Doomsday Bunker in Norway will now not only store seeds, but also data

At the beginning of this year, the hands of the Doomsday Clock, whose movement reflects the level of danger of nuclear war and other threats, were transferred 30 seconds ahead. Explaining their decision, the representatives of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists made the following statement: “The probability of a global catastrophe is extremely high, therefore measures that will ensure the reduction of risks should be taken in the near future. Heads of state must act now to save humanity from falling into the abyss. If they do nothing, the citizens must take action. ”

Some citizens are already taking these measures, only in this case it is not a question of actions against nuclear war, but of measures taken to preserve especially important values ​​for those who survive in a possible cataclysm. We are now talking about the Doomsday Vault (Svalbard Globale frøhvelv), which is located on the island of Svalbard. Samples of seeds of main agricultural crops are placed in it for safe storage. And now the team of this project is going to store in this place the most important data for a person.

More than 1.5 million seeds are already in storage, and soon millions and billions of bytes of information will appear. A small Norwegian company Piql is engaged in archiving and transporting data to Svalbard. Its representatives suggested using not ordinary data carriers like laser disks, but a special film that can remain unchanged for hundreds of years. The film wound on reels will not be stored in the open, but in special boxes, in turn, protected from external factors.
')


So long this carrier will be preserved due to the peculiarities of the storage itself. It is located at a 120-meter depth at an altitude of 130 meters above sea level in the village of Longyir. The entrance is equipped with explosion-proof doors and airlock chambers. The safety of materials is provided by refrigeration units that can operate on local coal, plus permafrost. Refrigeration units maintain the temperature at -18 degrees Celsius. If they even fail, the temperature will rise by only a few degrees.

As for the storage medium, the film, in this repository it will be protected from the effects of a nuclear attack due to the large depth of storage. By the way, about 42 countries signed an agreement on the creation of a demilitarized zone in this region, so there is no nuclear or other weapons on the island. In addition, the entire archive is not connected to anything, you can only get to the films physically.

Information on the media developed by Piql can be recorded only once. After that, they can only be read without the possibility of change. Thus, according to the developers, the data is reliably protected from possible attempts to erase information or to overwrite something.

Three countries have already begun to send information that representatives of these countries consider important to the repository. These are Norway, Mexico and Brazil. Among other data, the states translate the most important documents from national archives. “By doing this now, we provide the next generations with access to this information,” said Ricardo Marquez, head of the National Archives of Brazil.



The representative of the National Archives of Mexico agrees with him: “I am sure that we must preserve the memory of our country on the Arctic island”.

Data is stored not only in case of a global cataclysm. The fact is that in a single country or region there are always possible some events that can lead to damage or destruction of the most important archival documents. Local conflicts, floods, earthquakes - this is only part of the external factors that pose a danger to the critical information of public interest of individual countries.

Piql company was founded in 2002. Initially, it provided devices for viewing digital films in cinemas with analog equipment. After that, using its own funds, support from the EU and the Norwegian organization Innovation Way, the company took up research in the field of digital data storage. Representatives of the company believe that a special film can be a more reliable information carrier than hard drives or anything else. The film has passed the test with imitation of the conditions of 500-year wear using high temperatures.

The developers are confident that the film is able to keep the data recorded on it unchanged for a longer period - up to 1000 years. In the near future, additional tests will be conducted to verify this assumption.