Advancing Robotics in Construction

ABB Robotics advances construction industry automation to enable safer and sustainable building. Credit: ABB Robotics

ABB Robotics is advancing automation in the construction industry

The Swiss company ABB Robotics wants to take advantage of the shortage of skilled workers in the construction sector, which is currently growing rapidly, to grow its robotics business and diversify its operations beyond the automotive industry. ABB sees the construction sector as a new growth market for its robotics business. In the past 18 months, interest in automation in the construction industry has grown.

Its new robotic automation solutions could address key challenges, including the need for more affordable and environmentally friendly housing and to reduce the environmental impact of construction amidst a labor and skills shortage.

In recent years, the Swiss robotics company has been affected by the crisis in the automotive sector, which has traditionally been its main customer. In this context, the construction sector offers new business opportunities for ABB, especially in view of the important infrastructure investment programs it relies on to get the world economy out of the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

In a global survey commissioned by ABB of 1,900 large and small construction businesses in Europe, the US, and China, 91% said they face a skills crisis over the next 10 years, with 44% saying they struggle to recruit for construction jobs. Improving health and safety on building sites was a priority for 42%, and the same percentage said the environment is a key driver for industry change.

In the survey, 9 out of 10 construction businesses predict a skills crisis by 2030, with 81% saying they will introduce or increase the use of robotics and automation in the next decade. Only 55% of construction companies say they use robots, compared with 84% in Automotive and 79% in Manufacturing.

Additionally, construction workers account for around 30% of workplace injuries and are up to four times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than other sectors, with an estimated 108,000 fatalities every year worldwide.

Robots can make construction safer by handling large and heavy loads, working in unsafe spaces, and enabling new, safer methods of construction. Using robots for the repetitive and dangerous tasks that people increasingly don’t want to do means automation can help support the industry’s labor and skills crisis and make construction careers more appealing to young people.

While ABB Robotics’ sales in the automotive market are expected to grow by 3% to 5% in the coming years, Sami Atiya, President of ABB’s Robotics & Discrete Automation Business Area, expects the construction industry to grow by 20% to 30% per year.

ABB is currently working on projects such as the robotic installation of elevators with Schindler Lifts and the robotic automation of Intelligent City’s production of prefabricated modular homes, increasing production efficiency by 15% and speed by speed 38% while reducing waste by 30%. While at Swedish construction company Skanska, ABB robots weld steel structures together to secure buildings.

 

Source: Inceptive Mind

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CEMENT BATTERIES – THE CONCEPT

Imagine an entire twenty storey concrete building which can store energy like a giant battery. Thanks to unique research from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, such a vision could someday be a reality. Researchers from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering recently published an article outlining a new concept for rechargeable batteries – made of cement.

The ever-growing need for sustainable building materials poses great challenges for researchers. Doctor Emma Zhang, formerly of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, joined Professor Luping Tang’s research group several years ago to search for the building materials of the future. Together they have now succeeded in developing a world-first concept for a rechargeable cement-based battery.

The concept involves first a cement-based mixture, with small amounts of short carbon fibres added to increase the conductivity and flexural toughness. Then, embedded within the mixture is a metal-coated carbon fibre mesh – iron for the anode, and nickel for the cathode. After much experimentation, this is the prototype which the researchers now present.

“Results from earlier studies investigating concrete battery technology showed very low performance, so we realised we had to think out of the box, to come up with another way to produce the electrode. This particular idea that we have developed – which is also rechargeable – has never been explored before. Now we have proof of concept at lab scale,” Emma Zhang explains.

Luping Tang and Emma Zhang’s research has produced a rechargeable cement-based battery with an average energy density of 7 Watthours per square metre (or 0.8 Watthours per litre). Energy density is used to express the capacity of the battery, and a modest estimate is that the performance of the new Chalmers battery could be more than ten times that of earlier attempts at concrete batteries. The energy density is still low in comparison to commercial batteries, but this limitation could be overcome thanks to the huge volume at which the battery could be constructed when used in buildings.

