A Great Wall on the Yangtze
The Three Gorges Dam, which reaches completion
today, Saturday, is China's Great Wall across the Yangtze River, a project that
many expect to be a source of immense national pride for centuries.
The Three Gorges Dam, which will reach completion Saturday, is China’s Great Wall across the Yangtze River, a project that many expect to be a source of immense national pride for centuries.
Engineers say they and the workers — many of them migrants from Yunnan province near China’s border with Vietnam — will hold a modest ceremony Saturday as the last crane-load of concrete is poured on top of the dam.
It will mark 13 years of unprecedented labour, although it will still be more than two years before the project becomes fully operational, as some equipment, including the last power generators, remain to be installed.
The essential structure is finishing 9 months ahead of schedule.
My friends in ecological movements are aghast for they approve of no dam. Self-delusion isn’t limited to neo-cons and other amateurs in political economy. Some weep and wail over China’s dynamic economy and hold it responsible for growing pollution — though, China decreased their dependence on oil, last year, a couple of percentage points. And 50% of their air pollution comes from the same comfortable, affordable beast that beget “Auld Reekie” after WW2. They rely on coal stoves and open coal fires for heat and cooking in most homes. Probably, for another decade, at least. It will pass.
The dam will have three main benefits, including flood prevention, power generation and improved navigation on the Yangtze.
“Currently we have serious floods every 10 years,” said Wang Xiaomao, deputy chief engineer at the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee. “With the dam, that will change to once every 100 years.”
On the left bank, 14 sets of 700 megawatt turbine and generator units are already in operation. On the right bank, 12 further 700 megawatt units are still under construction and installation. With a capacity already equivalent to Itaipu, situated on the border of Brazil and Paraguay and currently the largest operating hydro-electric dam in the world, the Three Gorges will eventually overshadow all others.
A new tender process will be held by the end of the year for adding a new power station with a set of six more 700 megawatt generators, underground and next to that of the right bank.
One final benefit of the project is that it will elevate the Yangtze for hundreds of kilometers inland, allowing ocean-going vessels to travel as far as the enormous, but little known metropolis of Chongqing.
This will, planners hope, help open up China’s underdeveloped west, which has in many ways missed out on economic reforms largely because of its isolation from overseas markets.
This post also marks the first issue of Simon Mansfield’s online Sino Daily. Regulars will know I often link to his Terra Daily and Space Daily for items of science. He’s been leading up to this new periodical for longer than he would care to remember, I’m certain.
I’m pleased to be a charter subscriber.
Posted: Sat - May 20, 2006 at 06:46 AM