables that supply offshore oil and gas platforms electricity in other parts of the World. However, while working out in the Gulf of Mexico’s Oil Patch as an OSV Captain, I never saw any offshore platforms that utilized cables to supply their electricity. Most of the newer platforms utilized their field’s own natural gas to run their generators, while many of the older platforms utilized diesel fuel which our vessels pumped to their storage tanks located on the platform. On a similar note, I witnessed offshore oil and gas pipelines being installed by the M/V Lorelei; a pipe laying ship, which was fascinating. Also, while working as a US Park Ranger, I also observed an old AT&T telephone cable, that was no longer being used, which ran underneath Lake Mohave from the Arizona side to the Nevada side of Lake Mead’s National Recreation Area. That was a fascinating story about how that happened too. 😉
@@chrischristopher905 TY Chris for posting that information about California’s Offshore Oil Platform’s. When I worked out in the Gulf, I was also supplying and servicing the Diana Hoover platform for Exxon Mobile while working for Seacor Marine. We were it’s Field Vessel. At that time, it was the deepest deep water oil and gas platform in the World in 5,000 + feet of water. As far as I know that it still the case! 😉
@@thercattrainer Actually BP's Thunder Horse PDQ is in 6000+ feet of water and Chevron's Jack is close 6000 to 7000 feet of water ExxonMobil is partner in TH and Jack is tie back for EMs Julia Field
@@chrischristopher905 Thank you for sharing! As I vaguely explained earlier, in 2000, I worked as a Captain on the M/V Gary John; a mini-supply, for Gilbert Charmie Marine which was bought out by Seacor Marine based out of Houma, LA. Let me add some additional info which I did not elaborate on in my earlier comments about the Hoover Diana which might have been confusing. At that time, we were working as a Field Boat for Exxon Mobile’s “Hoover Diana” project; or Diana Hoover as some people call it, which was the World’s largest (DDCV) Deep Draft Caisson Vessel. Also, at that time, i believe that it was the deepest deep water oil and gas platform in the World too. The Hoover Field is located 125km south of Freeport, TX in 4,800 ft of water. Normally you can only see around 6km out at sea because of the curvature of the earth. The Hoover Diana platform was visible at least 12-14km away. The flare boom was massive besides the platform, and when flaring excess pressure off of the wells, it was as though, a giant heat lamp was turned on above the platform, especially at night. The flame shot up for at least 300 feet, and you could actually feel the heat if you were standing on the upper deck, outside of the wheelhouse. I was fortunate to crew change off of the platform on Exxon Mobile’s Sikorsky S-76 Corporate Helicopter en-route to Galveston, TX which was really something. The S-76 flew at around 178mph. That whole experience was an unforgettable one, plus the deep sea fishing was really great too catching Mahi-Mahi on flying fish. I was so fortunate to work at the platform when it was brand new. That’s also where I got to see the deep sea pipe laying ship; called the Lorelei, working on the job, around the clock for a couple of months. 😉
Gotta love that at 4:34 they show the footage is from 2015 and that at 4:38, assuming it is indeed footage from the same year, they're using a Windows XP desktop. If it ain't broken, don't fix it is a good thing, Microsoft ended extended support in April 2014. That makes such companies a softer target.
Me contracting for Charter Communications for 7 years it surprises me to hear that the underwater cables with the most advanced outer shielding, wire guard wraps, and grease inside can only last 25 years. As squirrel chews was the #1 reason to replace cables above ground, I'm thinking advancement cable design and demand for higher transfer speeds are the main reason to replace a cable buried under the ocean floor. Just a thought
One mile isn’t that long, it’s just four laps around a standard track. You probably see cables getting close if you’ve ever been to a large stadium. Though, hundreds of miles underwater is crazy impressive.
The machine that makes them puts out a continuous product. The length is only limited by how much they can hold on a reel before they have to start another one. Then they splice the reels together when loading them onto the ship.
I've been in the offshore game for the last 30+ years operating ROV's and I have never ever heard them called ROUV's it's a pity that the author's of this cannel can't be bothered to do any research before producing the video(s)
What a weird thing to nitpick and then bash the entire video because of it. Who even cares? Besides, Wikipedia lists both acronyms interchangeably, so looks like you're the one who needs to do some research.
I call bullshit on the $400 a foot for the cable. 5000 kilometers is 16,404,199.6 feet x $400= $6,561,679,840 NO way would it ever be profitable for a company to pay 6.6 BILLION just for the cable.
