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Three Gorges Dam Begins Storing Water
Anonymous Coward writes "The Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, and one of the largest engineering projects underway right now, has begun accumulating water in the reservoir."
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I'd assume the two George Bushes... is the other George Washington?
I say it holds for 6 years before it starts an earthquake that wipes itslef out and kills 10,000 people.
AS i recall, EVERYONE told them this was a bad idea.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Thought that said Three Gorgeous Dames begin storing water...was like, wtf?
As many historical sites dating hundreds, even thousands of years old are washed underneath, and even more tragically, the beautiful vista of the three gorges is irrevocably marred by the claws of "progress".
Photos.
Let's just hope this one works out better than the Gouhou dam did. It's my understanding that there are longstanding questions about the build quality, and that there have already been problems with cracks appearing in the dam.
Now if they're so against it they just need to do what the US government was afraid of during the cold war. All the chinese people have to stand on it and jump at the same time... thats 1 billion people times about 150 pounds each. or 150 billion pounds of force. Thats how you get rid of a controversial dam... damn it :)
Here in Finland they say that everything is big in America. But now it seems that commies got the bigger stick, at least when it comes to size of the damn. More people -> bigger hydroelectricwhatever. GG China!
I dunno. Will Jiang Zemin start building mines below the dam and end up pissing off the Ents? If so, I don't think his plan holds water, if you pardon the expression
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
I remember reading about it many times and the effects it will have. About a year ago I looked into it again and the story I read was something to the effect of "not going to happen anytime soon".
I'm sorry to hear this is starting up now.
Oh well,. Sadly there is nothing I can say or do to convince China to change their mind.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
Now I have to go pee.
They better watch out for the GLA.
Sure we have the hoover dam, which powers 3 states? Right? We know the oil supply is diminishing, and we will have to rely on either hydro or wind power within the next decade if we want to be able to go outside without suits to protect us from the thinning ozone layer.
Take Oklahoma for example... TONS of rivers and lots of space where you could easily and very cheaply recreate another hoover dam. WHY DOESN'T THIS HAPPEN??? (rhetorical question, we all know the answer there)
You know, I drive around on a golf cart every day, and it goes a good 20mph and requires minimal charging. I wouldn't mind in the least bit switching over to an electric car providing it would be cheap to recharge. And with hydro power on the scale that is talked about here, electricity would be at a super abundance. If you made a dam in Oklahoma say, you could power texas, arkansas, kansas, missouri, and perhaps even some states as far as colorado, with basically no problems at all. In case you haven't been to oklahoma, its full of rivers AND LOTS AND LOTS of open land where this sort of project would be VERY viable.
I wonder if any bank would lend me 25 billion dollars to build one? :)
In a related story,
life goes on as usual for Chinese peasants in the villages behind the dam.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Correct link here
-kgj
Destroyed irreplacable historic artifacts in exchange for more Farmland. Farmland, for crying out loud. As if the world need more Farmland.
We need educated people not bloody peasants.
Why do undeveloped nations think they need big ill thought throught project like this. Free the people and let them do the thinking and drive the economy.
Curious about the Aswan flop
Quote:
Aswan Dam was unwise. The project was far more expensive than expected. Further, the annual floods carried silt, which created the topsoil needed for plants. Since the creation of the Aswan Dam, the farms on the formerly flooded banks have had to use expensive fertilizers in place of the silt. Formerly, fish have fed on the silt, and the people downstream depended on fishing from the riverhere
Help fight continental drift.
After relocating people from their kinda-nice homes to concrete grottos (it was on the Discovery special a few years ago) and losing their livelyhood, don't you think a million Chinese would get a little pissed off? Aside from the historical, economic, and environmental damage this will cause, what prevents this new lake from silting up (you do recall the Yangtze has about as much silt as the Mississippi) as soon as the dam is "turned on", so to speak? Will they have to dredge it every few weeks? How do other dam engineers prevent silting?
The Chinese government really should put a bit of importance onto Chinese history. After all, how can they point to their "glorious history" if they've destroyed all the evidence?
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
One of the main things the world needs is more ways to generate power.
God spoke to me
Maybe, but you have got to realize how badly they need the power.
1.4 BILLION people. consider.
And do you really think it's possible to have China start to rely heavily on nuclear power, without the US getting nervous? Heck, the US is twitchy enough as it is.
So, yes, three-gorges is a beautiful place, but if this allows that many people to afford heat in the winter, or lights under which to read, so be it.
Otoh, I really think the current party do partly hope that the dam will turn out to be like the great-wall - legendary, etc. To that I go "huh?"
side-note: Tibet will get its natural gas deposit pumped next, probably...
last side-note: The one thing I thought that was kinda unfortunate is that three-gorges is purely a gravity dam, which might not be necessary considering that the place of the thing, after all, is a GORGE...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
This is 7 times the size of Washington DC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2953420.s tm)
/ fields/2023.html)that is
Going to the handy dandy CIA fact book(http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
A little larger than Hong Kong
Twice the size of Bahrain
Twice the size of Singapore
"China's Communist Party leaders have portrayed the dam as a triumph of engineering and of socialism."
So what does the Great Wall of China signify?
Seems to me to be the worst coutry to try that claim in...
I think there should be a trade off with people's lives and engineering projects though...
"Resettling people" is always a bad thing.
God spoke to me
Guess this is why they need so many ips?
Anyone want to wipe out the lower half of China has now been given a perfect missle target. Although much ignored by Western media, note that China also faces Uygurs terrorist (otherwised called "freedom fighters" by Western media) threats connected with al Quaeda in the XinJiang Province.
First of all, they work best where it's NOT FUCKING FLAT! Big mountains, a big gouge in it. Then the big mass of water moves a rotor.
Where are you going to find a nice big gouge on the land where water is falling down into it in Oklahoma? It has to fall in naturally. Then it has to fall out somewhere?
You are an absolute idiot.
The environmental and social impacts of this are massive. Many rare species will likely go into extinction, ancient temples and archeological site will be flooded under the dams 400 mile reservoir. Over a million people who live in relitive harmony with the natural will have to be relocated out of the area, and one of the worlds pristine places will face destruction.
This is one building I wouldn't mind seeing crumble.
it should be noted that the world bank, more specifically the international bank for reconstruction and development did not bank roll this project, because the human and environment costs were too great, even for them. this project was funded mainly by private contributions, lots of which are American, such as Morgan Stanley, just to name one.
This project will displace 1.9 Million people over the next year, including many unexplored aracaelogical sites in the canyon walls.
And lastly, it is believed that the amount of water being formed in the reservoir will be so great that it will put *a lot* of stress on the surrounding tectonic plates. So, casual earthquakes could become common.
But you know, anything in the name of progress...and socialism.
As far as sources go, this is a forum not an academic paper. If you want a source, go ask google.
Here is a different point of view.
The next increase in fish catch is apparently enormous.
See link.
Another Assessment
I visited the Hoover Dam and they said that the life expectancy for it was about 1800 years and they said it was considered being hugely over engineered.
