Falkirk Wheel

Sometimes politicians manage to start something that really does inspire people. In the case of the Falkirk Wheel, a competition to find a replacement for a series of old canal locks, led to the wonderful piece of engineering shown below (image courtesy of Wikimedia):

The beautiful thing is the wheel is so well balanced that the energy it takes to swing it around is very small:

It takes just 22.5 kilowatts (kW) to power the electric motors, which consume just 1.5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy in four minutes, roughly the same as boiling eight kettles of water.

Wikipedia's article has more photos of the structure.