I agree they should think about using solar power to have electricity and wireless technology for online services that why it costing customers money higher prices for cooking and watching TVs
They are dismantled that way, though usually the scrap is sold to different companies to recycle, who have many more workers specialized at dismantling stuff with special tools.
When that underwater telephone cable washed up on Gilligan's Island I remember how much trouble they had getting through the covering, high quality stuff.
I think the Americans are more renowned for it than the Russians, Russia has hundreds of islands and most of them contain military facilities so US subs used to attach listening devices to the cables that connected the islands to mainland Russia. There have been at least two incidents during the cold war where an eavesdropping US sub was discovered.
@@krashd it was a two way street but its one of the Russian pastimes for there navy and is one of the few navies that have a submarine geared for those types of missions, they just launched the belgorod which is far beyond what America or any nato country combined ever had
Finally I found something that really amaze and entertain , also for the people controlling my network y'all are doing a good job y'all deserve a raise on salary 🤗
The videos I’ll go down the UA-cam “Fluctus” rabbit hole on! 🕳 I never would’ve looked up under water cables in my life but….oh Fluctus has a video on them. And I watch the whole video and actually liked it 😂 🚂🔥🔥🔥🔥✊
Watch some documentaries on the first transatlantic telegraph cables. It's absolutely amazing how Cyrus Fields kept getting funding and they tried and tried again and all the setbacks they went through. That was my first introduction and I've found these fascinating ever since.
Personally, I never imagined, for a single nanosecond, in my entire life, that giant freaking underwater cables were anything else but vastly expensive.
Right?! Who would be surprised that they are expensive?
Christopher I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
I could save them a lot of money by just running a few extension cords from home depot over the entire ocean. Problem: solved.
@@flat-earther Nah I am good
@@flat-earther I'm sorry, but I'm completely sane, so that series would be no good for me.........
There should be a “Oceanic Cabling Simulator” game. The engineering that exist to do such a job is amazing.
Tesla coils would make your tech obsolete in ten levels
@@THESLICKNESSEDM the inverse square law was Teslas final boss. He lost.
Subnautica...
@@XstonedmonkeyzX thats.... fair
@@jaydenirawan3188 🤣🤣🤷
I work for a company that makes similar undersea cables off and on for random customers (we make custom wire/cable as a business). The extrusion machines for the final jacket on the undersea stuff is massive. The extruder screw takes 6 guys and a special cart to install. looking at all those sub components... makes me shudder knowing how easy it is to screw up one production stage and completely ruin all the stages prior... Lol, makes me glad I work primary extrusion (the stages that put the first layer of insulation on bare metal strand) and don't generally have to worry about my mistakes, if any, ruining everyone else's work. Final Jacket on a cable like this probably has multiple process techs/engineers triple checking everything, so the operators probably aren't the ones to get in trouble if something goes wrong (the buck stops at the tech), but still... All those stages... So many single points of failure.
Computers and robots have eliminated any issues, your company is from the 1970s.
@@toddpacker7058 I will admit the extruders we use are actually quite old but the reason we stick with them is because newer automated extruders don't allow the amount of flexibility you need to make custom wire on the fly. The kind of cables and wires we make often require extremely specific customizations that would be extremely difficult to do on fully automated machines owing to the fact that automated machines usually require custom tooling for every single job.
Why do the cables have so many layers, I mean, is not just a copper core, plastic wrapping and "tube" to hold them together enough ?
@@qurkatimilaz3787 they have steel for armoring against tight bending and friction from the seafloor. The isolation is extra-wide as the voltage is pretty high. There's a "semiconductor" layer (not like silicon, in this case it means not very conductive) to control electric fields and prevent arcing. Often there's also glass fiber for communication, fillers to get a round even profile and other plastics for stabilization.
The steel armoring also prevents excessive stretching of the cable when laying it down and when moved by the seafloor. Copper and plastics are too soft to carry the weight of the cable itself. Transmission lines also use steel-core aluminium wire to prevent tearing it apart.
@@qurkatimilaz3787 for long distances transfer of electric power, the voltage should be high, to reduce losses.
The higher the voltage the lower the current for the same power.
So, long distance high voltage lines has established at 400.000volt (400kV).
As you imagine in such high voltage, the insulation of a cable inside salty water should be extremely robust.
Additionally to that, the cable have added several layers, metallic and polymer, to protect from wear.
I honestly was surprised to learn that these only last 25 years as insulated and high quality as they are.
corrosion is a bitch
Thermal expansion
I mean, it is the ocean.
