discussion keeps the world turning this is round table with cold seep a high -tech deep -sea research platform under construction china is plunging into the blue to the ocean's most mysterious wonders waiting to be explored what could this groundbreaking venture reveal about life beneath the waves.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Ha Young. For today's program I am joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Xun, first on a day's show.
The ocean is a restless beast, serene and still one moment, then surging with untamed and Fury the next.
Beneath its shifting surface lies a realm of wonders, an unfathomed blue brimming with mysteries yet to be unveiled.
Now, China has set its sights on the deep.
In Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in southern China, engineers are constructing a state of the art deep -sea research platform, a gateway to the unknown.
This futuristic outpost will accommodate six explorers, sustaining them for an entire month in the deep blue.
So tell us, what's going on down there, 2 ,000 meters in the ocean?
Oh yeah, so recently this construction has fully begun on a national major science facility dedicated to studying deep sea, cold sea ecosystems in Guangzhou Guangdong province in southern China as Huiyan mentioned.
So this project is led by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and it is scheduled for completion within five years.
It will provide crucial scientific support for humanities, understanding and utilization of the deep sea.
Yeah you can kind of think of this as you know the International Space Station or space stations, then think of it under the water.
Same kind of thing, right?
This is so deep isn't it?
2000 meters, 6 ,560 feet for some in -site or on -site experiments.
And then it can surface for resupply as well.
But when it's stationed in the deep sea, like you said, six people for a maximum of 30 days.
Really exciting development.
this is going to be the world's first 2 ,000 -meter class seafloor based manned deep -sea laboratory for long -term residents.
Yeah, so the reason that it is located in Guangzhou because it is a key city in the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, Greater Bay Area in southern China.
The project aims to leverage regional strength in marine research and also manufacturing.
Also, according to this Institute, once completed, it will serve as an open access platform for international collaboration and attract top researchers.
So this could be a global benefit.
So, kind of starting out as strictly a Chinese project, but after a period of time, could be an international project.
And you guys mentioned this underwater quote -unquote space station is what it's gonna be look what's this going to look like.
How does it operate and what can it be used for?
So first of all as we say it looks like or it feels like it's a space station under the water.
So the project's researchers also stated that the crew members will rely on manned submersibles for entry and exit much like astronauts taking a rocket to reach a space station.
There's And about this facility, this facility consists of three key components, each playing a very crucial role in the deep -sea exploration and also research. The main part is the seafloor laboratory system.
This is the core of the whole facility, also described as a space station in the deep sea.
Its primary function is to conduct experiments at a depth of 2000 meters.
The lab will directly study the deep -sea cold -seep ecosystem supporting research on ecosystem development, biological succession and also methane phase evolution and its environmental effects, and it can be also you know surfacing for resupply when necessary.
And the construction of this lab aims to advance technologies in long -term manned deep sea habitation and large ultra deep pressure -resistant structures because we know under the deep deep sea the environment is with high pressure.
Yeah and completely different, right?
It will be equipped with an advanced life support system that will enable the scientists to operate at that depth for that period of time for a month at a and it will host a permanent monitoring network to observe methane levels, ecological changes, also tectonic activity too.
And then there will be collaboration with a network of uncrewed submersibles, so sending out...
yeah... Manned or unmanned...
meaning you just send out the machines and control them from inside the facility.
Also collaborations with ships and seabed observatories.
they'll all work together to establish what they call a four -dimensional monitoring system.
Also, there is another system called high fidelity simulation system.
This is actually a land -based system, simulates the deep -sea environments so that the scientists can also do simulated experiments outside of the water.
Yeah, they call that, or they compare it to a pressure cooker.
Yes. Also, as Steve mentioned, there is a support and management system to give on -time supply.
This component provides marine -time support and intelligent management.
And its role is to offer logistical and technical support for the entire facility and ensuring the smooth operation of both the seafloor lab and also land -based simulation system.
Mm hmm. Deep, I keep on wanting to say deep sea.
Yeah. Am I alone? No, you too.
Cold seep is the term that we mentioned before.
We should talk about what that is.
So a deep sea, cold seep, ecosystem, it doesn't refer to cold spring water or anything like that.
This is in reference to a unique marine ecosystem that is characterized by the seepage of sea floor fluids and chemicals.
Methane, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide and the very distinct biological communities that they support.
