hina just finished a 7 km spiral ramp to a 560m deep desert lab built to study permanent nuclear waste storage

 

In early 2026, China marked a big step forward in engineering by finishing the long spiral access tunnel at the Beishan Underground Research Laboratory, located deep in the Gobi Desert.

This deep underground facility is built to study ways to safely store high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power, keeping it isolated for hundreds of thousands of years.

The lab includes two main testing levels at around 280 meters and 560 meters below the surface, linked by a roughly 7-kilometer curving spiral ramp.

Engineers used a specially designed tunneling machine called "Beishan No. 1" to bore through very tough ancient granite rock.

The laboratory is planned to run experiments for about 50 years and help prepare for a full permanent waste storage site targeted for around 2050.

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