Imagine a mosquito inside Amber from Jurassic Park survived millions of years to become Dinosaur.
@@vishalmore7154 sir, Jurassic Park is a movie 🤨
Engineering is still vastly underappreciated for what it brings to the world.
Don't worry, one day you'll be considered as important as a Gender Studies graduate...maybe...if you're lucky.
@@randomperson8695 They're not even considered important now. They're only considered important to the educational system that profits from them.
@@randomperson8695 LMAO!
is it? its high paying job and fulfilling. just dont compare it to an actor / musician / celebrity income 😅
@@randomperson8695 Haha
Absolutely mind blowing that they were able to lay a cable across the Atlantic in the mid 1800's
"Haphazardly" done.
impressive
It’s insane that they can do it now
yeah and that they were people too. Even without social media. Just crazy...
@@DonnieDarko2584 to be fair tech in the 1800s was new asf. Steam engine powered ships started in 1807, the first hydraulic crane was 1838. Considering that tech was not very good, and controlled, it's a feat of work. Nowadays we have much more precise instruments, safer measures against situations, and overall a more pressing sense of self-preservation.
Back in the 1980's a company I worked for made two custom platinum wire temperature sensors used on a Japanese cable laying ship. It seems that they would measure ocean floor temperature and opt for colder temperatures for the cable if they could. And the "weather" on the ocean floor changed so slowly that it was nearly constant for their purposes. These sensors were on 25,000 foot cables we had custom made. 4 wires and a central stranded steel wire for strength. The cable was only about 1/2 inch diameter. The extra strength was needed because the weight of the cable itself, if just a normal cable, would tear it apart. Electronics types will know right away why there were four wires. Two to provide a current through the platinum wire, and two wires to sense the voltage across it with as little load as possible.
It's always the comments by no pfp who makes the most BASED comments 😘👌
@@seamali4383 What's a "BASED" comment? And the only reason I don't have a pfp is because I just never bothered, and my ego doesn't need one. Perhaps I could do like some and use a picture of a cat or a car or something. Would that make you happy?
@@trainliker100
Bruh chill, he was praising you
@@asain3586 Well, I guess I still don't understand the comment. But that happens sometimes with comments, and emails.
@@trainliker100 Based means cool ig
These operations bring a whole new meaning to the term "Cable Management". Cool stuff!
I wish my company's "management" could be better though :P
Audiophiles be like
finally a proper cable for my sound system
>$4000 per foot
Sounds about right
Underrated comment
🎯 🤣🤣🤣😭
My dad worked in the industrial cable industry his entire working life. He helped create the cable that's buried in NYC, and mining cable that was about 9" diameter...it was several hundred dollars per foot 20 years ago. Very interesting stuff...
Esarey I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
@@flat-earther I think it's fascinating that someone in the year 2022 could think that the earth is flat. So....have you never flown anywhere? Once you get to altitude you can see the curvature of the horizon. It's such a ridiculous premise that I'm genuinely fascinated at anyone who believes this.
@@mcesarey So denying the earth's a globe automatically means flat earther?
There are reasons to why you think you see curvature in an airplane is because the windows in an airplane are not flat so it makes a fisheye effect just like a gopro fisheye lens. That's why divers use goggles with flat glass because it doesn't distort. An other reason is because you see the same distance 360 degrees around you, i.e. you see a circle, so that also can make you think that the horizon created by the limit of your vision is curvature.
Anyways since you are fascinated I suggest watch the series, I have a link to it in my about tab. Either you will learn something amazing or get to laugh at flat earthers, great deal either way.
I may know your dad, I'm also a telecommunications tech in NYC, I worked submarine cables as well. TAT-14 was my baby, sadly it's retired.
@@flat-earther So, you'd assume you'd look out your window in the plane before the plane takes off and see that trucks, cars, people are NOT curved. Even the wing of the plane is not curved. A camera lens is curved, but see's flat. Even your own eyes are curved/round, strange you don't see fisheye effect everywhere you look.
Whoa, I didn't even realize anchors and fishing vessels pose such a threat to underwater cables. I thought earthquakes and water currents are more common danger. Great video!
There is such a tiny risk of an anchor hitting a cable that it's basically negligible. Fishing boats though can cause damage. Luckily all the major cables have their locations public and most fishing boats of that size would know not to damage the seafloor in those areas.
@@TextiX887 in the open sea, yes. But near land there is actually significant risks, especially since throughout all the steps involved the anchor may traverse a fair distance along the seafloor. That's why you usually see buoys, moiré beacons and the like where cables approach the shore. With big fat "no anchoring" signs.
