Radical Innovations To Singapore's Water Problem | Tomorrow City | Part 3/3

singapore is running out of space [Music] [Applause] there are more developments now it's harder to find land now the little red dot is being re-engineered for the 21st century nobody has done it before this is the only job that allows you to work on a smart city project in singapore we are going from about 350 megawatts of solar to uh two gigawatts of solar and that's a huge jump new mega projects using state-of-the-art technologies to dig deep i did not believe the space saving part until i saw it with my own eyes this is what engineering is all about harness the power of the sun it's a kind of new for singapore to have solar panels on water and automate its ports i can't imagine we will be developing a 60 plus both all designed to find more space to allow singapore to flourish vast megapod will be very significant game changer this is a journey into singapore's tomorrow city [Music] it's 6 a.m and already the construction site at singapore's western extremity is a buzz with activity today engineers will tow this massive concrete block from land to sea it's called a caisson and it's the most critical part of singapore's port of the future it is one of 227 concrete structures that will be installed over the next eight years to form the largest of four wharves or land fingers with over eight kilometer long sea walls each this is tuas megaport the port construction is a 25-year undertaking across four different phases phase one has already reclaimed 294 hectares of land and phase 2 has to reclaim and build 387 hectares the last two phases are under construction with the entire port expected to be fully open by 2040 since 2015 different parts have been built and scheduled for staggered openings now in 2021 the very first part of the port is set to open up to container processes the tuas mega port will be fully automated using drones key cranes and driverless vehicles to cut down the turnaround time of the world's biggest container ships in the 21st century international trade is driven by high-tech logistics the ultimate goal is for tuas to be able to handle double the capacity of what all singapore's current 5 ports can manage after this land has been reclaimed the container terminals infrastructure will be built but as singapore extends its global reach across the world's oceans the city-state's need for fresh water is rising year-on-year water for its growing population and industries and that's where the problem of space kicks in to manage water singapore needs space and that's in short supply inland huge new projects are harvesting the waters of the sea and here at tuas engineers are creating new land on a huge scale at the new port planners refer to the building of land fingers that are separated by sea passages to optimize large shipping workflows the reclamation of transport phase one started in 2015 and it takes about five to six years to complete the reclamation and uh plus phase two commands in 2018 and it takes another six more years to finish the recognition for project director eugene kuh this is his favorite place to monitor progress of the huge construction site this is the best spot that i like because it gave me a view of the overall progress of the site at one time i can see all the activities on the site from this angle the new port will take two decades to complete covering an area equivalent to over 1 300 stadium fields the key to reclaiming land is the caisson a 28 meter high watertight concrete box that is built on land then towed out to sea caissons are like lego blocks that are submerged and linked together to build the sea walls of each of the four land fingers of the new port they are crucial to the land reclamation process at tuas over here you can look at the installed caissons uh we have installed 67 caissons already and that's close to maybe two thirds of our length of the finger two reclamation each caisson weighs 15 000 tons that's equivalent to about 8 000 cars stacked together cast from poured concrete each caisson is 10 stories high another 136 of these concrete giants must be cast and towed out to sea before the sea wall can be completed [Music] any disruption of the cycle will have a knock-on effect on the construction schedule as planners discovered in 2020 when the covid19 virus raced through the foreign workers dormitories and worker tuas came to a grinding halt since that crisis the engineer in charge of the caisson construction process dw kim has strained every sinew to catch up every month he must deliver eight completed caissons so two thousand workers have been kept busy around the clock for months faison testing is something like a factory inside the caisson factory two of the giant structures are at different stages of production number 95 is almost ready to be towed out to sea where it will be sunk to form part of the key wall work on number 92 is just beginning with the casting of the base slab this slab functions as the casting form so it's vital that the engineers check for weak spots we have a monitoring system so micro management of each activity each step has many activities so each activities are under provision and monitoring to check the each step progress the team soon discovers a problem there is a defect in the base slab defects usually occur when the concrete dries unevenly it must be repaired and fast defects can only be prevented by making sure the concrete gets poured evenly into the slab to do this the workers insert a vibrating rod to stir the concrete constantly as it gets poured into the casting mold of the slip form all this checking and repairing are essential works caissons must be watertight if seawater which is highly corrosive penetrates any cracks in the base these will widen over time and weaken the entire structure i think the vibration is not enough that's why like this kind of effect is coming the team uses a probe to check whether the concrete has hardened evenly kim and his team are able to repair the base of number 95 the team at number 92 is ready to cast the tower caissons are more complicated than they look on the outside this giant gantry acts as a cast or slip form for the tower inside the tower is a concrete box-shaped framework a clever way of reducing the weight of the structure without compromising its strength the site workers build up the