A potential key to solving energy storage issues

The fact that the battery is rechargeable is its most important quality, and the possibilities for utilisation if the concept is further developed and commercialised are almost staggering.Energy storage is an obvious possiblity, monitoring is another. The researchers see applications that could range from powering LEDs, providing 4G connections in remote areas, or cathodic protection against corrosion in concrete infrastructure.

“It could also be coupled with solar cell panels for example, to provide electricity and become the energy source for monitoring systems in highways or bridges, where sensors operated by a concrete battery could detect cracking or corrosion,” suggests Emma Zhang.

The concept of using structures and buildings in this way could be revolutionary, because it would offer an alternative solution to the energy crisis, by providing a large volume of energy storage.

Concrete, which is formed by mixing cement with other ingredients, is the world’s most commonly used building material. From a sustainability perspective, it is far from ideal, but the potential to add functionality to it could offer a new dimension. Emma Zhang comments:

“We have a vision that in the future this technology could allow for whole sections of multi-storey buildings made of functional concrete. Considering that any concrete surface could have a layer of this electrode embedded, we are talking about enormous volumes of functional concrete”.

Challenges remain with service-life aspects

The idea is still at a very early stage. The technical questions remaining to be solved before commercialisation of the technique can be a reality include extending the service life of the battery, and the development of recycling techniques.

“Since concrete infrastructure is usually built to last fifty or even a hundred years, the batteries would need to be refined to match this, or to be easier to exchange and recycle when their service life is over. For now, this offers a major challenge from a technical point of view,” says Emma Zhang.

But the researchers are hopeful that their innovation has a lot to offer.

“We are convinced this concept makes for a great contribution to allowing future building materials to have additional functions such as renewable energy sources,” concludes Luping Tang.

 

Read the scientific article, Rechargeable Concrete Battery in the scientific journal Buildings.

 

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Inspecting Buildings, Digitally

Construction project aims to make remote inspection with digital tech the norm

 

A consortium of researchers is undertaking a project that could pave the way for the mainstream adoption of using digital technologies to remotely inspect construction sites – a move that could underpin a quicker and more efficient sector in Scotland.

 

Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC), Local Authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS), Edinburgh Napier University’s Centre for Offsite Construction and Innovative Structures, Wheatley Group, and Homes for Scotland will support a range of trials for the Scottish Government’s Building Standards Division that compare the quality of remote inspection methods with physical checks.

 

The project will explore the technologies currently being used, and others that are potentially available, for remote inspection – focussing on accessible and cost-effective options, such as smart phones and tablets. It will also develop guidance around best practice, standardisation of processes, and training materials to support the use of remote inspection.

 

Greater adoption and understanding of the options available for remote inspection – along with guidance on its implementation – could lead to more efficient construction projects by enhancing capacity for verifications, supporting quicker service delivery, and allowing greater flexibility over inspections.

 

The initiative builds on the i-Con Challenge, which used advanced digital remote verification techniques – such as virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) – to identify defects in buildings during the Covid-19 pandemic, when limitations were placed on travel and the ability to carry out physical inspections at construction sites.

 

Sam Hart, innovation manager at CSIC, said: “All going well, this project could change the way many buildings are inspected. We now have a year of evidence to draw upon and support our conclusions. While i-Con focussed on AR and VR, not every organisation will have access to those types of technologies – it is, therefore, important to gain an appreciation for all the options available, whether it is using tablets, mobile phone footage, or even photos of certain elements of a building.

 

“During the first part of the programme we will benchmark the success of remote inspection since the Covid-19 began. As part of that, we will look at a range of factors, including the carbon savings made through transport not being required, as well as identifying any issues that emerged.

 

“Based on those outcomes, we can then make recommendations for standardising remote verification and providing industry-wide guidance. Ultimately, with the appropriate quality standards maintained, we want to make remote building inspections much more mainstream, rather than a one-off because of Covid-19.”