Probably the biggest risk is cutting, for sabotage. Nations have maps of these things and teams to destroy them for strategic purposes.
@@hieronymusnervig8712 Agreed. Two of ours were snagged by anchors and dragged far out of position. One of them was actually dragged into an area that the harbor maps showed was completely clear of underwater cables and it collected 4 more anchors over the course of under 20 years.
@@ghost307 geez, and it still worked? Were those private cables or are you working for a power company?
The things that humans are capable of never cease to amaze me
Imagine now if that capacity was used exclusively for the good of mankind.
@@usedsweatpants799 You wouldn't be watching UA-cam or typing comments if things were strictly done for the good of mankind.
Looks all very familiar! What that means is that technology hasn't moved on all that much since the 1980s when I was doing this stuff. The details of the production and laying machinery have all been upgraded and I'm sure the tolerances and maximum workable lengths have improved a bit but the basics are the same.
Most innovation these days are about material design and production efficiency.
Lol wtf
Yes yes my friend because flat earth
There are only so many ways to skin a cat, stick a couple conductors in it, and drop it into the ocean for 3000 km.
@@TextiX887 I do wonder if transmission line physics will have more to contribute to this field (!) in the future.
An error in the commentary. The first transatlantic cable, was used to send a telegram from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. The message (100 words if I remember correctly) took several hours to transmit. Not a few minutes.
Yeah, the entire cable acted like a giant capacitor, so it really slowed the speed down. Dots and dashes became slowly rising and falling pulses and not sharp
Actually, very good documentary! Thank you for sharing!
That cable-laying vessel is endlessly fascinating.
Thats awesome!!! What employers are there to manufacture the cables???
I'm a industrial electrician & this stuff is on another level
craig I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
@@flat-earther thanks for this suggestion although it is off the scale random
@@craigbutler6243 It's my pleasure you can find the link to the series in my about tab.
@@craigbutler6243 Don't thank him yet.
Amazing! What a great video.
Thanks for sharing this.
Wow! Imagine the size of the twist connector they use when the connect two of these wires together!
I figured they'd just twist them together and wrap it with electrical tape
They tried to solder the ends properly, but a year later the 30W Weller still wasn't getting enough heat on the wire to melt the solder.
Wagos! 😂
Theirs a dc line running between center north Dakota and Duluth Minnesota. There is no sub stations or other devices along the way. Its interesting that one pole can be severed and lying on the ground and the line still functions normally. The terminals on each end are so sophisticated that even the engineers have a hard time understanding it. The whole terminal was created by an outfit in norway(I think). That line has been in continuous operation since the mid '70s.
HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) is an incredibly specialized field.
Consider that the first telecommunication cable laid between Newfoundland and Ireland didn’t work so, back to the drawing board and it was replaced. Imagine months of work at sea and an enormous financial investment simply failing to operate.
IIRC it did work but was destroyed by incompetence in operating it . Incidentally also IIRC it was tested on way, no point laying thousands of kilo meters of wire to find out it does not work.
@@Axel_Andersen Yeah, someone burnt it out after a matter of days.
Really informative video. Though I would prefere less pauses in the narration to get better immersed.
Always leave a bit of slack. Just in case the cable is unexpectedly hit.
I'd like to see how they locate and repair damaged underwater cables. Splicing is just as interesting.
Do they assemble a prefabricated, pressurized vault and splice it on the sea floor or do they pull out slack in the cable and splice it on a ship?
@@jasonoliveras4928 what?
@@Breakdown5297 you heard them.
Hug your chickens 🐓 tight!
Would probably try to avoid any spices/connections on the sea floor and just make it a straight run. But if had too, i'd say they'd pull slack up and splice on ship then set back down on ocean floor
When damaged, they send a robot to the sea floor attach 2 sets of floats, and cut in the middle. Install 2 joins and a new short additional length of cable then drop it back to the sea floor.
@@joeldriver9734Actually, splices can be pre-made in the factory and they are ready to go as part of the carousel when being laid.
A fantastic narration and interesting subject. Well done.
do navigation charts display the locations of these cables? so ships can avoid them with their anchors and whatever else?
i saw a few websites that map them on google, but it doesnt look exact. i bet thats intentional though, a group with bad intentions could easily cripple a whole nation with the precise locations.