Also, apparently the concrete in the middle hasn't quite finished baking yet so it is still emitting a lot of heat.
It is also interesting that Las Vegas only gets about 4% of its power from the Hoover dam, which is interesting since it is so close to the dam. It turns out that when they built the dam they wrote long term contracts for who would get the electricity. The officials of Las Vegas thought they got their share, it was just that they had no idea that Las Vegas would grow so fast.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
This is an environmental disaster in the making. Maybe 150-200 years later when the dam is all gone, all those villages and that lost ground will reappear.
... ...
Imagine, oh imagine a Beowolf cluster of these!
Good or bad it's still fun to watch.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
No, you got it wrong. They are using bits of Eunuchs. Ewww, that was bad.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
After the concrete grottos from the their kinda splendid house (that was before) to to move the people to small-numbered year special discovery, losing their livelyhood, you obtain 1000000 Chinese, the pissed you don't think a little, the dam " with " turns? as for history as another, when the secondary it prevents in order to speak, the immediately this new lake Mississippi - thing the same way (you the recall the yangtze which is done having concerning many silts and the) covering this, what economic it gives, As for damage of environment? he and others must dredge that, all several weeks? is the fact that how the other dam engineer covers prevented? the Chinese government really barely should make importance the Chinese history. After all, as for them pointing " to their beautiful histories, " how, when it destroys evidence everything may?...
--
the potter: " From manufacturer of red of Soylent..." Hemos: " As for us in you who are given the NateWich. " Taco: " The Mmm... the Nate whose flavor is good it is light the food! "
...can it carry water?
What's interesting about the decisions that were made to go ahead with this damn is the Chinese have such a long history. They're continously finding out more about how advanced they were in specific areas so long ago. It seems like they might just wipe away any chance of discovering some of that past.
Instead of the bigger is better, or all in one place mentality. How about distributed power sources, closer to the local level, each picked to fit the local environment? Small hydroelectricity, solar cells, wind power, fuel cells, biomass, all topped with energy-efficient as a mantra of our designs. Housing that sips energy. cars that fulfil their purpose without destroying the environment. Another nice thing about small and distributed is that land isn't consumed in a large wasteful manner. One can have grazing land under a wind farm. The same couldn't be said of a coal plant. Also it is much more resilient to terrorist attacks, as well as natural disasters. Overall when all the above is combined, everything will look much more attractive. Our present power policy is an exercise in penis-waving, nothing more.
The dam will ultimately be able to crank out 18,200 megawatts of energy a year, the equivalent of 26 nuclear power plants or 10 big coal-fired power stations burning 50 million tons of coal.
or about 36 watts per person! China better invest in transmeta or low power dragon cpus if they ever want to make computers ubiquitous. However because of falling energy prices in china, its unlikely the overrun cost of this damn will be recouped quickly, making future investments in energy production in doubt.
With as much water as Lake Superior, the reservoir will stretch 385 miles east to west and more than one mile north to south and 600 feet deep. unlike lake superior all of this water is held back from a lower flood plain by a single entity--the dam. THis could be a spectacular flood if it breeched.
but there's reason to worry. small cracks are appearing in the damn and construction officials arrested for corruption. 60 percent of the waste entering the reservoir comes from sources that can't be treated, such as fields laden with fertilizer and insecticide. Of the 90 tributaries entering the reservoir, 60 are now considered heavily polluted. It may well become a cesspool the size of lake superior.
One might also worry how this will shift the eco system and farmland down stream. THe river has traditionally created havoc with its floods but presumably also renewed farmlands and sustained eco systems down stream.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
First that grill, and now this. How'd he get a dam named after him and his sons anyhow?
It would be great if news submitters would provide a bit more context for stories like this. I'd like to be able to get at least a vague idea of what this means without having to read the article. In this case, after reading the little blurb there, I have no idea what or where the Three Gorges dam is (or what its significance is), nor do I understand what accumulating water will do. Yeah, so there'll be a bunch of water back there. Does this mean that it's going to stop generating power, or maybe start? I don't know how a dam works.
I'm not asking for a dissertation here, just a sentence or two telling me what's happening and why I should care.
Well, it's not like there wasn't history for the Hover then known as the Bolder Dam. The Anasazi people were known to dwell in that region. There is some speculation that the Anasazi were pretty impressive as far as their achievements go, but alas we thought it was a good idea to flood that area all but destroying that evidence.
Now typicaly i'm actually a fan of hydro power. It's better then chemical fuel because of that pesky issue of waste gases and having extract and bring in stuff to burn. It's better then nuclear because of the fact that it doesn't have the same issues with waste, and should let's say a dam fail, the area can be habitable soon after the water has washed away. You can't really say the same thing about nuclear. I would very much prefer china experiment with dam power rather then resorting to more toxic methods.
But it does have a sad side effect of reaking havic with fish and wildlife populations. And the lost of history is most tragic.
While I'm a big fan of what the Hover Land Reclamation project has done for america, I can not dismiss the negative impact that it has caused. You have regions like Phoenix and Los Angles who's enviroment doesn't naturally support humans, creating a dependence on these rivers that, in some cases, no longer flow into the sea. I'm not a fan of foolishness like in pheonix requring home owners to have a grass lawn visiable, which sorta increases demand on the water supply for something not really bloody useful.
But also i'm for the freedom of choice, and the inteligence of a people to weigh in the good and the bad. While I don't know the specifics, i'm willing to wager that these were taken into account. China has a population issue. Part of their immidate need is the ability to provide water, power, and food for these people. Dams can be great for this if properly managed. I'm sure they have issues with polution, dams are good for this too. Unforutnatly I feel that a dam is a good idea.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
wtf are you talking about. Besides huang-he (the other really long river in china), yangtze is one river that kills a lot of people and destroys many homes because it floods and changes courses constantly. since the ancient times, farmers that depended on it loved it (irrigation) and hated it (floods often) because of this.
Heck, I was in Nanjin (city with several million population) back when when it *almost* flodded. The water was some 10 meters higher than the ground near the port! damn good thing all the sandbags held, because otherwise a LOT of people would have died - myself probably one of them.
if I had to move because I'd be saving people's lives? well fuck, wouldn't you? Btw, did you know that when shit like this happens (government forces you to move), they pay you a whole lot of money, at least in chinese standards? I am not personally familiar with that particular province, but in nanjin and shanghai, when farmers were kicked from their lands (when building new airport / new highway / mag-lev train / etc), the farmers got a LOT of cash for their land - in fact many of them are off to quite a good living, even better than some of the city-folks.
btw; most man-made channels silt. there are specific ships that dig those out. read about them. the technology is there. and don't forget that yangtze is a lot bigger than mississipi; so percentage-wise the silting should not be as bad.
btw; i mentioned it in another post but i say it again here - partly I think the government believes that this will become like the great-wall, etc, where they are creating a new legacy; at least thats what i think they thinks about when confronted with destroying the archeological stuff that lies the river's side.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
or about the same as every man woman and child in china riding a stationary bike with a generator 12 hours a day.
I wonder what Haliburton and Bechtel's cuts are.