 

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Schiphol Airport –Sustainability to the next level

Announced on May 11th, Amsterdam Schiphol is taking sustainability to the next level by using grass to make its own panels for various building projects at the airport. Used at the airport in ceilings, walls, furniture, and flooring, the grass will come from the airport’s own clippings.

“All the grass that would go to waste now gets a second life by serving as raw material. This is fully in line with our ambition to be a waste-free airport in 2030. We aim to be fully circular in 2050.” -Mirjam de Boer, Director of Asset Management at Royal Schiphol Group

A waste-free airport

Apart from facilities at extreme latitudes and those in deserts, airports are typically abundant in grassland, which surrounds vast expanses of runways and taxiways. This grass must be cut regularly to discourage birds from gathering on this land – which in turn decreases the likelihood of bird strikes.

Partnering with ECORⓇ, Schiphol will integrate its own grass clippings into panels used throughout the airport’s construction. The plan will see 100,000 square meters of panels produced annually, using grass clippings as raw material. The airport has around 10 square kilometers of grassland around its runways.

Processing the grass into panels will see it cleaned and pressed without the use of chemicals. Then, “ceilings, partition walls at construction sites, furniture and flooring” will utilize these panels. The airport notes that an added benefit is that the CO2 stored in the grass remains ‘captured,’ as it remains in its solid form.

Although the announcement was made quite recently, Amsterdam Schiphol and ECORⓇ have been collaborating on developing these panels for the last few years now.

Before large-scale production was undertaken, panels were “extensively tested for practical use at the airport,” with the airport saying that they are “certified, fire-resistant and have the same level of quality as the well-known MDF panels.” MDF stands for medium-density fibreboard and is made from wood.

The airport has pledged to purchase the panels made by ECOR®, signing a contract with its building contractors working on site. The rest of the panels, however, will be sold to other parties in the region.

Production to take place locally

The airport hopes to make things even more sustainable, with an ambition to have the grass processed “at or near Schiphol,” thereby reducing emissions further.

At this time, however, processing and production will commence this fall at the ECORⓇ factory in Venlo – a Dutch city that sits near the German border. Venlo is a two-hour drive and some 187km away from Amsterdam Schiphol.

With airports worldwide also maintaining large expanses of grass on their properties, this sounds like a fantastic project that could be transplanted elsewhere. Indeed, this work will make use of something that would otherwise decompose or be incinerated offsite.

 

Source: Simply Flying

 

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Smart City Startups a Trifold revenue increase by 2025

Smart city startups offer innovative solutions for urban challenges, including public and cybersecurity threats, traffic congestion, energy management, and e-governance. Over the years, the revenues of these companies increased significantly and are expected to continue growing in the future.

Om Jastra Kranjec

 

 

According to data presented by Aksje Bloggen, smart city startups worldwide are expected to generate $110.7bn in revenue by 2025, a trifold increase in five years.

Asian, European and American Smart City Startups to Witness Three-Digit Revenue Growth

Smart cities aim to cater to the growing urban population while improving on safety, sustainability, and mobility. These initiatives are backed by new technologies like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things using sensors and data collection to gather large amounts of public data available for researchers and startups to work with.

Last year, smart city startups worldwide generated $32.3bn in revenue, revealed the Statista survey. This figure includes all revenue that companies generated by offering technologies and products that use information, data and connectivity technologies to create more value within the public city environment.

In 2021, smart city startups’ revenues are expected to grow by $6.7bn and then surge by a staggering $71.7bn in the next four years.

Analyzed by regions, Asian smart city startups are expected to generate $14.9bn or 38% of total revenues in 2021. By 2025, this figure is forecast to soar by 232% to $49.6bn.

European smart city startups are expected to witness a 166% revenue growth in this period, rising from $8.7bn in 2021 to $23.16bn in 2025.

North American startups follow with $12.3bn in revenue in 2021. Statista data show this value is set to grow by 152% and reach $31.2bn in the next four years.

Smart Utilities the Largest Revenue Stream, Environmental Solutions to Witness the Biggest Growth

The Statista survey revealed that smart utilities generate the highest share of startup revenues in the smart city market. In 2021, these startups are expected to make $10.7bn or one-third of total revenues.