Basically all projects of this size are public knowledge. There are charts out there. (Some military communication-cables might be secret though)
They are clearly shown on navigational charts, but it's amazing how many people don't know how to read them. It's almost like they consciously try to snag them with an anchor.
Alaska relies heavily on such cables. Thank you for this! And I've done some cabling in my time, but nothing like this! Respect!
25 years wow thought it'd last longer!
Same here ! 25 is short. I was thinking 50 or more.
Those damn sharks.
25 seconds i thought i would last more too
cool. Where can I purchase ?
it's like standing out in the rain alone, asking for rain jacket or an umbrella from a letterbox isn't it?
@@mentalasylumescapee6389 You never know.
lol.... $400 a foot... That's pretty good considering all the production stages needed to construct that cable. The company I work for makes a custom cable for a customer that requires, no joke, a plastic compound premixed with platinum powder that gets extruded onto their silver plated wire. The compound alone is $28,000 a pound. We have to save every last bit of scrap and send it back with the finished wire to the customer. the finished wire weighs just about a half of an ounce per foot. Not counting the cost of the bare strand, that's $875 per foot.
What would that cable be used for?
$400 ft is still much cheaper than some of those fancy, overpriced hifi cables as well!
@@woofowl2408 You know, I haven't the slightest idea what they could be using a platinum infused plastic insulated cable for. It defies all logic to me and everyone on the production floor. I'm sure the customer has some reason for it, but nobody I've been able to ask has the slightest guess. It doesn't provide shielding, the metal has to be contiguous which a powder isn't. It can't be used as a drain (grounding) because the breakdown voltage of the plastic in between the particles is too high, but it's too low to provide reasonable insulation against spurious high voltage. It doesn't even get a second layer of some other metal free plastic before we ship it, so I assume they are using it as is. The ability to add any additional layers would mean they wouldn't need us to put on the platinum plastic layer first.
So yeah I have no idea why they do it.
@@jonmcentire Interesting, that is unusual! I guess that it's for some kind of scientific application, likely in physics or chemistry.
@@woofowl2408 It's got to be something like that. I just can't see any commercial purpose for the stuff beyond some niche scientific application.
@@jonmcentire your customer is probably just shipping that back to their home planet
We take things like this for granted . The magnitute and marval of voltage and power distributation beyond imagination . Nicely done here in this brief presentation .
I becomes even more mind boggling if you ever carried a 128 Ampere Cable, you need a forklift for anything over 10 meters and then remember that is used by a big Stage, not a fucking Island.
This is absolutely amazing and mind blowing.The amount of “work” that goes into this is insane.
Wonderful smooth narration.
Wonderful information
I would love to find one of these decommissioned cable in shallow water. Just imagine how much you could make off just a couple hundred feet of one in scrap!
Think about the amount of man power and resources used to lay these cables, now imagine trying to take sections of an abandoned one, lol sounds good in theory but fuck that 😂
@@no0ne69_3 Yeah. Even with the right tools (And I work for one of these companies) it can take between hours to a whole day to dismantle a small section of cable.
@@TextiX887 they literally run it through the machine cutter and it cuts it in half how can u say 'i takes hours to whole day for a smalls ection' theres a guy taht cuts it with small cutter then runs it through machine
@@Rhyme905 They likely have the blades on the cable cutters rotated out and resharpened frequently, considering in many cases they are cutting through metals (albeit mostly soft ones). Then before any splitting can really begin, you'd need to remove any galvanized steel reinforcement, otherwise there's no real way you're cutting into that in any efficient manner.
I suspect mostly, that the cost of recovering is just pulling it out of the water- not sure how much force it would take, but those cables look like they might be tens of ton of weight to pull one up - and if you can pull it up, where are you going to store it? Will you cut it at some point, dive, and try to pick it up again, or pull the whole thing up in one go?
I'm not saying it's impossible for just an average person to do, but if you feel like you're capable of doing that on the kind of budget and resources that an average person has access to, then you likely shouldn't stay an average person, and should seek employment doing something extraordinary.
Dont give pirates ideas
So awesome. Thank you very much for doing this video. May God bless you
The first time I saw a drum of fiber optic cable I was like "Damn, that's a long piece of fiber."
Never in my life have I seen so much cable in one place. At work we're used to a few hundred meters if even that on some huge rolls that could easily crush you if they rolled on top of you.
😂yeah
VERY, VERY INTERESTING.... 😊
ABSOLUTEMENT...
ABSOLUTEMENT..