With many arguments positive and negative. Remarkably, however, nobody after reading the arguments think the pro-dam case is a "slam dunk." At most it's slightly on the positive side.
Yet if you step back, you realize that in a free country, there is no way a project of this sort could go ahead, unless it was such an immense and overwhelmingly positive step, a necessity -- and even then I have doubts that you could arrange for the relocation of 1 to 3 million people, even with bribes of nicer houses on less fertile land.
So if you couldn't approve of this in a free country, how can you approve of usuing authoritarian techniques to make it happen, if the benefits are under any question at all?
I toured the dam and the river last year. You may be interested in my many photos and notes, which are on my China and Yangtse photo pages
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Yes instead of a renewable non-polluting energy source that can provide energy for %20 of the world let's just have them burn a bunch of coal and maybe makes some nuclear reactors, that's a lot better!
I'm sick of these racists critisizing the chinese when they actually try to produce clean power!
I bet you are out in American suburbs somewhere powered by either a giant coal plant or nuclear power.
Yes, let's have the chinese turn to nuclear power so that they don't anger any bourgeois western tourists!
Why don't you shut your hypocritical mouth.
...but what are they supposed to do?
... drawing fire from the same people who are criticising the environmental impact of the dam
Yes, this dam will damage the environment.
Yes, it will displace many people.
Yes, it is dangerous in terms of earthquakes and flooding if it collapses.
BUT, it is going to generate *18.2 MILLION kilowatts* of power, indefinitely, with no ongoing pollution. The alternatives are presumably:
- coal or oil power, causing a massive amount of greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming (yes it does exist, America) and drawing fire from the same people who are criticising the environmental impact of the dam
- nuclear power, leading to large amounts of nuclear waste and with an increased risk of a meltdown occurring in a 2nd/3rd world country with dubious safety records and high levels of corruption
- China goes without power, and the western world continues to get fat and happy using our own dams, nuclear plants and coal fired power stations and sweet sweet Iraqi oil
Obviously the ideal solution would be for China to be able to build a project that produced this much power from solar/wind/tidal energy sources, but the cost at present would be insanely prohibitive. Quite frankly I have more respect for the energy policy of a nation that is trying to generate power without relying on fossil fuels and nuclear reactors than one that is actively trying to expand its power generation in those areas. Of course no other countries I can think of have built massive, environmentally questionable (*cough* Hoover *cough*) dams, have they?
Read Pynchon.
fp
It's not as easy as media/cartoons show it to be, blowing up a dam. They're incredibly thick at the bottom, and if designed right, are able to take things like higher pressure from a heavy rain upriver. Yes, one could probably breech the dam at the top, where it's thinnest, and that would cause a lot of water to rush through, but it probably wouldn't destroy the dam too far down where the dam thickens, and once the breech occurs, the control facility opens the side flows to let water out rather than waiting for it to all drain through the breech, so the breech isn't extended further. It would be messy, but the chances of someone destroying the whole dam while it still had maximum capacity behind it are slim at best.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"Hey, what can I say... I've been busy lately."
Been taking the "Take with a grain of salt" a bit too far haven't you?
erm...
1/3 of power requirements in china is, ahem, what, insignificant in your book? what do you propose they do? buy hamster mills? connect all the population into a computer simulation and harvest bioelectricity? (actually, in hind sight - the harvesting bioelectricity thing might make a good movie)
you'd be surprised how much infrastructure stuff is going on in china right now. highways are beginning to connect most metropolitan areas to one another, new airports are springing into existance (ever compare the new shanghai airport (pudong) with the old (hongqiao)?
Since the dam holds so much potential in the roadblock to china's industrial and economical future (seriously - power-outages are worse there than CA) - I wouldn't call it an "show of pride." That kind of stuff would be probably be exemplified by the maglev rail in shanghai.
Now, being somewhat earthquake-prone is (i think) one of the reasons why they built a gravity dam; it's blocking water just by its weight. I am concerned about the quality of the build - but that is different from concern about the intention to build it. There are no plausible alternatives currently, you see. Besides, if Japan's nuclear powerplant can survive through the recent (last week) 7.0 earthquake, I'd think the technology is there to keep a dam steady.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
This was in fact the biggest technological diaster of all time. You must not be considering the entire family of Windows products.
Ya I think there are really only two issues:
America just spent a lot of effort (politically) to conquer the worlds second largest oil reserve but if the chinese start powering fuel cells with energy from this thing then controlling the worlds oil supply becomes useless.
Second there are a bunch of rich westerner tourists who think China should stay in the dark ages for their vacationing amusement.
Either way they can piss off because China is the one country the United States doesn't want to fuck with militarily. Beating up small third world countries is one thing...China is quite another.
You see civilized countries like China use science and engineering to produce more energy as the world oil production begins to pass it's peak.
Barbarian nations like the United States just start to invade and conquer anyone with oil.
We know that millions of Americans ever year pay to run assorted exercise apparatus. There are some pretty serious body image mental disorders in America as most of us have a shitty diet and get no exercise whatsoever. I'm thinking we can increase the effect of this by releasing new "diet" food that is actually fortified with pure lard. At the same time, new computer generated male and female models with impossible anatomies will be our next generation of celebrities.
Once we have exacerbated that uniquely American mental disorder, I predict that exercise gyms will see record membership levels! By then, of course, we will have fitted all the exercise equipment with electrical generators. And everyone will applaud when Congress, justifiably concerned with America's declining fitness, passes a law requiring every man, woman and child to work out for at least 7 hours a week.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oooh... that's not going to get modded up.
Although (without the word 'fuck') your analysis would appear to be essentially correct. If China wants to be the equal to the US in the next 20-50 years it really needs to escape from a dependence on oil, which is basically American-controlled, and get its power elsewhere.
They seem to have the willpower to do it, too. I mean, they want to go to the moon, set up a base and mine it for minerals. Meanwhile we in the West want a gum that doesn't lose its flavor.
If every Chinese person started using as much oil and coal and producing as much rubbish as every Westerner the world would be destroyed very quickly.
Read Pynchon.
nuclear power, leading to large amounts of nuclear waste and with an increased risk of a meltdown occurring in a 2nd/3rd world country with dubious safety records and high levels of corruption
The nuclear waste gets buried and when was the lsat time you saw a meltdown?
And what kind of impact do you think the dam bursting would have hmmm!? The dam (to me) looks far more dangerous than a few nuclear power stations. Containing a nuclear disaster is nothing compared to containing all that water.
Sorry, an article that confuses units of power with units of energy
I guess I just mentally typecasted that to 18,200 megawatt-years of energy a year. A megawatt-year equals 31.56 terajoules.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You may have forgotten your Franklin quote in your signature. Do you not see the tremendous irony? Up to 3 million people forcefully uprooted from their homes -- I say that's giving up more than a little liberty for this. Yes, burning the coal is terrible. (Though this dam won't reduce the coal burnt, though it will avoid the need for 18GW of additional coal power as Chinese needs expand.)
/. are not qualified to resolve that debate.