Smart utilities are companies in the electric, gas and water sectors that employ connected sensors across their grids to analyze operations and deliver services more efficiently. Most of them are heavy users of the IoT technology and the latest communications, software, computing, and mapping solutions. By 2025, the entire segment will grow by 180% and hit a $30bn value.

As the second-largest revenue stream, the mobility segment is set to reach a $9.4bn value this year. Statista predicts this figure to jump by nearly 190% to $27.2bn in the next four years.

Smart buildings are expected to witness a 172% revenue growth in this period, with the figure rising from $7.2bn in 2021 to $19.2bn in 2025.

However, startups delivering environmental solutions for smart cities are set to witness the most significant growth in the following years. Between 2021 and 2025, their revenues are expected to surge by 210% and hit $16.4bn globally.

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Reliable colouration of ultra-high-performance concretes

Reliable colouration of ultra-high-performance concretes thanks to Bayferrox pigments from LANXESS

  • Inorganic pigments certified for use in UHPC
    • Enhancing the attractiveness of this sustainable construction material

Ultra-high-performance concretes (UHPCs) are reckoned to be the construction material of the future. When they are coloured, however, you have to ensure that the prescribed compressive strength of more than 150 megapascals is still achieved. The iron oxide pigments from LANXESS’s Bayferrox brand are perfect for UHPCs, as has been verified by the association of German cement manufacturers (VDZ) based on an analysis of compressive strength conducted to DIN EN 12390-3.

“Architects and clients can have every confidence in our high-quality pigments for colouring UHPC,” says Oliver Fleschentraeger, Market Segment Manager Construction of the Inorganic Pigments business unit at LANXESS. The iron oxide pigments come in red, yellow, and black, with numerous colour nuances possible within these shades. “As far as we know, Bayferrox pigments are the only iron oxide pigments on the market that are specially certified for use in UHPC,” says Fleschentraeger.

Pressure-resistant, colourful, and environmentally sound, the quantity of materials used is a key metric when it comes to assessing a building’s carbon footprint. Not only the choice of materials but also the production chain and construction process are also crucial. So to save materials and energy and to reduce CO2 emissions during manufacture, planners and architects are increasingly using highly sophisticated high-performance components made from UHPC. In addition to the enormous resource savings of up to 80%, material-friendly designs reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the manufacturing phase by up to 30%. “A significant and pleasing side effect of UHPC is its high resource efficiency, which makes it easier for engineers to meet the demand for sustainable designs,” says Dr. Michael Olipitz, a certified expert in the fields of superstructure, bridge-building, steel structures and structural engineering, and General Manager of the engineering office SDO ZT GmbH based in Graz, Austria. Inorganic iron oxide pigments can provide long-lasting visual enhancement to these structures or even effectively contextualize them with their surroundings – without affecting the rheology or flow behaviour of the concrete.

 

lanxess.com

 

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SOLAR POWER IN INDIA

Shashank Agarwal, MD, Salasar Techno Engineering, shares his views

Renewable energy or solar energy is no longer a choice for increasing power generation capacity. It has become imperative to integrate a highly technological infrastructure to generate solar power and meet high energy demands. Being one of the most affordable producers of solar energy, the country drives the growth of the energy sector. The continuous drop in renewable energy cost makes the country realize the benefit of affordability in installing solar power systems than running coal-fired plants. The costs for setting up PV projects in India have significantly dropped by 80 percent between 2010 and 2019, according to an analysis report shared by IRENA in 2019.

Solar power systems significantly contribute to environmental sustainability. The other sources of energy production such as coal, oil and natural gas contribute to one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to the estimates, around 85 percent of thermal energy production in the country is still coal-based which is the biggest cause of immense water and air pollution. As per the IEA analysis, the steps taken to ensure energy efficiency improvements in India cut 15 percent of additional energy demand, oil and gas imports, and air pollution and 300 million tonnes of CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2018.

