Singapore pulls a Trantor : power stations, warehouses, reservoirs going underground

Land-scarce Singapore is already storing some of its military munitions in this way. And work is underway on similar storage facilities for crude oil and oil products. Now, the Government wants to look at building power stations, warehouses, incineration plants, airport logistics centres and reservoirs all below ground. Industrial landlord Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) last Friday [9 May 2008] called a tender for a "underground rock cavern usage feasibility study" to see how subterranean grottos could be used to maximise land use.

Last July [2007], TODAY broke the story of how government agencies including the JTC were exploring the feasibility of creating caverns for living. In March [2008], the Ministry of Defence opened caverns under the disused Mandai Quarry to store ammunition such as bullets, bombs and missiles. The JTC is constructing the $2-billion Jurong Rock Cavern beneath Jurong Island, for use by petrochemical companies. The first caverns under Phase 1 should begin operations in 2010.

- Singapore is already making as much use as it can with the 3rd dimension, with HDB (public apartment housing) flats going to 40 floors and beyond, and skyscrapers in the city area reaching over 60 storeys. Due to airplane flight path restrictions, they are unable to build any higher than that, so perhaps the logical next step is to go underground.

Building caverns to store ammo and crude oil may be a good idea, but I'm not so sure about actually living underground. It sounds like Singapore is trying to pull a Trantor here. The more we try to cram people into a limited land area with virtually no resources, the more we are going to be dependent on outside inputs for food, water and practically everything else. For as long as the country is still relatively wealthy and there are supplies to be had, we could continue in this direction, but things can change quickly, especially as we are approaching an era of resource scarcity ("peak everything").

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