Construction has begun in China of a $422m underground laboratory for research into storing high-level radioactive waste from the country’s growing fleet of nuclear power plants with the aim of building the country’s first deep geologic repository by 2050.

China Atomic Energy Authority said construction of the facility, in the Beishan region of Gansu province, in China’s remote northwest, began on 17 June. It is scheduled to be finished in 2024.

If successful, a repository that could store 100 years’ worth of high-level waste will be built, reports in China said. The waste will mostly be in the form of spent nuclear fuel, which is currently stored in spent fuel ponds at nuclear plant sites.