Considering the factors of environmental sustainability, the government of India ramps up its effort to transition to the adoption of solar power.

Allocation in solar module manufacturing
India has proven to be a leader in solar development. It has achieved its target of 20 GW by 2022, four years earlier than expected. To further help the country with the rapid transition to solar power, the Union Budget 2021 has announced the allocation of about ₹1.97 trillion from the financial year 2021-22. It will help bring scale and size to the solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing sector with a commitment of ₹45 billion for high-efficiency solar PV modules manufacturing. Additionally, to boost the overall growth of the renewable sector, the Union budget has proposed to allocate an additional fund of ₹15 billion to the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and ₹10 billion to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). Apart from this, the Finance Minister has also announced the launch of the National Hydrogen Mission to produce green hydrogen using renewable power sources. It will also involve the development of infrastructure, framework standards and regulations for hydrogen technologies with facilitative policy support and target-oriented research and development.

 

 

Integration of technology
The continuous efforts by the Government of India in installing solar rooftops on public buildings, airports, railways networks, educational institutions, residential sector and commercial complexes are in full swing. Still, there are several challenges that the Indian solar sector has to overcome in order to manage large-scale solar facilities. To remove the hurdles, the industry players in the renewable energy sector are harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence. They are leveraging AI’s abilities supported by other emerging technologies such as IoT, sensors, big data, etc to provide predictive capabilities, improvement in forecasting and asset management. Furthermore, automation in solar systems also drives operational excellence, cost efficiency and production units.

Robust schemes and incentives
To accelerate the shift to solar energy, the Government is introducing huge solar plant schemes and offering incentives to households for solar panel installation. For instance, the government has recently launched a Grid Connected Solar Rooftop Programme to achieve a cumulative capacity of 40,000 MW from Rooftop Solar (RTS) Projects by the year 2022. The scheme provides a Central Financial Assistance (CFA) to the residential sector based on the production capacity. The government is implementing the scheme through Power Distributing companies (DISCOMs). Thus, a customer who plans to seek CFA can directly approach the DISCOMs operating in the area. With this scheme, there will be a steep surge in the production of energy which will require an adequate infrastructure for the evacuation of solar power injected into the grid.

Bottomline
The widespread use of solar energy significantly reduces the impact on the environment. It utilizes the most abundant raw material in existence, i.e. the sun. Geographically, India is positioned near the equator and that contributes to the maximization of the country’s solar energy potential. Further, with advancements in the technology of solar panels and increasing efficiency, it could be an appropriate time to adopt the technology solutions for households and governments alike.

 

Source: Construction Week Online

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The fabric from which the future is woven

ZSW launches project for CO2 separation using fabrics

In starting work on the CORA research project, the Centre for So-lar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) in Germany wants to lay the foundations for achieving the climate targets more quickly. CORA – short for CO2 raw material from air – is the name for a technology which is being developed to allow carbon dioxide (CO2) to be extracted from the air and processed. Both industry and environment could benefit from this process. It is not possible to avoid CO2emissions completely, therefore CO2 must be extracted from the atmosphere, stored or used as a raw material in a parallel economical and ecological process. The re-search results should therefore facilitate the replacement of the current fossil carbon sources (crude oil, natural gas and coal) based on the use of air as a renewable and virtually inexhaustible resource. The ZSW has joined forces with the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research (DITF), the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg (ifeu) and Mercedes-Benz Sindelfingen to work on this future technology.

The innovative technology for the CO2 separation process is supposed to work by taking CO2 from the atmosphere and separating it from the air with a mat made of cellulose fibres and amines (organic com-pounds) and processing it as a raw material. The question as to whether the mat of fibres being developed by the ZSW Stuttgart with the DITF is the fabric from which a climate-friendly future will be woven remains to be answered in the course of the project.