However, note that they are trying to serve two goals here. One is flood control (which could be done with a project much smaller than this, or a set of dams on major tributaries) and the other is power, which requires the reservoir be kept high (making it not as effective at flood control.)
And it might end up just silting up, though we in
We do need cleaner forms of power. (Modern nuke designs don't melt down, by the way, but they still can have waste.) One wishes the Chinese could find a way to do the solar research that the U.S. won't.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
For those who still complain about nuclear waste all the nuclear waste in the world can be stored in a 2 story building with the footprint of 2 basketball courts.. In consideration it's not that much and it's not gallons of oozing drums that you think of all the time either it's all dry and solid.
If there were a meltdown in a Chinese nuclear power plant would they call it The America Syndrome?
One of the big, still mostly unanswered questions about the dam is whether the principal goal is to generate power or to reduce the risk of catastrophic floods. The Chinese government says that they intend to do both. However, often these two objectives clash - you are inclined to take more risks in order to generate more power. Also, in either case there are better alternatives. If you want power, it is cheeper to just build a bunch of nuclear plants. If you want flood prevention, a large series of smaller projects on tributaries would be more effective, would avoid the catastrophic risk, and would have a smaller environmental, social, and cultural impact. The only conclusion one can draw from this is that the CCP wants this because it will be impressive in traditional Chinese "big projects" style. This is probably also a large part of the motivation for their space program. They want desperatly to see themselves as a great modern power. The history of this goes back to the building of the Great Walls (there were several, built at different times) and massive flood prevention projects which often were the basis for the legitimacy of an emperor/dynasty.
Can you say population control?!?
heck, if they time it right, they can do spring cleaning too...
What? Are the editors bored beyond belief?
New Story: Dam Fills Up With Water
In Later News: Paint Dries.
Highly Modded Slashcomment: SCO's behind this. DDOS 'em.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
"The nuclear waste gets buried and when was the lsat time you saw a meltdown?"
There are so many things wrong with this statement I can't even be bothered to list them. However, the last time "I saw a meltdown" was when another giant Communist state was frantically trying to match the energy production of the US and built a large, shoddily maintained reactor. It then melted down and killed a great many people over the next 25 years, and is still blamed for many birth defects and an elevated rate of cancer in parts of Russia and Europe. The dangerous effects of the fallout reached as far as Great Britain from central Russia.
PS
I would rather drown than have my skin burnt off before dying of cancer or radiation sickness.
Read Pynchon.
They should have made the construction company housing below the dam and forced employees to live there for the next 10 years.
"The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into the tiger's den."
I assume you're talking about Chernobyl which DID NOT have a meltdown.
China goes without power, and the western world continues to get fat and happy using our own dams, nuclear plants and coal fired power stations and sweet sweet Iraqi oil
China goes without power, and the western world continues to get fat and diseased using our own dams, nuclear plants and coal fired power stations and foul smelling Iraqi oil.
In some ways, the Chinese have the advantage of industrializing at a later date. For example, when people get phones there, they are much more likely to get wireless. They're skipping over the cumbersome copper phase of telecom to a large degree.
OTOH, they've failed to learn our lessons in other areas. I recall reading an article about how the once ubiquitous bicycle is being pushed out by cars. People who try to stay with their bikes are riding around in smog, finding it hard to breath, and of course they are dead meat in a collision now. Smog was a major point of contention in granting the Olympics to Beijing. Solution? Nearby industry will be shut down during the games.
It's too bad the government there is sold on this particular vision of "progress". If I were dictator, I'd tax cars and gasoline like crazy and use the revenue to build public transit. As for electricity, many Chinese did fine without it for most of history. If China wants to play a global game of "keeping up with the Joneses" they are free to do that, but it's just a larger scale version of the yuppie who knocks himself out 70 hours a week to keep the Mercedes and the crackerbox mansion, only to discover that his wife is sleeping around and his children don't respect him.
So what if 50% of the nation plows with oxen and washes clothes by hand? With appropriate and judicious distribution of resources, with effective management, with proper education, I daresay that people will live longer and more happily in such a nation.
Of course I doubt that there are very many nations with the wisdom to persue such a course, when the shiny, jingly "stuff" of industrialization is so tempting because... well... "everybody else is doing it". Maybe Africa still has a chance.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Of course I see the irony. However I feel you are being too simplistic. It is easy to look at freedom as a literal concept when you live in a country where the dirty work of destroying the environment and displacing/slaughtering the natives was done by our great grandfathers and is therefore no longer our concern.
To me there is more value in the 'freedom' of living on a planet with beathable air than in the 'freedom' of every individual to live where they want to. Obviously it would be better to have both... but freedom is a lot more than the absence of walls in the jail, as it were.
Read Pynchon.
"it was like a million memories crying out in unison, then suddenly silence."
My mistake:
"The fuel elements ruptured and the resultant explosive force of steam lifted off the cover plate of the reactor, releasing fission products to the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames."
No need to panic, not a meltdown! Everyone return to your stations...
Read Pynchon.
On the other hand, they are also disadvantaged because we are giving them very advanced technologies but we are *not* giving them a good attitude to the environment. Ford and General Motors don't give a damn about electric cars when they can see a market for a billion petrol powered vehicles sitting there across the Pacific. Where is the equivalent dose of environmentalism? There is none. It will come in 25 years when most of China looks like downtown LA.
Already cities like Hong Kong, Bangkok etc. are car-choked hellholes. People don't seem able to learn from each other's mistakes, only their own...
Read Pynchon.
I never said that there haven't been nuclear disasters. You had an issue with my question "When was the last time you saw a meltdown?" and you were wrong.
Whether nuclear disasters outnumber or are worse than damn disasters is a different discussion...
Hey, relax there fellah.
There's only one way to settle this. You build a dam above Los Angeles and I'll build a nuclear reactor in New York and we'll set them both off at the same time. At the very least LA will be a lot cleaner afterwards and the subway congestion in NY will probably improve too.
Loser buys the winner a beer?
Read Pynchon.
Another way to express it is six kilograms of energy every year.
It would be awe-inspiring to look at the power lines leaving the dam and realize they were carrying enough to (theoretically) synthesize a gram of antimatter every 3 hours. (Not 90 minutes, because you'd have to synthesize a gram of matter at the same time).
How short our (generally, on /.) American memories are. Here in California, how many remember that Hetch Hetchy Resevoir (San Francisco's water supply) flooded the second tranquil valley in Yosemite. Naturalist John Muir fought long, hard an unsuccessfully to prevent the damming of one of our nations grandest wonders.
"Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple," Muir would later write, "has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." From SacBee.com
Yosemite Valley is beautiful, but as I look down over the lake that drowned Hetch Hetchy, I wonder what that valley looked like before the flood.
-Sean
...if it's not one dam thing, it's another.
Finally I can power my flux capacitor without worrying about the Libyans coming to ge me.
