ABSTRACT
The Union Territories of Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir (L, J&K) are host to one of the most active and stringent international borders with a significant amount of military forces deployed in these regions. It has been brought to attention after reading relevant literature and discussions with the D.R.D.O. and Indian Army personnel that the logistics of vegetables and other food items bear a huge cost in military spending annually as these are flown from proximal cantonments like New Delhi, Chandigarh, Jammu, Ambala to cantonments such as Leh, Kargil, Srinagar from where they are transported in trucks to the desired storage location and further prepared for deployment in forward areas. Preliminary studies done by the authors infer that vegetables such as potatoes stay fresh in the temperature range of 10–16°C with a relative humidity of 90–95%, giving them an average storage life of about 2–6 months, while a vast majority of vegetables are stored at 0°C with varied humidity. An underground food stock storage structure, where bulk quantities of vegetable stock can be stored under appropriate and stable thermal conditions with maintained temperature and humidity will increase the shelf life of the vegetables and provide a window of about 3–4 months for restocking. Existing storage structures require heavy duty mechanical support to maintain the desired indoor environment that becomes costly and is not energy efficient.
Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a cost-effective and energy-efficient second iteration underground storage for potatoes and other food items by maintaining a temperature range of 0–20°C, humidity control of 50–100% to further reduce logistical costs by about 20–30% annually. Proposed structure has the ability to accommodate two underground storage halls of about 300 m2 with capacity of 500 metric tons of potatoes each. Life cycle assessment of the structure reveals life time carbon dioxide emissions are equal to 79 tons (total) or 93 kg CO2e/m2 giving it an A grade in embodied carbon benchmark (CH Q3 2021 Global - Warehouse). Renewable energy measures such as installation of 74.4 kW photo-voltaic plant on roof area can generate an approximately 95,753 kWh of electricity (annually) which is adequately capable of running any electrical or mechanical requirements of the structure. With this provision, additional carbon dioxide emissions mitigated is 1,963 tons, use of this solar power plant will be equivalent to planting 3,141 teak trees over the life time. The proposed storage is energy efficient, results in lifecycle, embodied carbon savings, and contributes to lowering CO2 emissions of diesel and transportation trucks.
