The Monster Excavators Digging The Biggest Hole In Europe

Hello, guten Tag and welcome to the industrial heartlands of western Germany, where they've spent the last 40 years digging the biggest man-made hole in Europe. Yep, that's right, we've come here to see literally nothing. But if there's one thing I'm good at, it's making literally nothing interesting. No, wait, oh for goodness sake, who writes this stuff? I'm getting off the train in Düren, about halfway between Cologne and the Belgian border, and we're going to catch a bus from here to Oberzee, the nearest village to the Tagebau Hambach, or in English, the Hambach surface mine. A surface mine is a mine where instead of digging tunnels underground, you start above ground and just dig. So in many ways it's very much like a normal mine, except it's on the surface. Incidentally, this is really cool, a tactile map to help visually impaired people find their way around the bus station. We should have more of those in the world. But with the possible exception of people who can't actually see the place, it doesn't feel like Düren gets a lot of tourists. It's a historic town, but it got flattened during World War II, and you can kind of tell. Leaving Düren, the bus speeds through the kind of landscape that reminds you that we're not that far from the Dutch border, and 20 minutes later it drops you off in Oberzee. From here it's about a 50 minute walk to the edge of the mine. You can of course get there much quicker with a car or a bike. Here's what the area looks like on Google Maps. We're here in Oberzee. This, in case you hadn't guessed, is the mine. Or at least, the hole that's been dug so far. This, for those of you who watched my video about the Becton Alps and are now big fans of spoil heaps, is the biggest spoil heap in the world. And this is the total area reserved for mining. So by 2040, all those fields at the bottom, and any sign of the two villages that used to be there, will have gone. That's why this motorway has been diverted around the area. It used to run straight through it. The old route is now a ghost road, and sits there awaiting its eventual fate. Unless of course the whole project gets stopped by protesters. Apparently you can't even dig a hole the size of a city these days without a few angry environmentalists turning up. Anyway, back to the walk, and in a weird way, and bear with me here, this feels a bit like approaching the Grand Canyon. You know it's there, you know it's huge, but I don't think we're going to actually see it until we're right next to it. Definitely getting a bit of a whiff now. Whether that's the mine or the fertiliser is another question. It doesn't smell normal. After a little more walking, we cross a main road and find a sign pointing to the Tagebau Hambach. So I guess it's just down here. This doesn't feel hugely welcoming so far. Ah, Tagebau Hambach. We've been accident-free for 83 days. Is that good? Is it bad? If it's good, does that mean the next accident's overdue? Oh there we go, there is a welcome sign. With a large space underneath for the silent, you'd better have a good reason for being here. There's definitely a bit of moisture in the air. But it doesn't seem to be raining so that's a concern. There are a lot of fenced off areas here and in fact part of the reason that it's such a long walk to get to the mine is because you just have to go round stuff. This includes a huge railway yard where freight trains come to load up on lignite, the kind of brown coal that's being mined here. Lignite is a poor quality coal which makes it a very inefficient fuel and it's also spectacularly bad for the environment. But demand has shot up since 2011 when Germany started to shut down its nuclear power stations under pressure from environmentalists. Round of applause there. The walk carries on down what feels like a normal country lane. Mostly. This whole area used to be a forest so if you ignore the fences and the warning signs for a moment then what you're looking at here is kind of like the before photo in a before and after comparison. But if you're watching this video I'm guessing it's because you wanted to see the after photo, right? You bunch of planet wrecking sociopaths. Well luckily there's a little viewing platform over here where you can do just that. I mean as holes go it really is holy. From the edge here it's 500 metres down to the bottom and it's five kilometres wide. On a hazy day like today you can't even see the other side. And of course if you're going to dig a hole this big you're going to need some seriously big diggers. The excavators here are monsters straight out of science fiction. The biggest ones are nearly 100 metres tall and they're heavier than any other vehicle on earth. I really want to go down and get a closer look but even if you don't speak German you can probably tell that this sign doesn't say hey come on in. So we're going to need a drone. The only thing with that plan is that it is hazy today so the views aren't going to be the best. And also I don't have a drone. Luckily though I discovered that some people on the internet do have drones and so with the very kind permission of two of them here's a montage. And remember kids while this place does look kind of cool it's terrible for the environment so please don't try and make one in your backyard. Thanks very much to Rob and to Drone Visions for letting me use their fantastic shots. I've linked both of their channels in the description and thank you for watching. I'd love to grow this channel so if you enjoyed the video please do share it with a thousand of your closest friends. Whack that like button, subscribe if you're new around here and I will see you soon. Right who put the words Europe's biggest hole on a picture of my face?