I did my term paper in my History of Modern China class this past semester and presented the findings at our university's (UMPI) annual conference during a session. As such, I'll respond and try and clear up a few things from what I found:
Coal power isn't an option if your looking at the environment. Chungqing which will now be a seaport has smog that makes LA look pristine... Its the industrial center of that section of China and holds 31 million people (to put it in perspective New York City only has 8 million during the 2000 census as per the New York City Department of Planning has on their website). So much so that there are reports that people who have asthma and journey there are expected to (and have) died within 4-6 weeks.
I honestly don't know about the nuclear power. That was outside the scope of my search so I can only estimate that yeah, there would be a buttload of nuclear waste.
I will say this though, with a body of water that is this large (long, not wide) that the salinity of the water will increase (as is found in other large bodies of water and other dam projects), as such, with this stretching long periods, the watershed is also expected to become saltier and the plant-matter close to the water is also expected to suffer.
These are only the negatives, downstream where there are large amounts of citrus fruit and the "bread basket" of China is located (presumed to be the second largest until the Taiping Rebellion) will now have stabilized flow of the Yangtze River instead of the traditional seasonal changes of approximately 30 meters in depth.
China isn't *controlled* by the communist party, its controlled by the rivers. Rivers in China change course often, and when they do, approximately 1.2 million people die each year due to either flooding or starvation with a poor crop (figure obtained from in class lecture, will find an online source if asked). China lives "on the edge" of starvation constantly with only 12% of their land being arable, so when a river moves, its BIG NEWS. This will be the first time that many farmers downstream are able to install permanent irigation.
- Page
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
I wonder if any bank would lend me 25 billion dollars to build one?
No, but if you have some collateral like a farm, they might lend you a million or so for a big windmill. That will take care of all your personal power needs, and pay for itself with what you can sell back to the grid. Plenty of wind in Oklahoma...
If OK is littered with small lakes then you shouldn't be looking to dam up all that productive land just for hydro power. Community projects are the antithesis of the ideals of modern day government/corporate business models, but they can and do work.
I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned
(what none of you have read "Last Chance to See"
by Douglas Adams?) how this will almost certainly result in the extinction of the Yangtze Dolphin.
The Yangtze is one of four freshwater dolphin
species that exists.
Were that I say, pancakes?
*18.2 MILLION kilowatts*
Bob, that's what we call 18.2 gigawatts on my planet.
Or maybe they should put you in charge of harddisk drive publicity: "a 18.2 MILLION kilobyte drive", yeah, that's gonna impress Joe AOLer.
Since most technological advances in architecture were made in the 70's and 80's in China, many older structures were hopelessly flawed. That is why in most modern cities, there aren't a lot of older structures (save for historial sites) as they have mostly been torn down and rebuilt.
The same could go for dams. Many of the dams that have failed were built a long time ago, when financing was very short, planning was inadequte, and much corner cutting had to be made. Just because in the past, some older dams have collapsed dosen't necesarily mean that newer dams like the Three Gorges will result in disaster necessarily.
My lightbulb manufacturer hasn't upgraded to the new 0.00000006 gigawatt bulb naming scheme yet. It's so confusing.
The point is that the meaning of freedom is you don't choose what another person's freedom means for them.
Yes, both types of freedom are worthwhile. But the families who have lived in the same house for 400 years aren't the ones polluting the air. Should they be "relocated" because we want to stop the people burning the coal?
If you say you have freedom unless it's impractical for the good of the state, you don't have freedom.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Even according to the government's figures, 86,000 drowned. That completely eclipses Chernobyl.
For perspective, that would be an enormous death toll even by wartime standards.
To quote the article, "Already 600,000 people have been displaced". Records show that estimates range from 1 million to 1.2 million (depending on the Chinese paper or other source of info that is used) will be displaced from their original homes.
/. have howled about that, but I have yet to read a comment where anyone takes into account that 1 million is lint in the bellybutton of China, when on average when a river changes course in China (through silt or other means) 1 million die EACH TIME.
So far people here on
Another cute note is that yes, they were displaced, but reports from Chongqing (which I used as a case study for a term paper on the 3 Gorges Dam Project and how it affects China for my History of Modern China class this last semester) say that the people will just "move up the hill". Worse things have happened, and there are more pressing issues I guess is my view on this.
China has a history of destroying artifacts and temples (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, every freakin emperor who didn't like history) and this is small peas and carrots in that respect.
My worry isn't the displaced people that were effected so far, its the number of people that *will* die if this sucker were attacked or just breaks on its own after its filled.
- Page
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
I'd like to note that here in Lithuania, the farmers depend on flooding to fertilize the fields. Remember how the American Indians fertilized their fields with a fish for each corn plant? Well, this is fertilizing with fish poop, which is nothing mroe than -- you guessed it -- processed fish.
But on the other hand, violent flooding could be controlled.
Maybe, they could have scheduled floods of an affordable magnitude. Just, hopefully, it won't be 3 scheduled floods per year, for 30 years, followed by one unscheduled giant flood. Not to say that this is a bad idea, but projects this big, projects of a new order of magnitude, always worry me. Remember the Challenger.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
This dam was very pricey, I think it was more than 25 billion USD. They could have built, say, 10 real big dams with that same money.
... a driver's license without bribing some official somewhere. This is not a criticism, just a statement of fact. It's Not Like Over Here.
The dam is so far from major population centers that much of the energy generated (I think one third) will be lost in transit. Not too efficient.
Remember that China is largely a cleptocracy (gov't of theives). Corruption is the rule, not the exception. You can't get
Even the gov't admits there has been a lot of corruption involved in the construction. Imaging the temptation to mix in an extra 1% of sand in the concrete. Or to use slightly impure steel in the rebar.
Hundreds of millions in USD could be skimmed off the top. Tempting. Engineers don't plan for that sort of thing.
Folks, why don't we all share one big mainframe?
=brian
>You would be surprised at just how much an affect of a beautiful environment can actually have on your life.
I fail to see the beauty of thousands killed annually by flooding and no real plans to power the world's largest country.
Sadly, many westerners like our above poster come off as so elitist they can easily be mistaken for racists. To them, it seems, the rest of the world is a potential tourist attraction and the natives better be "authentic" e.g. underfed, undereducated, sheoless, and surrounded by beauty. Well, enough beauty that'll fill up the card on your digital camera so you can view all this beauty on the plane ride home. Whatever happens to the natives is their problem, right?
The rest of the world is not a potential vacation, its an active and constantly changing place. Sure, the dam has criticisms just like anything else, but spare me your thesis on the beauty of the the environment and what seems to be bad news for your vacation plans.
>You would be surprised at just how much an affect of a beautiful environment can actually have on your life.
and overvaluing it to an absurd degree makes you sound a little crazy.
There are already over 20 dams on the northern part of the Mississippi (from St Louis north), and I count 9 on the Missouri.
Isn't part of the reason there won't be so many people killed by the Yangtze in the future that they were relocated away from the river to make room for the reservoir? That could have been done without building the dam.
On the contrary, that idea is generally a myth.
I couldn't agree more. In many ways patriotism and 'the good of the nation' are the biggest threat to freedom imaginable - the worst crimes both humanitarian and environmental throughout history have always been committed by and in the name of nations. One need only look at the US from the outside today to see the potential for destruction of freedom that can occur in the name of the state.