box structure layer by layer inside the gantry [Music] the setting is also good and the fc game is also good the most important thing is we're testing evenly even levels the same level at the tois site work on the caissons continues day and night as each level is poured and checked the platform moves up another level one caisson in its slip form is so heavy that the engineers have to use 36 sets of hydraulic jacks to push the platform up as more concrete goes in just one of these sets can lift 1 500 tons around the weight of 11 blue whales if this hydraulic jack is not gripping properly then it may cause slippery issue meaning all this silicone structure can collapse each set of jacks must work in perfect unison the head operator has to make sure the weight of the caisson is distributed evenly amongst all the jacks so every jack operator should understand operating the operation room here and downside the middle deck anyway every hour please monitor okay there's one more step in the construction process for number 92. that's why we will apply the slave to the case so this lane will function like coating putting the casino to prevent the corrosion silane will protect the caisson but it is hazardous to work with because it is a toxic chemical in the past spraying was done by workers in cages that ascended the sides of the huge structure today the engineers at tuas have come up with a safer method which is to apply the chemical across the full breadth of the caisson [Music] they have also automated the process with an unmanned spraying mechanism positioned on top of the case the worker from the ground will operate the chile so just press the button then the dojo will hoist down at the same time of location rotating and apply the select this new process covers even the corners that are the most difficult to reach this innovation won the team a health safety award in 2020 when each caisson is completed it will be moved onto a floating dock ready to be pushed out to sea to take its place in the sea wall as the newport reaches out caisson by caisson into the ocean ready to embrace the future singapore gears up to resolve more challenges in land with its water supply [Music] singapore's new port development demonstrates confidence in the growth and prosperity of the city in the 21st century but expansion comes at a cost growth will put huge pressure on the small island's resources with a higher demand for fresh water supplies singapore's water demand is currently at 430 mgd or million gallons per day that's equivalent to 782 olympic sized swimming pools and by 2060 that amount of water is projected to almost double and the second challenge is those that is brought by climate change climate change introduce a lot of uncertainties and also extreme weather patterns too little rain will cause drought and we can't really rely on the local catchment and imported water so the public utilities board or pub is finding innovative new ways to treat rain and sea water as well as used water which can be recycled all part of the government's plan to make the island a global hydro hub since 2006 it has committed 479 million us dollars to foster cutting edge technologies in the environment and water industry regardless the problem remains singapore is not short of water but of space here in singapore every year we receive 234 centimeters of rain so it's more than enough for the population but the problem is we have such a high population in such a small land area that creates the challenge so that's why we're developing technologies like ocean desalination to help provide enough water for the large population at the nanyang water and environment research institute professor shane snyder and his team are involved in a radical experiment to increase the efficiency of an age-old seawater filtration method otherwise known as desalination their method can also help in the treatment of rain and used water so capturing the rainwater takes two things it takes the surface area but also the depth and we just don't have enough surface area and depth to capture all the water especially when the water comes or rain comes more heavy at certain times of the year we have no choice but to release it to the sea there are already 17 reservoirs that capture and store rainwater in singapore they are connected by a network of canals and rivers all together these take up about 473 square kilometers or two thirds the size of the island catchment above ground is clearly not the solution in the long term so singapore's water planners have designed something new these joggers may not realize that one of the most innovative solutions to singapore's water problem in recent years lies right beneath their feet the state-of-the-art keppel marina east desalination plant is constructed almost entirely underground across 2.8 hectares that's more than two football fields combined and it is designed to fit into the landscape of the east coast park the plant is state of the art such that it can switch from desalinating sea water to treating rainfall both processes can take place in the same desalination plant the plant can treat about 30 million gallons a day up to 7 percent of singapore's daily water needs it's a dual mold desalination plant the first one in singapore and it was developed in-house so what it does is it is able to switch between treating fresh water and sea water so during the abundant rainfall it will take fresh water from marina reservoir so there's different ways to remove salt from water for desalination but today we mainly use membrane technology these are highly specialized membranes they use a high amount of pressure to push the fresh water through and leave the salt behind seawater is of course an almost limitless resource but the biggest problem about desalination is that it requires a lot of power the pressure that has to be artificially created to push the water through the filtration system is equal to the pressure 650 meters deep down in the ocean the largest region is energy because to push water through a membrane at any reasonable speed it will take a lot of pressure and pressurizing the water takes very large electrical pumps so that electrical energy component is extremely large the membranes and other infrastructure also costly but it's really energy at the end of the day so the more salt the water has the higher the amount of pressure