7th Ring WALL

Alex Camprubi

Can urbanization stop? Urbanization has proved to be continuous because of an economic magnet that has not reached a balance and neither have we foreseen it. However a Brazilian city: Curitiba, did it for a period of time, although economy growth attracted urban dwellers to its municipal surroundings and local planning had to become regional instead. Nevertheless, the environmental infrastructure was kept as planned within the limits established previously with impressive statistics on sustainable practices. Could Beijing follow through? Could Beijing establish a carriage capacity for its municipality? What it would take to make Beijing a Super Green City with net-zero-energy, zero waste and a positive balance in water? : The 7th Ring Wall.

Beijing consumed in 2006 an equivalent of 100.52 million MW (1) from different sources from which half is coal (2) and 8% is Gasoline and Diesel (3) . If windmills where chosen to provide a renewable energy source for this amount of power: 16,000 turbines of 3MW would be needed to be installed in an area of 1,200 square kilometers forming a loop of 200 km in length and 6 km in with, located outside of the 6th ring road, with a cost of 16 Billion USD. This is equivalent to 11 % of Beijing’s estimated annual GDP in 2008 (4) or 60% of the World's estimated investment in Wind power in 2010 (5) .

Creating a “windmill wall” that would take 7.4% of Beijing’s municipality area, is conceptually not only related to safety and the “rings” of a central city scheme development, but also carries an intention to suggest to halting expansion and promoting the intra-redevelopment of Beijing with a limited capacity of residents while protecting its Environmental Security Patterns (6).

3.4 Billion m3 of water consumption per year are used in Beijing, from which 70% is obtained from underground. This volume is equivalent of the entire length of the rivers inside the 7RW if they where 1km wide and 6 meters in depth (7). However, Beijing reuses 10% of the consumption bringing down the gap of its water balance to 18.5%. In the 7RW, water treatment plants are connected to every building and reused in order to decrease the usage of clean water in an additional 567 million m3; regaining water balance.

Waste disposal technology is available to reuse the 1.35 million annual tons of Industrial solid waste discharged and the 6.32 million annual tons of Industrial solid waste disposed (9). 6 million additional tons (10) from civil waste are to be conducted into only 2 processes: recycled and organic disposal. The last, is likely to be scattered into 25,000 ha (11) of forests that constitute part of the Green Belt "Farmlands".

It is still not difficult to think of ways to enhance environment in Beijing. Could a path be drawn to reverse one of the most polluted cities in the world into one of the cleanest?