The cellulose fibres used as the backing material must extract a suffi-ciently large amount of carbon dioxide from the air to be commercially viable. The scientists involved in the project are therefore faced with the challenge of working with a tape of fabric which absorbs and de-sorbs CO2 efficiently. This will run parallel to the development and test-ing of a tape apparatus system which will make it possible to desorb CO2 in different zones of the running tape, and therefore in a continual process, and to make it available in concentrated form. The new pro-cess is being developed with the aim of achieving a noticeable de-crease in the power consumption by dispensing with large air blowers and with a view to obtaining water as well as CO2 during the desorp-tion process.

 

About ZSW

The Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg, ZSW) is one of the leading institutes for applied research in the areas of photovoltaics, renewable fuels, battery technology, fuel cells and energy system analysis. There are currently around 300 scientists, engineers and technicians employed at the three ZSW sites in Stuttgart, Ulm and Widderstall. In addition, there are 100 research and student assistants. The ZSW is a member of the Innovationsallianz Baden-Württemberg (innBW), a group of 13 independent applied research institutes.

www.zsw-bw.de

 

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Upgrade Scores Multiple Benefits

The Tangerines aka Blackpool FC have extracted optimum benefit from a comparatively small upgrade.

The League 1 Club’s stadium, built in 2010, has already needed to refurbish the exposed areas of the façade due to the extreme climatic conditions faced as a result of its proximity to the sea. The club management called up the premier player in the sector- Gilberts Blackpool- to replace the now rusty plant screening and ventilation louvres.

Now, two banks of Gilberts’ WGK75 kit-form louvres each 10m x 3m either side of the Stadium merchandise shop, and a further 4m x 4m screen by the north stand, have been fitted. To optimise protection, the aluminium louvres have been powder coated marine grade- in tangerine.

“Our nickname is The Tangerines. As I wanted to create a talking point, it seemed logical to choose such a bright colour for the louvres, especially as Gilberts as a company has been actively encouraging the use of colour to brighten our built landscape,” observed Glynn Makin, Blackpool FC stadium manager. “I knew from Gilberts’ reputation that the company would be on target for quality and price too, which was an added benefit.”

Adds Ian Rogers, Gilberts Sales Director, “You don’t get environments in England much more extreme than the North Sea/ Lancashire coast. We had to be sure that whatever we supplied would perform, balancing performance with value for money. WGK scored on all counts.”

Gilberts’ WGK75 features a unique clip-on blade that enables quick yet precise fitting on site. Once installed, it provides a good 50% free ventilation area whilst protecting from weather ingress.

The WGK75 is part of Gilberts’ louvre product range, developed over the years to provide a comprehensive package to keep pace with the evolution of building design and structural interfaces. It includes standard, high performance, site assembled and acoustic louvres, available in a range of ratings for weight, ventilation, weather, insects and even bird ingress. Even fixings can often be tailored to individual site preferences.

Innovatively, with its in-house design expertise, Gilberts has the capability to create bespoke configurations which can be both CFD modelled, and tested within its own laboratory to give customers complete ‘fit for purpose’ peace of mind.

Gilberts also offers a comprehensive range of PPC,PVF and PVF2 coatings across its louvres, available in any RAL colour, applied to louvres of almost any size.

Founded over half a century ago, and still family-owned, Gilberts is the UK’s leading independent air movement engineer. It is unique in its ability to design, manufacture and test all products- including bespoke fabrications- in-house, to the extent it even designs and manufactures its own tools at its 95,000 sq ft head office and production facility.

gilbertsblackpool.com

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Radioactive waste disposal lab under construction