This video ignores a very intriguing point: when a few miles of cable are laid down, there HAVE to be splices. No spool of wire can contain 10-50 miles of cable. How do they make a splice? I was hoping to see that operation that has to be done on the ships while at sea.
Flex Seal ®
You are right that would have been interesting to see. Incidentally when the first transatlantic cable was laid, half of it was contained in two ships that started laying from the middle of Atlantic going to opposite directions. So you can fit an enormous amount of cable in single vessel. Not sure if it was spooled at all back then. But certainly they made several splices, one at the middle of the Atlantic and at least once the cable broke, they fished it up, repaired it and continued.
@@LucasJasche very smart. Very original 👏
@@Axel_Andersen But that was telegraphy, not power. There's a big difference between transmitting a weak data signal versus transmitting kilowatts of power.
@@LucasJasche underrated comment bro!!!
Great job on the video!
Proud to be employee of cable factory ❤️
that is what capitalism want u to think when in stead u should be thinking higher
@@Rhyme905 you cant have a machine without small cogs... you need people making the things work and you need people who are thinking higher... if everyone thought higher NOBODY would want to stock our shelves or pickup our garbage from the curb meaning we'd all starve and be trapped with all of our trash... everything is perfect the way it is.
@@Rhyme905 Just let them be happy. It's rare anyone likes their job. If they do, that's a great thing.
@@Rhyme905you just can’t believe someone can be happy working?
Leave your crab in a bucket pathetic mentality to yourself mr CEO
Thank you for making this wonderful video 💗
The sheer fact that we have dozens of cables that span across entire oceans boggles my mind.
My mind boggles that Russia has more spy submarines and is leading country in that technology than any other country. The main focus are under sea cables.
That's because you believe in satellites
Best cable laying video ever.
Very educative video, thanks for sharing!
Amazing content with ine of the best narrators!
Great video. If it is what I think it is, I love the use of duct tape at 4:24 to 4:26. The stuff is legendary.
FC I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
what beautiful machines..
7:24 in reality not much has changed in the cable laying process, the ship's interior is almost the same. and he size of the ship is the same.
Incredible! Great video.
Interesting...now give us 5,000km of this to supply solar power from Australia to Singapore!
You got $8.2 billion dollars to pay for it? Not including laying the cable and installing everything 🤣🤣
@@jtaylorvsport the two richest people in Australia, Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes are paying for it, so that’s all taken care of.
Awesome! After seeing this, we want some of these cables now. Cheers!
5:50 It seems kinda unrealistic to recycle hundreds of kilometers of cable with the methods they show here. It’s like cutting grass with nail clippers. They need some giant machine which just automatically feeds the cable and rips it apart into all the different materials, without manual intervention.
Lol usa buddy yeah they can make some expensive ass machinery to do that or pay workers the minimum wage to do it lol save lots of money
The engineering involved is astonishing.
CMP I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
I am a blood-cell inside these incredible vains of information-flow around the globe. And thanks to these incredible cables of artisan engineering I can sit here watch how they made it on my streaming video from UA-cam. All at the comfort of my home. What a time to be alive.
Good documentary! Only one small piece of feedback: try to use the metric system for measurements, because most people who watch this don't know the American way of measuring.
lmao gg
Eu trabalhei um pouco com instalação desses cabos, do final de 2019 e começo de 2020, foi meu último trabalho de campo !
O vídeo também deveria mostrar o trabalho de emendas e testes das emendas, o que é o mais crítico e difícil nessas instalações, verdadeiras pedreiras !
Toni, minha curiosidade e como se aplica pra um trabalho desse, tendo em vista que nao e todo dia nem em todo lugar que se passa um cable submarino. a experiencia deve ter sido unica, parabens.
I was involved in load in the Cable in to Cable tank of a cable lay barge before it departed to project in Alaska. Not so sophisticated Job but atleast Got knowlegde how Cable was laid in seabed.
The video was so interesting, it seemed like it was 4 minutes long. Thanks.
