China is building a massive underground laboratory to research disposal technologies for high-level radioactive waste, the most dangerous byproduct 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’s chief designer told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

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 ($422 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…

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 nonfossil energy. This includes building a new generation of coastal nuclear plants,… small-scale reactors and offshore floating reactors.. As of 2020, 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.

Excerpts from Zhang Zhihao, Construction of radioactive waste disposal lab underway, China Daily, Apr. 8, 2021