National Geographic
Giant Wind Turbine
Riley travels to Portsmouth, R.I., where residents are setting up a 115-ton wind turbine that will provide years of clean energy. The constant blowing wind will fuel the trubine, but how do you raise giant blades in the midst of these unpredictable winds?
Story Development--
Below are clips of five of the ten TV shows I helped develop for the series “World’s Toughest Fixes” during my experiment at Nat Geo. 2009
High Access Rigging
Riley is going to new heights. He'll hang over the edge of Las Vegas' tallest building to fix the X-Scream, a thrill ride on the Stratosphere. One of the critical safety measures needs replacing, and Riley joins the ride's head of maintenance on the very edge of the track, 800 feet above the ground, to make the fix. Then he'll dangle 500 feet over the side of the Hoover Dam to retrieve trash. Upriver from Niagara Falls, he'll hang over an unstable, overgrown cliff to eliminate loose rocks.
Story Development--
E-Solar
Riley joins a crew lifting a 50 ton boiler 160 feet up a tower and suspending it above 24,000 mirrors - completing America's first large scale solar power tower.
eSolar power plant technology utilizes small, flat mirrors which track the sun with high precision and reflect the sun's heat to a tower-mounted receiver, which boils water to create steam. This steam powers a traditional turbine and generator to produce solar electricity.
Story Development--
50 Ton Rudder
Riley joins a team of industrial divers on the Caribbean island of Curacao to salvage and repair the 50-ton rudder of a ship carrying $3 million worth of iron ore.
Story Research--
Sky High Bridge Fixes
Riley crosses the pond to scale three iconic bridges in the U.K. The famed Tower Bridge in London is being restored, and the lead paint being stripped must be contained. In Scotland, he'll construct scaffolding at the top of the Forth Bridge, a vertigo-inducing 367 feet over the water! Just upriver, he helps implement an experimental technique to prevent a suspension bridge from collapsing.
Story Development--