to push the water through the membrane at a given speed and that's part of the problem so the keple facility that is a dual mode so if there's an ample amount of fresh water it's able to process that first and save a lot of energy while still producing a very high quality of water this makes the dual mode desalination plant the most flexible operation model for water processing in singapore to date we have been on reservoir mode right yep we are going to switch right yeah on reservoir mode we're going to switch to the sea water mode so now we'll do the final round of the check if everything okay we'll start the reservoir water switch to sea water mode okay good okay but even a state-of-the-art plant like this doesn't solve the problem of energy in the long term and the switchover process is complex requiring several hours because seawater carries lots of salt and rainwater carries other minerals reservoirs typically have a lower conductivity or salt content compared to sea water so if you want to move to sea water you require it to be slowly increased up to the certain level of the connectivity of the salt content before the next process unit can start but what might just revolutionize desalination in the next few decades to come isn't the power source but a critical material required in the process itself it is the membrane that is used for all types of water treatment that turns it into fresh water supplies [Music] [Music] as singapore's economy grows and becomes ever more globalized huge pressure will be placed on its water supplies for industries and homes water demand in singapore is currently about 430 million gallons a day enough to fill 782 olympic-sized swimming pools with residential homes consuming 45 percent of it the pub is investing vast resources to treat the water that falls on singapore from the sky and the reservoirs of the ocean but existing technologies of water treatment consume a lot of power so the search is on for new innovations to make desalination more energy efficient for some scientists the key to innovation is the design of the membranes that are used to treat water the process of treatment filters the water to remove unwanted substances like minerals salts or certain bacteria in his lab at the nanyang water and environment research institute professor snyder is experimenting with ceramic membranes that will challenge the traditional ones made from plastic a membrane is made up of several layers of filters that allow water to pass through but keep unwanted particles out thin coatings of chemical substances can be applied to the different filter layers such coatings can emphasize the filtration effect for various uses of the membrane in this case a special coating makes it even easier for water to pass through the membrane during the desalination process professor snyder's tests showed that ceramic membranes also require less maintenance than plastic membranes okay so what we have here is a bench scale setup to test ceramic membranes these membranes are actually made of aluminum oxide and some other metals so it feels like a coffee cup but the membranes are extremely resilient but this is brand new so we want to test it we want to understand its resilience we understand how it removes viruses even the coronavirus pollutants etc so we build a small system like this the membrane goes inside this pressure vessel and then it allows us to put different chemical combinations different water qualities and to evaluate how well this membrane is performing and how long does this membrane last professor snyder's experimental membrane is still in the research phase and has not yet been tested at the industrial level next door professor wang wrong is working on another radical solution that's also membrane related the idea her team is pursuing is inspired by nature specifically a tiny protein called aquaporin which forms the plumbing system of cells in fish plants and humans aquaporins move and filter water through cells and are naturally efficient aquaponics water channel can be found in our body our kidney have the aquaponics and balance our body's water level yeah so this is a natural protein but highly permeable to water highly reject the sauce so people think about can we incorporate this one into the same film to improve our membranes performance [Music] we want to increase the water production we hope water can go through the membranes with a high flow rate so we developed a new type of the membranes in hope that this membrane have a much higher water flux water probability hi it's amazing yeah it's okay yeah all the parameters we can see from here the new membrane design is already showing promise for letting water travel through more quickly and easily with less pressure needed this is referred to as water permeability the water probability doubled so that's the big improvement uh 100 improvement in water probability that's that's a quite exciting result right we learn from the nature nature create a perfect water filtration system and create this water channel protein we learn from the nature by making use of these proteins put into our synthetic system with this high-tech coating layer of the new membranes the team is able to adapt to different water treatment needs from removing salts from seawater to mineral substances from rainwater and even recycling used water the membranes can be equipped with different filter and coating layers so that the same design can be pushed into different treatment systems like the one at the keppel marina east desalination plant [Music] so the way we plan to do it is for the membrane to be off the industrial side so that it can easily be plugged into the existing plants it can be easily retrofitted without having too much works to do it it's like plug and play kind of thing the team's next milestone will be to prove that success in the lab can be replicated in the real world and we want to make sure that in the future even though they are increasing water demand they are rising of energy demand as well as uncertainties with the weather patterns we are still able to deliver water sustainably and at an affordable cost but water demand isn't just on the rise for household taps the non-domestic sector with industrial manufacturing at its heart now consumes 55 of the current water supply so the predictions are that the amount of water required for our