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The Seattle Times: China dams the Yangtze

The Seattle Times China dams the Yangtze

"With a $25 billion budget, 25,000 workers and 13 years of breakneck construction that displaced more than a million villagers, China has completed a giant and controversial dam across the mighty Yangtze River, seeking to tame the flood-prone waterway that has nurtured and tormented the Chinese people for 5,000 years."

"The Three Gorges Project, China's most ambitious engineering undertaking since the Great Wall, has replaced Brazil's Taipu Dam as the world's largest hydroelectric and flood-control installation, Chinese officials said, with the strength to hold back more water than Lake Superior and power 26 generators to churn out 85 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year when the final touches are completed in 2009. Hoover Dam, by comparison, generates more than 4 billion kilowatt-hours a year."

Guardian Unlimited China's 15-year lesson in how not to build a dam
"But the completion of the Three Gorges dam has been anything but harmonious. It is now being cited as a textbook example of how not to build a dam. Before it even starts operating, the giant hydro-electric scheme is threatened by silt - the solution to which is to pour yet more concrete into the Yangtse river."

"As the waters behind the dam rise, increased pressure will allow it to generate more power and recoup the $22bn (�11bn) investment more quickly. But the output is not as significant as had been originally imagined. At first, it was envisaged the dam would supply at least a 10th of the country's energy, but electricity supply has grown rapidly along with the economy, and by the end of this year, it will provide less than a 30th."

The Age What cost as China tames mother river?
"But the world's biggest hydro-electric project and the pride of Chinese engineering, which has swallowed $A33 billion and counting, 630 square kilometres of farmland, two cities, 11 counties, 116 towns and 1200 villages and necessitated moving more than a million people, seems set to continue as a battleground between authorities and the emboldened environmental movement."

"Environmentalists and scientists fear the reservoir behind the dam will become a giant cesspool that will affect water quality for the 30 million residents of China's biggest urban conglomeration at nearby Chongqing."

Xinhua Expert: Three Gorges project expected to save 50 mln tons of coal annually
"As a clean energy project, operation of the Three Gorges Project, the world's largest hydropower project, will help China reduce consumption of 50 million tons of coal per year, thus benefiting the environment in China and its neighboring countries."

"By saving a large amount of coal, China will reduce the discharge of 100 million tons of carbon dioxide, 2 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 10,000 tons of carbonic oxide, greatly alleviating air pollution in China, Xie said."

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The Seattle Times: China dams the Yangtze

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