Seventy four I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
Mad to think that some of us are watching this video right now thanks to these under water cables
You learn new things everyday man
TY for sharing. There might be cables that supply offshore oil and gas platforms electricity in other parts of the World. However, while working out in the Gulf of Mexico’s Oil Patch as an OSV Captain, I never saw any offshore platforms that utilized cables to supply their electricity. Most of the newer platforms utilized their field’s own natural gas to run their generators, while many of the older platforms utilized diesel fuel which our vessels pumped to their storage tanks located on the platform. On a similar note, I witnessed offshore oil and gas pipelines being installed by the M/V Lorelei; a pipe laying ship, which was fascinating. Also, while working as a US Park Ranger, I also observed an old AT&T telephone cable, that was no longer being used, which ran underneath Lake Mohave from the Arizona side to the Nevada side of Lake Mead’s National Recreation Area. That was a fascinating story about how that happened too. 😉
State waters CA
Offshore California platforms such as the 3 SYU platforms are powered by electricity from shore through cables. Also Platform Holly in
@@chrischristopher905 TY Chris for posting that information about California’s Offshore Oil Platform’s. When I worked out in the Gulf, I was also supplying and servicing the Diana Hoover platform for Exxon Mobile while working for Seacor Marine. We were it’s Field Vessel. At that time, it was the deepest deep water oil and gas platform in the World in 5,000 + feet of water. As far as I know that it still the case! 😉
@@thercattrainer Actually BP's Thunder Horse PDQ is in 6000+ feet of water and Chevron's Jack is close 6000 to 7000 feet of water ExxonMobil is partner in TH and Jack is tie back for EMs Julia Field
@@chrischristopher905 Thank you for sharing! As I vaguely explained earlier, in 2000, I worked as a Captain on the M/V Gary John; a mini-supply, for Gilbert Charmie Marine which was bought out by Seacor Marine based out of Houma, LA. Let me add some additional info which I did not elaborate on in my earlier comments about the Hoover Diana which might have been confusing. At that time, we were working as a Field Boat for Exxon Mobile’s “Hoover Diana” project; or Diana Hoover as some people call it, which was the World’s largest (DDCV) Deep Draft Caisson Vessel. Also, at that time, i believe that it was the deepest deep water oil and gas platform in the World too. The Hoover Field is located 125km south of Freeport, TX in 4,800 ft of water. Normally you can only see around 6km out at sea because of the curvature of the earth. The Hoover Diana platform was visible at least 12-14km away. The flare boom was massive besides the platform, and when flaring excess pressure off of the wells, it was as though, a giant heat lamp was turned on above the platform, especially at night. The flame shot up for at least 300 feet, and you could actually feel the heat if you were standing on the upper deck, outside of the wheelhouse. I was fortunate to crew change off of the platform on Exxon Mobile’s Sikorsky S-76 Corporate Helicopter en-route to Galveston, TX which was really something. The S-76 flew at around 178mph. That whole experience was an unforgettable one, plus the deep sea fishing was really great too catching Mahi-Mahi on flying fish. I was so fortunate to work at the platform when it was brand new. That’s also where I got to see the deep sea pipe laying ship; called the Lorelei, working on the job, around the clock for a couple of months. 😉
How long does it take?
400 /ft and i thought 4/0 tinned marine wire was up there.
Gotta love that at 4:34 they show the footage is from 2015 and that at 4:38, assuming it is indeed footage from the same year, they're using a Windows XP desktop. If it ain't broken, don't fix it is a good thing, Microsoft ended extended support in April 2014. That makes such companies a softer target.
தமிழ் வாழ்க அஆ இ ஈஉஊ எ ♥️♥️♥️♥️
cables and setting the cable underwater is cool. but the engineering how the cable was made and the machines is alot greater.
You'd think with all the advancements in the last 150 years an automatic cable spooling system would have been invented.
You'd think with all the advancements in the last 150 years, the cables wouldn't be 400$ per foot and wouldn't be as thick.
@@utkrishtkumarsingh that's because physics haven't changed
@@utkrishtkumarsingh Needs are always outgrowing the supply.
You'd think with all the advancements, we'd finally have flying cars but alas. We don't even have drone delivery worked out.
Me contracting for Charter Communications for 7 years it surprises me to hear that the underwater cables with the most advanced outer shielding, wire guard wraps, and grease inside can only last 25 years.
As squirrel chews was the #1 reason to replace cables above ground, I'm thinking advancement cable design and demand for higher transfer speeds are the main reason to replace a cable buried under the ocean floor.
Just a thought
01:24 : "400 $ per foot" : Pleeeease give value also in international units. A lot of viewers are not from USA. Thank you.
$405 euro/ft
@@ncmetalfan5267 🤣😢
@Harry Groundwater 🤣😅😥😭😭
Underwater power cables: A scalper's wet dream
I have a hard time imagining they could make that cable a mile long, let alone thousands of miles long
One mile isn’t that long, it’s just four laps around a standard track. You probably see cables getting close if you’ve ever been to a large stadium.
Though, hundreds of miles underwater is crazy impressive.