However, on a planet of finite size with finite resources is it really practical to say that we can't or shouldn't effect each other's freedoms at all? Surely this must be within some kind of framework or the entire concept of a society will crumble? There are many things I would like to do that would probably have a negative impact on others - should I have these 'freedoms'?
This is the question to which I have never received a satisfactory answer from Libertarians or Anarchists.
Read Pynchon.
Anyhow, I tell you what I know; my ancidotal evidence is that many who relocated because of government construction projects were compensated. now, i admit that china is not a perfect place and corruption has its way more often than not; but so is every beurocratic society; i mean it's not like the 9/11 funds are distributed approporiately 100% of the time?
i mean, i know there are problems, but regardless, I say the benefits outweight the (albeit heavy) costs.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I won't know how long the dam will hold, but if it breaks, much more than 10,000 people will die.
The figures might be in the TENS OF MILLIONS.
Before it starts to hold water, the dam is already CRACKED !
Cracks as wide as 1.3 meters already appeared in the dam. The cracks are due to SHABBY CONSTRUCTIONS, and the RAMPANT CORRUPTION on the part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Instead of using FLEXIBLE CONCRETE MATERIALS, lower quality concrete that is SO RIGID it is FRAGILE, was used.
Lots of engineers had grumbled about the shabby construction, but NO ONE IN THE CCP WOULD LISTEN as long as their pockets are lined.
Chief of the culprit is the NOTORIOUSLY CORRUPTED LI PENG and his family, with Jiang Jemin comes very close.
I still remember Zhu Yongi tried to halt the construction due to the improper materials used, but he couldn't find any support amongst the CCP hierarchy.
Now China has sinked more than 28 BILLION in the projects, and what they have is a GIGANTIC WATER-BASED TIME BOMB.
America doesn't need to bomb China to bring it down. China has done that to itself.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Wow, sounds like Bush's dream. An "evil" country that bombs themselves.
If I were dictator,
You'd murder a sizeable percentage of your subjects, just as idealistic dictators always have done.
As for electricity, many Chinese did fine without it for most of history.
Well, other than having a famine every few years, and practicing routine infanticide on girl babies, but who cares, right? They're just dead Chines. Not like they were actual PEOPLE or anything.
Maybe Africa still has a chance.
Africa has a chance if it adopts technology and human rights (including property rights). Otherwise it'll remain in its current fucked-up, war-torn, famine-ridden state.
And its delta now loses dozes of square miles of land a year due to decreased silt. Controlling a river can have some undesirable effects.
With appropriate and judicious distribution of resources, with effective management, with proper education, I dare-say that people will live longer and more happily in such a nation.
Ahh. The agitprop is now in full swing. Careful your slip is showing. You somehow think your country of shiny, happy, brainwashed, socially illiterate shit-farmers are superior to the yuppie you deride? Why are most Chinese politically disinterested? Why is China ruled by corrupt tyrants? Could it be that sustenance living is not the motivator which gets people thinking about the philosophical underpinnings of their society and its rulers?
So what if 50% of the nation plows with oxen and washes clothes by hand? With appropriate and judicious distribution of resources, with effective management, with proper education, I daresay that people will live longer and more happily in such a nation.
And I suppose you are willing to sacrifice the wonderful life of driving an Ox around until your hands bleed to be a "Central Planner." How noble. The inner party and the people are truly in your debt.
I highly suggest you read "Power Politics" by Arundhati Roy if you'd like to know more about dam shenanigans.
It's about a massive dam construction in India, but the same issues of displacement apply - tens of MILLIONS of poor people are being displaced and, interestingly, ENRON spearheaded the effort to privatize India's power supply - the whole thing stinks of corruption and graft at the expense of the poor.
I mean, as in China, millions are going to be homeless. But hey! They can all just gather around the water's edge and... uh... what? I mean, it's not like everyone in India and China is gonna instantly have electricity because of this - but millions WILL instantly have no homes because of this. How is this a net-positive?
If you think it is, think about the word "millions" for a few minutes. Also think about what is really important in life. Alternating current doesn't even make my top 10.
"Power Politics" (southendpress)
"Power Politics" (amazon)
You will have to ask the Chinese Communist party for the answer to that question. Flood deaths are a result of bankrupt colective agriculure policies and poor flood protection schemes. A damb is one of many ways to prevent flooding. It may or may not be the best way, but don't pretend the party cares about the Chinese people or that the west does not. A poorly built damn will kill more people than doing nothing and fewer people still would die if the stupid communists would simply let people do as they pleased but provided them with needed information like storm and flash flood warnings.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Yes, the Three Gorges dam is an ecological and cultural disaster. But most of the critisism being expressed here is (I suspect) being expressed by Americans (I'm one too). Does this make sense? Don't we Americans consume more energy per-capita than any other nation in the world? We drive to work in huge SUV's - why do we need such huge vehicles to transport one person? The US imports huge amounts of oil to power these SUVs which leads to all sorts of geopolitical problems (see: The Middle East). Instead of trying to reduce our consumption of oil we go and fight wars in the Middle East so that we can install regimes which are more favorable to us so we can keep the oil flowing - we are like the Roman Empire of old.
So China is just trying to be like US - they want a modern, industrial, consumer-based society - nevermind that that our sort of society probably doesn't scale to 1.4billion population due to the devestating ecological effects. And to be just like US they need lots of engery, hence the dam project.
Also consider that all of us typing these posts are doing so via computer. As we continue to push clock speeds higher and higher, power consumption in processors increases - power consumption in CMOS is something like cfv^2 (f: frequency, v: voltage, c: capacitance) so the faster we run'em the more power they take. Now consider that a 2GHz Athlon or Pentium packs all the power that your average Joe user will ever need - perhaps now that these processors are consuming in the 75 to 100 watt range, we should be putting more effort into reducing power consumption, instead of increasing clock speeds?
I suspect we could be doing a lot more with a lot less and since the rest of the world seems to be hellbent on emulating US, why not try to set a better example?
If they so badly needed that power, then they SHOULD construct the dam PROPERLY.
The dam was constructed with not only shabby methods, but also with inferior-grade materials.
My friend works for an international construction firm that has consultation contract with the Chinese on that project, and he told me years ago that the dam would last 30 years.
I thought he was joking then, but now I know he wasn't.
The report of CRACKS, HUNDREDS of them, have appeared, and many of them are as wide as 1.3 METERS !
Now the Chinese are worried, but it's all too late!
The official press is putting up BOLD FACE EXCUSES telling the world that the cracks are of NON-CONSEQUENCIAL! They keep on repeating the PARTY-LINE that "THE DAM IS CONSTRUCTED TO WITHSTAND AN EARTHQUAKE IN THE MAGNITUDE OF 7" and the worse part of the whole LIE is that the theory of "withstanding earthquake" was NEVER tested in term of the dam construction. Plus, that assumption is based on a PROPER construction with NONE of the inferior materials that have been used.