This ecosystem is of really great significance for scientific research and resource exploration and environmental protection.
So you get those chemicals emerging or seeping out of the sea floor.
And because those chemicals mix with the water, it creates this ecosystem where marine life can survive off of that.
We say that because in Chinese it's called lengquan, or directly translated into cold spring.
That's why we try to like let you understand that why it's not referred to cold spring water because originally I was thinking, oh, will it be just water or cold water seeping out of the seabed?
but no there are just a lot of you know chemicals and these fluids that Steve just mentioned.
The conditions at that depth on the sea floor, there's a lot of science happening, right?
And this is you know largely unresearched at depths such as this which is what makes this so exciting.
The sediment on the sea floor, when the temperatures are right and the pressure conditions are right, then methane can combine with the water molecules and it forms gas hydrates.
That's called flammable ice.
And that's a food source for bacteria and microorganisms. And then that's what supports the various marine life forms that collectively form this ecosystem altogether these ecosystems by the way they're based on chemosynthesis not photosynthesis and what that means is that bacteria and the other micro organisms they use the chemicals they use the chemicals released from the seeps as the energy source yeah because on land or you know among the animals we know that don't live in the deep sea most of them rely on sunlight for survival right and the fact that these deep sea creatures can thrive in such
an ecosystem has made them a key focus of scientific research because we like people trying to understand why these creatures can survive with that kind of you know very very extreme environment they're called extremophiles those are organisms that thrive in those types of conditions That's very interesting.
First of all, I'm glad that Longquan is beyond just a cold name, a cold seep, and it is an ecosystem that you guys have explained to us so well.
Also, if it's so deep into the ocean, then I would think it's pitch dark.
It's not like the deep blue.
We assume when we watch these documentaries, it's not that beautiful blue, but it's pitch dark.
You it's yeah. hard to imagine, you know, marine life, this unknown underwater kingdom, that exists there.
And that's why cold seep is so important, because scientists, they've already discovered more than 600 species in cold seep ecosystems. Global research on the deep sea cold seeps, it's limited up until now.
There was a researcher at the Institute of Oceanology, the Chinese Academy of Scientists, that stated that because of the lack of deep sea laboratories, people in general, people have not been able to fully understand the relationship for what happens down there.
The formation process, how the ecosystem really works, the mechanisms between cold sleeps and flammable ice, and that makes it really hard to gain a full understanding, a at that depth and the life processes at that depth, it's largely unknown.
Also this researcher emphasized that overcoming key challenges in deep -sea resource development cannot be achieved without the support of such kind of a cold seep, a research facility, and also these cold seeps are often called Deep Sea Oasis.
It's similar, isn't it.
Yeah, they're trying to give all of the nutrition that these creatures need in the dark depth of the ocean where life is as scarce as in a desert.
Cold seeps provide a very unique refuge, and special bacteria, microorganisms thrive by consuming the chemical compound seeping from the seabed.
And so just like how an oasis in the desert can sustain a whole ecosystem.
Right, so of course, I mean, this sounds like a really fascinating mission, and there's so much to be explored, and for us human beings when we're studying these things, yeah, finding potential energy sources sounds like something that's very much in the interest of humans, huh?
Yeah, I mean studying cold seeps helps us understand the geological and chemical processes that occur on the ocean floor.
We can get a lot of insight.
Scientists can get a lot of insight into how life can thrive in those extreme environments with, as you mentioned, Yuxim, without sunlight.
It helps us to understand the potential for life on other planets too, right?
Or moons perhaps that may have similar conditions.
And back to that chemosynthetic process.
Studying that in these ecosystems, it expands the scientists' knowledge of the fundamental ways that life can obtain energy.
And there's a lot of methane hydrates, there's vast deposits of methane hydrates, and that is a resource that has been earmarked, as you said, Hyeon, for its potential source of energy.
Yes, and methane has kind of gained a bad rep in, at at least on the surface of Earth, we know it is a potent greenhouse gas.
So finding methane underwater, does that do any good?
Yeah, so if we can use it wisely or end safely, actually it could be potentially a very safe and more environmentally friendly ways to tap into these deep sea resources.
While methane from cult seeps could be a valuable energy source.