China is building a massive underground laboratory to research disposal technologies for high-level radioactive waste, the most dangerous by-product of nuclear technology and applications. This is meant to pave the way for a repository that can handle the disposal of at least a century’s worth of such materials for tens of thousands of years.
The lab will be situated in granite up to 560 meters below ground in the Beishan region of Gansu province, said Wang Ju, vice president of the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology. The underground lab was listed as one of China’s major scientific construction projects in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).
Its surface facilities will cover 247 hectares, with 2.39 hectares of gross floor space. The underground complex will have a total structural volume of 514,200 square cubic meters, along with 13.4 kilometers of tunnels, he added.
The lab is estimated to cost over 2.72 billion yuan (£305 million) and take seven years to build. It is designed to operate for 50 years, and if its research proves successful and the site is suitable, a long-term underground repository for high-level waste will be built near the lab by 2050.
Workers began building a water distribution system for the lab on December 28th, and roads to it are set to be paved this year, Wang added. “The lab will provide critical support in the safe geological disposal of high-level waste, which is crucial for the sustainable development of nuclear energy in China.”
In 1985, the same year that China started building its first nuclear reactor, Chinese scientists had already begun researching how to properly dispose of such waste, which includes harmful substances such as strontium-90, cesium-137 and plutonium-239. All three substances are very damaging to animal cells and the environment.
High-level waste management constitutes the end stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, and it is a major challenge for all nuclear countries, as these highly irradiated by-products make up only about 3% of the total volume of nuclear waste, yet can contribute over 95% of the waste’s total radioactivity, according to the World Nuclear Association.
“As China bolsters its nuclear power capacity, the disposal of high-level waste becomes a critical issue for nuclear safety and environmental protection,” Wang said.
According to the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), China seeks to cut carbon emissions by optimizing its energy consumption structure and raising its proportion of non-fossil energy to around 20% in the next few years. Nuclear energy currently makes up about 5% of the total energy China produces.
This includes building a new generation of coastal nuclear plants and expanding the nation’s solar energy generating capacity from about 50 giga watts last year to 70 giga watts by 2025. China will also bolster its ability to process nuclear waste, along with promoting technologies including modular small-scale reactors and offshore floating reactors, the plan said.
As of last year, China had 49 nuclear reactors in operation, making it the world’s third-largest nuclear energy producer, behind the United States and France. There are 16 nuclear reactors in construction in China, the most in the world, according to the World Nuclear Association.
“We cannot just reap the benefits of nuclear energy and worry about cleaning up its waste later. Development and safety are equally important, and both have always been the two paramount priorities in China’s nuclear energy strategy,” Wang said.
At the advent of nuclear technologies, humanity’s disposal of nuclear waste was littered with controversial ideas and short-sighted practices, from early nuclear nations dumping it into the oceans to some scientists proposing launching it into space.
Infamous incident
One of the most infamous incidents came in July 1957, when the U.S. Navy was dumping waste into the sea. Two barrels of radioactive sodium kept floating back to the surface, prompting the Navy to send aircraft to shoot the barrels with machine guns until they sank, The New York Times reported.
The international scientific community eventually agreed that a safe and feasible method to dispose of waste is to permanently bury it deep underground in a tomb of concrete and rock, isolated from all biospheres, natural disasters and human activities for millennia, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But this requires scientists to comprehensively survey the repository’s environment, both on the surface and underground, this includes investigating the site’s geological conditions, distribution and flow of groundwater, the types, locations and chemistry of rock types and dozens of other factors.
The repository must also be far from populated areas and historical or cultural sites, as well as ecological protection zones, yet it also needs access to infrastructure so that personnel and material can be moved in to build the project.

Wang continued, “Searching for candidate sites alone is already a massive scientific undertaking, let alone building the underground repository, Sweden, France and Finland have also completed their site selection and are applying for or building repositories for high-level waste.
As for China, it took hundreds of scientists and engineers 35 years of drilling boreholes in isolated areas across the country in order to finally decide on the candidate site for the lab in Gansu province.
Fruitful exchanges and long-term collaboration between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the China Atomic Energy Authority played a constructive role in China’s geological disposal of nuclear waste.
I was a young man when I joined the project in 1993. Now people jokingly call me Uncle Wang.
Generations of scientists and engineers have been willing to toil and moil in the desert for this project because everyone knows managing nuclear waste is a solemn undertaking that will have a profound effect on people’s lives, the environment and the nation’s development,
Although living conditions in the field are extremely harsh, we always raise a clean Chinese national flag at our camp to remind ourselves that all the hardship we endure is for the betterment of our country and its people.”

 

Source: The Japan News

 

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