The machine that makes them puts out a continuous product. The length is only limited by how much they can hold on a reel before they have to start another one. Then they splice the reels together when loading them onto the ship.
Nice video but more on the cable itself would be appreciated.
I've been in the offshore game for the last 30+ years operating ROV's and I have never ever heard them called ROUV's it's a pity that the author's of this cannel can't be bothered to do any research before producing the video(s)
What a weird thing to nitpick and then bash the entire video because of it. Who even cares? Besides, Wikipedia lists both acronyms interchangeably, so looks like you're the one who needs to do some research.
The submarine cables and everything that this implies always seemed incredible to me.
I call bullshit on the $400 a foot for the cable. 5000 kilometers is 16,404,199.6 feet x $400= $6,561,679,840 NO way would it ever be profitable for a company to pay 6.6 BILLION just for the cable.
I agree they should think about using solar power to have electricity and wireless technology for online services that why it costing customers money higher prices for cooking and watching TVs
Yes, The numbers. ? Seems another way would work.
Lol you obviously don't know government contracting.
Discount for quantity? 🤣
Great video!
Justin I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
Cheaper to produce this cable than I expected. 100 years ago there lived a genius who didn’t need cables to distribute electricity. NIKOLA TESLA.
It wouldn't have worked today with all the radio signals in the air..
He was never able to build a working model. Spent years and millions trying.
I want to see their splicing method for these cables.
Brent I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
And also to leave the decommissioned cable underwater equivalent to the increase of water metal pollution
Just stop it... jeeeez
🧚♀️
😆
These cables when buried under the water basically don't corrode. Pollution? Hardly, as the outer layer is not metal.
8:38 thats a shot of a US aircraft carrier dumping its anchor. lol
It was interesting until the recycling part. Total BS, no way that amount of cable would be dismantled in that manner.
sure it would , it only takes time and workers. it would only take a few years.
They are dismantled that way, though usually the scrap is sold to different companies to recycle, who have many more workers specialized at dismantling stuff with special tools.
When that underwater telephone cable washed up on Gilligan's Island I remember how much trouble they had getting through the covering, high quality stuff.
Got to hand it to the Russians for having the patience to cut into and tap thease lines all while being thousands of feet underwater!
I think the Americans are more renowned for it than the Russians, Russia has hundreds of islands and most of them contain military facilities so US subs used to attach listening devices to the cables that connected the islands to mainland Russia. There have been at least two incidents during the cold war where an eavesdropping US sub was discovered.
@@krashd it was a two way street but its one of the Russian pastimes for there navy and is one of the few navies that have a submarine geared for those types of missions, they just launched the belgorod which is far beyond what America or any nato country combined ever had
Not exactly these wires. Military's communication wires where build separately and not made to carry this much electricity.
Thank you very much.
Liked and Subscribed.
One of the many reasons “Green energy” is the most expensive process to produce electricity.
But for the future for our kids and the nature, green energy is the cheapest option.
@@robbiehakstor806 Nonsense.
fossil fuels are going to finish within 5 decades
@@robbiehakstor806 definitely not the cheapest.
I have seen them in Oslo 3 years ago in Statnett muzeum, Wonderful Science.
Pretty good vid, wish you would have talked about the splicing on a new section of ruined cable. The cant be easy with a cable that size ha.
Vash I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting. Something I don't see every day.
Finally I found something that really amaze and entertain , also for the people controlling my network y'all are doing a good job y'all deserve a raise on salary 🤗
Wow really I thought underwater cables were expensive for no reason. Thanks!
Gazer I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
I am amazed. The engineering. Sheeesh
This is the most underrated x most significant technology in the 21st century
Wonderfully made video.
I like it 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
How much of the cables are decommissioned and recycled ?
I'm guessing a tiny fraction, like most things that are recycled, with the exception of lead acid batteries.
Roughly 85%.
The videos I’ll go down the UA-cam “Fluctus” rabbit hole on! 🕳
I never would’ve looked up under water cables in my life but….oh Fluctus has a video on them. And I watch the whole video and actually liked it 😂 🚂🔥🔥🔥🔥✊
Watch some documentaries on the first transatlantic telegraph cables. It's absolutely amazing how Cyrus Fields kept getting funding and they tried and tried again and all the setbacks they went through. That was my first introduction and I've found these fascinating ever since.
really glad they go to the trouble of recycling the materials of old cables!
WHAT IS THAT YELLOW ROPE USED FOR ON 3:03 ?
incredible, thank you for vid. Learned a lot