industries could begin to be a larger amount than we use in our communities or our homes so for singapore this means we have to be even more innovative because again we have not enough land space not enough catchments we are continually looking at ways to expand that but the ocean desalination is one of those key technologies that allow us to increase our fresh water even if we cannot increase the catchment size but planners will have to be mindful of the potential impact on the environment we need to look very carefully that we aren't moving from one problem in water and creating another problem in our energy demands or our co2 output so i think we absolutely need to look holistically at our systems and build the systems that make the most sense with the lowest environmental footprint while singapore pushes on to innovate its fresh water supply systems through new tech it is also reaching out into the waters beyond its furthest jaws to ensure that singapore's future will be guaranteed in the century to come [Music] for more than 700 years the lifeblood of singapore depended on its port in the 19th century singapore grew to rival other great port cities like sydney bombay and hong kong today the volume of shipping and trade pouring in and out of singapore continues to expand at a spectacular rate with an 8 increase in vessel arrivals between 2011 to 2019 and close to 140 000 ships arriving in singapore in 2019 alone [Music] so the biggest task ahead is to innovate singapore's ports this comes with its own set of challenges the most daunting of all limited space the plan is to build one megaport to rule them all trois is in the midst of a four-phase 25-year construction project that will be able to manage up to two times the total amount of cargo that's being handled now by 2040 the key is the reclaimed land that will raise the port right from the oceans and expand singapore's land area by more than 1 300 hectares it is also ramping up the logistics with plans to become the biggest automated and ai powered port in the world but aside from limited space the biggest challenge for trois planners yet is to imagine the needs of the ships in the coming decades and even the 22nd century the trois land reclamation is extending long pieces of land into the sea the total four so-called land fingers which are built across four construction phases need to be able to accommodate the ships of the future so we're actually planning the port for the future mega vessels so the design catered for the ships that are longer and ships that are deeper and as a result of that we have designed our fingers to be more than three kilometers long to be able to cater for future vessels up to a drop of 21 meters and so with a deep water port and linear belts then we will be able to accommodate ships of all sizes with small sizes and up to the larger sizes we actually optimize it by making sure that the wife length for ships to birth is the longest possible and that's about 3.7 being the longest at our phase two land finger number two has been completed for the partial opening of the port in 2021 so the logistics tests are in full swing but what's going to drive and manage the operations of the megaport isn't the people everything is going to be remotely controlled the key to automation in singapore's tomorrow port is artificial intelligence ai these automated systems will all be controlled by a kind of super brain automation is already taking place in other modern international ports but trois will take this to the next level from the very minute the container ship docks processing the giant container ships of the future will be a spectacular ballet of automation as soon as the ship is birthed these green automated cranes known as double trolley key cranes get to work right here alone on land finger number two are a total of 24 cranes they are equipped with sensors that can detect the position and proximity of containers each crane which weighs a crushing 2 300 tons has a lifting height of 55 meters and outreach of 73 meters and will move to the designated ship once the information is put into the system but these new machines still need to learn how to process the data from the sensors and scanners the team has to test the machines in thousands of scenarios to make sure the system works rain or shine in all situations at land finger number two the team has spent the last four months trying to make this a reality today engineer wei xiang and his team are running the final tests of the automatic cranes crane 3.3 uh i know who is on ukraine tree i think on the top level okay let me check with them or what are they doing on this uh testing so we have a various scanner on the train and camera system so that the crane can detect the container as well as the truck or agv these massive cranes are capable of lifting up to 65 tons at a time once the crate are fully commissioned this whole area will be a fully automated area where all these will be fenced up the testing process is like a flight simulator used to train pilots testing out different scenarios but with the real machines in a real location so this uh platform we have a number of safety features being installed above to ensure that uh when the laden container moving in no human should be in the trolley path so this will ensure that uh the whole flow is safe but on the off chance that a human has to enter this automated zone it's vital that the machines are able to detect human movement and pause their actions in time to prevent potential workplace accidents and injuries be it the monster cranes or the agv trucks the automated vehicles everything works fine the crane detects the presence of the worker and halts the team proceeds to the next test moving the container from the automated crane onto the agv right now is doing uh uh we are simulating uh offloading a container from vessel this from the seaside okay one to lashing platform and then finally onto hdb agv need to be in position okay before secondary spreader can move up into the easybilly a problem pops up the agv stopped at the wrong spot the egb is not in position it's top halfway yeah there is some system problem let me check with you guys the agv uses a digital compass or gps for map data and its sensors to analyze its position on the ground at any point in time based on its position the supervisory system will create and send