It is also a as you said You know greenhouse gas if large amounts escape into the atmosphere they could accelerate global warming and understanding how methane forms and is released from this cold seeps is a very crucial for climate change research and mitigation it could be maybe the solution of reaching the goal of the dual carbon goals I mean to the 2030 and 2060 carbon goals that China has right, so but here's the thing it could be as we said a kind of a doubles edged sword because during an earthquake or maybe an underwater landslide the one stable methane reserves could be unleashed like
Pandora's box, right?
Once released, they might intensify the challenges of global warming even further.
Yeah, this flammable ice.
That's a confusing term, right?
So the methane released from the seeps, when the gas is released, it's stored in the form of gas hydrates, and that's what they call flammable ice.
And these are ice -like deposits, but they hold so much energy, and it's really important to, kind of, get a grasp of this, and see if it can be harnessed because this could become a future alternative to oil and maybe even natural gas.
So, studying it, these cold seeps, it helps us find maybe safer and more environmentally friendly ways to use these deep sea resources.
Hmm, yeah, certainly I think a caution study is important, but, you know, I'm obviously not a scientist, but often I just feel don't mess with the things that's beyond our grasp.
Sure, yeah, I understand what you mean because, you know, if you have a massive reserve of a once stable, yeah, methane reserve that is suddenly unleashed, nice term Pandora's box, you release all that at the same time that could be a problem.
And also a lot of people have high hopes for this kind of exploration because it drives technological innovation and so much interesting technologies.
So many of them have been utilized in the construction of this platform.
So do you have some hopes there?
You should? Of course.
I'm not an expert in this field but, absolutely, when we're seeing these kind of technology and also cutting -edge deep -sea technology, China's construction of this deep -sea facility in five years is a major step toward this kind of goal of exploring the deep sea and it will advance deep sea exploration and pave the way for a lot of groundbreaking scientific discoveries.
Yeah, 100%, and this is not the only deep sea exploration or underwater exploration happening in the world right now.
There are a lot of underwater facilities around the planet.
Now, they might differ in what they're doing their function or what they're trying to do, maybe even their technical specifications.
This is from CNN. This is interesting.
I didn't I didn't know about this, but the U .S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's SUV sized hydrolab, so not very big, right?
It was used between 1970 and 1985, and that allowed four people to stay underwater for days or weeks at a time, a little bit inconvenient for the people under there.
It only had three bunks three places to sleep but four people.
Yeah so they had to rotate sleeping that would have been uncomfortable for for the inhabitants at the time.
Aquarius replaced that replaced hydrolab.
When that was decommissioned that habitat that was used by a lot of different people.
Researchers used it studying corals, NASA astronauts would use it to undergo extreme environment training, which is interesting.
I never knew that NASA astronauts trained under the sea to get ready to go to outer space.
And that one wasn't very big either.
That was only maybe the size of a school bus.
Had more beds, though.
I guess that was good.
It had six bunks, it had a microwave, a toilet, a refrigerator, a shower, an internet access.
It's still in operation today, as a matter of fact, in the Florida Keys, the southern part of Florida in the United States, it's still going on today.
That's a little bit in the past and a smaller project of what's going on now, but there's another huge project that's in the works from a UK based company.
Yeah, the company is called Deep, and they are trying to develop a system called Sentinel, which is a modular and reconfigurable underwater habitat designed to allow humans to stay at a depth of 200 meters, which is about 56 feet for up to 28 days.
Also according to this company, the scalable habitat can be configured in different shapes, pretty cool, yeah making it as suitable for a maybe six -person mission as a 50 -person research station.
This company envisions its underwater habitats enabling permanent human presence in the ocean to serve purposes such as scientific research and monitoring critical sub -sea infrastructure, and this system is expected to be operational by the end of 2027.
Yeah, they have a precursor model that's called VANguard and that will accommodate three people.
that can go down to about 100 meters or 330 feet.
And they can do that for a week.
They're learning on testing.
The plan was for early 2025.
I don't know if they've begun testing or not.
I couldn't find any recent news on that.
But that pilot habitat, that could have really important uses when quick deployment is needed.
If you think about if there's some sort of accident on the ocean, right?
And divers need to go down.
Well, typically divers would have to go down and then come back up to the surface but if you had a small habitat like this deployed, then that would, and you put that near, you know, the place where the accident happened, that could serve as a base for for divers instead.