For example, instead of using concrete that has been designed to withstand tremendous power, inferior concrete was used. Instead of using the concrete that can STRETCH and FLEX so that it won't break, much cheaper rigid and fragile concrete was used.
According to my friend, the former Chinese Premier, Zhu Yongi tried to intervene on the matter, when he learned of the dishonest practices, but he was VETOED by his CCP comrades in the politburo. Both Li Peng and Jiang Zemin prevented Zhu from taking any action, because both Li and Jiang were (and are) on the take.
So there was NO WONDER in Zhu's departing speech late last year, that he reminded the world to see him as an honest politician that did not tolerate any corruption. That remark was designed specifically to distance himself from the likes of Li Peng and Jiang Zemin, in case hyper-projects like the Three Gorges Dam breaks.
If the dam breaks, tens of millions of people will die, and they will die because of Jiang Zemin and
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Your dam prolly won't give many people time to run whereas the nuclear reactor will. It's also easier to take down a reactor than it is to take down millions of litres of water.
:P.
And I bet the New York will still be standing after the reactor goes. New York will need some radiation cleanup but it won't be as bad as all the damage caused by the silt and water
Them's small plants. Most plants make a gigawatt, so it's only equivalent to 18 plants or so. If the generation is confined to one spot, your distribution costs go up, not to mention the massive construction costs already incured. Nukes might have been cheaper than this block headed thing.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I fail to see the beauty of thousands killed annually by flooding and no real plans to power the world's largest country.
You call someone a tourist for appreciating beauty - as if that means they don't appreciate the people or the culture also - which is a TOTAL NON-SEQUITUR.
Then you slight the very Chinese who are to be made homeless by implying they are too stupid to move when since thousands (out of the millions soon to be without homes) are killed by floods annually. Mind-blowing arrogance buddy.
Not trying to flame here, but I am sickened by you omniscient types. Is homeless just a word for you? I suggest you volunteer at a shelter and then think about millions of people being forcibly made homeless and then think about where alternating current falls on your list of things that are really important in life.
BUT, it is going to generate *18.2 MILLION kilowatts* of power, indefinitely
"Indefinitely" is about right: nobody knows how long this dam is going to last. What we do know is that it is not going to last forever--probably less than a century.
Of course no other countries I can think of have built massive, environmentally questionable (*cough* Hoover *cough*) dams, have they?
Well, we wouldn't repeat that mistake. Why shouldn't the Chinese learn from our mistakes?
there is a different between "critisize a dam because it was built for the wrong reasons" and "critisizing a dam because it was built shitty." I agree that they probably could have done a better job at building it and really wish the corruption isn't so bad in china, but I do not question that the intention to build it in the first place was a good one. the costs (especially environmental and archeological) is very heavy, nonetheless i think the benefits outweight them.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
All bets are off in a land where people take bribes to do things wrong. If they are having trouble making this big rock, they might not make such good nuke either.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Hmmmm death by drowning or death by radiation? Tough choices indeed!
The fuel elements ruptured and the resultant explosive force of steam lifted off the cover plate of the reactor, releasing fission products to the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames."
If I read my sources then the Chernobyl accident was the worst in the history of nuclear power, in fact it KILLED 10 TIMES the previos record holder of 3 deaths. Yes, 30 people died at the site. Another 10 have found to have thyroid cancer and have died. "An authoritative UN report in 2000 confirmed that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed"
AND - if could of been avoided completely.
Not the biggest deal in the world... but since the conversation was here I thought I'd stick my nose in. Looks like for acciendent related deaths, Nukes are pretty damn safe, thus far anyway.
Tell you what, save a few lives and a ton of cash. Don't bother building your damn on one coast and your nuke plant on the other - next time both of you meet in the middle (Colorado) - I'll buy you both a beer.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
"Welcome to the World Nuclear Association, representing the many companies and organizations of the global nuclear energy industry."
*Homer Simpson voice*: Mmmmm.... balanced sources.
Read Pynchon.
"but what are they supposed to do?" Ummm... they are suppose to be the undevelope, backward, third world bad guy that we could bash everyday. =) Any deviation from the above description could pose a threat to our freedom and superioirty!
...then the tidal wave will still be 7 meters high in Shanghai.
Read this during a tour of the Three Gorges. Can you count the millions that would die?
It wasn't really a single dam that harmed things but more a series of minor errors in agriculture and water management poliicy that ended up becoming a major one. It is a slow disaster, but the end result is major with an entire region being rendered uninhabitable.
The 3 Gorges project is different. Here is a single trigger which will have many downstream effects. At the same time, helping China solve its energy problem is a major 'good', helping peace and stability in the area.
See my journal, I write things there
global warming (yes it does exist, America)
As I post, it is 41 degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago. In June. 41 DEGREES IN FREAKING JUNE! Yes, this just reeks of global warming, doesn't it?
Yeah... like depleted uranium... it kills the enemy AND poisons your own troops :)
Oh yeah, try to tell Californians about that ...:)
Alright, we're talking about a body of watter over three hundred miles long, with sharp escarpments and deep water. I wonder how the shoddy construction will hold up when a landslide tsunami comes bearing down on it from 300 miles away?
Or maybe on of those tabetan terrirorists will decided that it makes a groovy target?
Damn!
home
So what if 50% of the nation plows with oxen and washes clothes by hand? With appropriate and judicious distribution of resources, with effective management, with proper education, I daresay that people will live longer and more happily in such a nation.
Gosh that sounds like....Communism. Sure worked great for the first 35 years of new China. Only 30 million dead, what's that all in the name of "judicious distribution of resources"?
how about separate smaller dams?
:
one recent stuy demonstrates that smaller dams would
produce the same power
cost less to construct
have a lower catasrohpy possibility
The Chinese government chose the most audacious engineering project as a signal to the towlr, not as the best power choice at the time
If power-generation is so bad, why do we live alot longer these days than we did before? Would you rather live 1000 years in the past? At least you wouldn't have to suffer from that oh-so awful power-generation! But then again, your expected life-span would be something like 40 years or so.
Industry and power-generation might generate pollution, but the progress in medical science has more than compensated for that.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
If I built both then I could always use the dam to take out the reactor if it went critical :P.
Yeah, the river was beautiful and there were lots of neat archeological thingies on the banks, but if I had this river that flooded high enough to kill thousands and thousands of people just about every second year, I'd be thinking about putting an end to it, too. Power is somewhat of a side benefit.
The other thing to remember is that this puts a few tens of million people at risk. A dam this size is a strategic nightmare and can't be defended in time of war. Take a look at the map, if somebody bombs that sucker, there are a couple of major cities that are going to go bye-bye.
Hey, I was in Chungking house at school :-) the others were Peiping (Beijing), Namking and Sian (Xian).
...isn't what you get out of writing in capitals. it just makes you look dumb. really.
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
BUT, it is going to generate *18.2 MILLION kilowatts* of power, indefinitely, with no ongoing pollution.