down the optimum routes for each agv the agv will then track the routes to reach its destination there's a marker on the ground that tell the agv what coordinate or what assist is moving and there is a centralized system that is controlling or telling agv where to move okay so they will plan out the road okay from point a to point b and to point c but it seems that the agv is confused in a real world scenario operations at land finger number two would have to be shut down so now the engineers have to work out what's gone wrong okay four zero six five point seven six nine all right the coordinate right now they are saying that it's three decimal right there or noel the agv not in position yet the key in the wrong coordinates that's what happens when you have manual that's why the automated system once it has all the coordinates it will not be wrong at last the agv moves into the correct position next weis young tests how the double trolley key crane will react if the agv is out of alignment the agv is not in the right place so the crane should immediately stop moving but it doesn't this is yet another new problem so right now agv is obviously not in position but the crates still move up with the container [Music] okay uh so let's go down and troubleshoot to see what's wrong in the real world a glitch like this could damage the container and its contents weiz young suspects the culprit is the system that is supposed to read and analyze the ground position and proximity to other machines okay uh the container needs to bring back to the latching platform then a spreader lower down to the ground fast to check the fls [Music] finally he spots the problem the laser that was used for the alignment process failed it didn't scan the surroundings properly okay one of the laser okay is uh maybe not titan bombing yeah so we will go there and follow that it's not item properly we will try to adjust it and tighten it now that he's sorted the laser weiz young runs through the full test sequence one more time over the next few months the team will continue to test the system to the max to iron out any wrinkles that might disrupt operations or in the worst case scenario endanger lives while the infrastructure team adapts the new ai system to real world challenges on land finger number two the seawall construction at land finger number three continues one case on at a time today the team is ready to finally move caisson number 95 out to the ocean to be positioned in the sea wall this is the most crucial part of the caisson assembly line the huge concrete giant is pushed on steel tracks onto a floating dock each caisson weighs 15 000 tons and this is just one of 227 of them two boats are involved in the sea operation a tugboat in front is pulling the case on and a boat behind is pushing it towards the installation site seven am we started towing the case on and then arrived around 10 am it takes around three hours the boats towed the dock out to sea to bring the case on to the exact position above the ocean floor when it gets submerged it has to connect to the key wall this step has been carefully planned by the engineers using gps positioning as the boats reach the installation site they slow down oh so what is the progress no no water pump uh uh installation uh for question uh sinking okay then we will install the eight pump full and then we'll take around two hours right yes and then once insulation complete okay we will start the blasting the casino meaning the sink down certain level we will left leave around two meters and then we will do the final installation activity meaning using the gps we need to monitor the final position and then we will sink down together with positioning a crane awaits them on another floating dock which will shift and align the case on now the tricky operation starts as the team changes to manual tugging and pulling of the caisson of the surface to match the gps position underwater the workers have to manually move the 10 story high case on right down to the exact millimeter because our tolerance is only 50 mm so micro adjustment is required as soon as the gps coordinates for the case on position are matched the caisson is sunk the team gradually floods the box structured interior of the caisson while they continue to manually check its position meter by meter the caisson sinks down to the ocean floor once it gets fully sunk it is linked up to the rest of the already installed caissons okay once installation finishes then we will call our consultant to get the joint survey for final position occasion and then we will repeat this activity finally number 95 has become a part of the twas megaport's land finger number three key wall after a few days engineers perform a final check on the gps position with number 95 submerged the production line continues relentlessly without a break as the tois megaport grows into the sea expanding singapore's land area and its global impact as a port nation and economy hub of the future the new challenges to manage space and resources herald the way to the little red dot's future with the need for mega projects from reimagining the port of the future and channeling its water resources to constructing an underground highway for its waste and transforming land mass into solar energy plants these will push the limits of present-day technology and accommodate the needs of a nation not just for decades but centuries to come while leading the way for others as a global economic powerhouse but this is only the beginning using cutting-edge technology automation and innovative designs singapore is making the future of its people the main agenda of today welcome to tomorrow city [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 328,512

Rating: 4.8303804 out of 5

Keywords: CNA, CNA Insider, Channel NewsAsia, Asian perspectives, Tomorrow City, Singapore, documentary, engineering, infrastructure, building, construction, land scarcity, technology, city, engineer, urban development, outsourced, full documentary, narrated, sustainability, carbon footprint, global warming, port, seawall, Tuas megaport, megaport, Tuas, reclaimed land, water, freshwater, water supply, land scarce, land reclamation, caisson, desalination, water treatment, innovation, ceramic membrane, science

Id: 69NcZ-nno5c

Length: 47min 31sec (2851 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021