So even that precursor model, Vanguard, there still could be a wonderful use for Well, the last time that the general public around the world paid attention to submersibles was the unfortunate incident in 2023, I believe, when Titan, the submersible implosion, occurred.
And it resulted in the death of all five people on board. sometimes when we talk about these, you know, really exciting developments of technology, I think definitely there is the bright side of it, but it also happens, it's not like it's a linear development route that humans take.
There are, you know, also the very dangerous side of it and also, you know, during the completion of some technology there are, you know, all these unfortunate things that happen along the way.
Yeah, I mean, it's just like going to space, right?
It's amazing the exploration that can be done and the new knowledge that can be acquired, but it's incredibly dangerous, and dealing at those depths of the ocean is not a safe environment for anyone at all.
Safety has to be priority number one for whatever projects are being made.
And also that's an interesting point because the Chinese exploration is obviously led by the government and public funding as such, and the Titan Submersible Implosion, it was operated by a private company, an American private company.
And yeah, it's just, you know, during the sort of testing and development of the technology, How much emphasis does one put on safety?
Maybe sometimes at the expense of not such speedy development, then these are some real issues that there might even be an ethical debate and sometimes well when it's the Government behind these kind of projects then one hope that you know safety is the priority Sure and I mean even when we talk about space exploration there's always the debate, it's often a financial debate right.
Is this money worth it?
Are we spending, why are we spending so much money exploring a place that we can't even go and stay for long periods of time when we have people on Earth who need help.
So there's always that kind of debate too.
And that's why I feel so motivated when I saw a lot of at least it's like the progress is made step by step by these Chinese scientists and explorations.
I saw that STRIVER or FINDOJU, China's first manned submersible, able to operate at the bottom of the sea is the achievement and demonstration of China's scientific and technological innovation.
That was that was quite a while ago.
Yeah. Yeah. CGTN reports that launched in 2016.
This driver is one of China's latest self -developed submersibles, capable of carrying three people to the deepest ocean.
And it dived 10 ,909 meters under water back in 2020 and landed at the bottom of the world's deepest oceanic trench, the Challenger Deep.
Also, according to Ye Song, the chief designer of the crude deep sea submersible, the finnoju has dived 230 times into the ocean in the previous four years.
And, Chinese people have accumulated a great amount of precious data, which will be a foundation for humans research of the whole deep sea.
While preparing for today's tour, I found through research that China's deep -sea exploration journey has been truly inspiring.
It started behind many other countries but gradually developed its own submarines and step -by -step advancing from depths of over 4000m to even 10 ,000m.
So this kind of steady progress is not only, I think, impressive, but also incredibly motivated.
This is such a big deal.
I mean, this is a mega science project, this deep sea cold sea facility that, you said 2030, right?
Is the plan. We're getting closer and closer.
And this is going to foster cross -disciplinary collaboration.
It's going to drive industry development.
once it's completed it will be open, it will be shared with society, hopefully international collaborations.
Scientifically speaking this is a very big deal.
Yes, and it's, the promising future I think is something that can inspire people as well.
And what do you think is really why we want to explore the ocean.
Some say this is the final frontier of earth.
Hashtag Star Trek. Deep sea exploration...if we want to understand how our planet works and how the systems, the interconnected systems of our our planet works then deep sea exploration and study is vital, because it provides insights into geological processes, plate tectonics, the formation of mineral deposits, there's a lot of unique and undiscovered organisms down there, many of which have evolved extraordinary adaptations to these extreme conditions.
I could go on and on and on and on, those are just a couple of examples, but I think the main point is perhaps finding green solutions for our future and also continuing to understand more about our planet.
And I would say, you know, just exploration to the unknown is I think kind of humans instinct kind of thing.
You know, if not we wouldn't even have that space station, that real space station or we wouldn't even have the concrete jungles that we are having right now because that is also another step that people stepping into another civilization I would say.
So, that is um, I think something that is really natural that humans do.
Yeah, and also sustainability from the point of view that when we understand our oceans better, when we understand our deep sea resources better, it helps humans to know how to maintain these resources in a sustainable fashion.
You're very hopeful with the human nature, and I hope that we can really fulfill that hope.
With China's new deep -sea research facility, we're taking a bold step into the unknown, unlocking secrets, hopefully, which could reshape our understanding of climate, energy, and life itself.
and the more we explore, possibly the more we realize, how much remains undiscovered.