Assuming it doesn't silt up horribly (and it will, the silt levels in these rivers are something to behold). Assuming that all the raw sewage and industrial pollutants flowing into it don't accumulate to such horrific levels that they scorch a sterile streak from the damn to the sea. Assuming the engineering holds in the face of earthquakes, despite the vast number of corners that appear to have been cut in its construction.
Meanwhile all your displaced peasants to what for a living exactly in their concrete apartment blocks on higher ground...?
Someone needs to update that saying to something more realistic.
according to an article from SMH the dam is filling but is cracking. Thats a bit of a worry. THey tried fixing them but failed. Nice. These dams are a real worry.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Ugh good one, you just got slashdot banned in China.
precisely why we didn't fight the stupid war with iraq, right? because there were dissedents to the damn thing? or, erm, the vietnam war? or maybe anything that ever had anything to do with Native Americans? etc?
man... and US people complains of being called hypocrites...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Where did you get that?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... the number of beowulf clusters you could power with one of these!
Use solar power for heating.
In the countryside producing gas from animal (and human) manure.
Using low consumption electrical appliances.
Damns are discredited, at least in the scale of this monstruosity. Small damns could be a solution. This has pharaonic or dynastic ambitions, not the people's interests at heart (i.e. the COmmunist aparatchik trying to show something to the people to convince them that they are doing something for them)....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Chongqing, by the way, has a current population of over 32 million, as a result of the relocation and industry surrounding the Three Gorges project...and yes, it is connected to the rest of the world. For now, one of the major local industries is the manufacture of shoes.
Shanghai is for the world....Beijing is for China....Chongqing is for the future.
I'd like to applaud your point of view...nicely stated...you're to be commended, seriously. Thanks!
Can I ask how you came about your opinion...do you or have you lived in China, perhaps?
As I understand it the majority of Hydroelectric dams are considered to be very damaging to the environment (not so much as coal/gas/nuclear plants, but still bad).
So here's my question, if every rooftop in China were covered by Solar Panels, (a) how much energy would this create and (b) would it cost as much? (or as much per MegaWatt of electricity?)
most of the US supported the war, and it was the american public that got us out of vietnam.
why do we live alot longer these days than we did before?
Less labor, better medicine, and better hygiene.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
Well, losing historic sites and losing postcard-perfect landscapes are tragic, but China's in great need of this too. I was in that area a couple months ago and saw the poverty and the tremendously high levels of pollution around the cities. What is your alternative for them? Developed countries got where they are with no thought for the environment and now tell developing countries they shouldn't do the same. If you want to impose those kinds of restrictions on people you're going to have to help them economically to compensate.
I understand that the Aswan Dam in Egypt has also caused some serious problems for that country. By putting a stop to the annual cycle of Nile flooding (which I'm sure you recall the importance of from your grammar school history classes) it has had a deleterious effect on farming in that country.
Add a little acid if it gets too high.
I cannot believe that this elitist bunch of crap got modded up.
"As for electricity, many Chinese did fine without it for most of history"
You want to make comments like that, you shouldn't make them on an electonic device asshole.
It's ok to condemn 10-12 percent of the worlds poplulation to living in the dark, but it's ok for you to have electricity to power you computer?
Everybody here is talking about the environment, the cultural losses, and the sociological changes.
WHAT ABOUT THE POOR BASTARDS WHO LIVE BELOW THE DAMN????
The Yangtze regularly floods in the south killing thousands each year.
So what if a million people above the damn have to move? They had ten years notice to move - a one time move; the floods give a couple days notice before they come - every year.
If the people downstream are so troubled by flooding, why is it the people UP-STREAM that are forced to move and get their land flooded into a resivoir? Why don't the people that are so sick of flooding just stop living by the damn river! Why make the people that aren't affected by floods pay?
I don't think that means what you think it means.
Sadly, many westerners like our above poster come off as so elitist they can easily be mistaken for racists.
Except it wouldn't be a mistake. Lefties don't like it when those not in their clique work and surpass them. Especially if they are non-white.
That's why the eurotrash opposed the war in Iraq. They know that with Saddam & his sons out of the way, in 30 years Iraq will have a higher standard of living than every country in Europe.
No, I've never been to China, although I have been to Singapore and Thailand. I do however live in the neighbourhood (Australia), and unlike most Australians I try to take an interest in regional affairs.
I came to my opinion because I believe it is intensely hypocritical of us to develop our own industries at the expense of the planet and then turn around and criticise other nations for doing the same. We should help them to develop clean energy - a dam is not ideal, but it is better IMHO than actively polluting solutions.
Read Pynchon.
Some theorize that the weight of the water might actually be able to trigger quakes - which is even more troubling around a dam
Oh, sorry, phone up the UN and tell them the crisis is over then. Also, you might want to tell the people in Venice, they seem to have some crazy idea that the sea is rising. While you're at it, please turn up the thermostat to increase your usage of that non-polluting, non-global warming fossil fuel I've been hearing about.
Read Pynchon.
Is it not possible that we might live even longer if we didn't use pollution causing power sources?
I visited Los Angeles... that is not a healthy atmosphere to live in (in several senses).
Read Pynchon.
It was one of the coldest winters I can remeber last year in the north east. We frequently saw temps below -5f(ambient). -15f one morning. Add in the windchill to that and it is close to unbearable.
"A properly built society will benefit from the individuals achievement. You think this is possible when 1/2 of your population lives in a fucking rice paddy?"
You know, this is funny. I've worked most of my life on a farm (since I was 8). I live in a poor area with a depressed economy. 80%+ of the students at my old high school (myself included) came from families that qualified for welfare and foodstamps, but the majority refuse out of pride (part of the culture, as the people here are mostly descendants of Asian immigrants).
I worked my ass off, and now I am the first person to graduate from my high school ever to go to Harvard. And you know what? Sometimes I wonder if it was all fucking worth it.
I saw rich dumbasses rallying and picketing because they thought that the janitors needed a "living wage". They make more than my father, who has been working at his job for > 15 years, and we live in an area with a higher cost of living than Cambridge (I've never wanted for food, shelter, or clothing, and it never crossed my mind that I was deprived until I was told so). Hell, even the janitors themselves didn't want to strike at first (they get medical, opportunities to take subsidized night classes at the university, already make nearly twice the minimum wage, etc).
I saw people gathering in front of the science center, handing out flyers accusing the university of racism with respect to its faculty appointments--and then advocating appointments based on race alone. These are the same people who picketed the Abercrombie and Fitch in the square when it was revealed that a racially charged shirt design had been previously proposed and rejected.
You know what I've realized since then? These people, the cream of the crop of the USA and many other countries, didn't want to help make everyone happier. They wanted to make everyone think like them. Be like them.
They've worked so hard, generations upon generations, striving for money, power, success. They've sacrificed so much that the thought that happiness can be had by other means is terrifying.
I've been on both ends of the spectrum, and I've learned that sitting in the field, pulling weeds, I've just as much of a chance at real happiness as a high-paid CEO.
The British bombed German dams during World War II...
Could a conventional explosive (truck bomb? boat bomb?) damage this dam, or would it take nonconventional weapons, in which case we're probably all screwed anyway? (Actually, I can't think offhand of a sccenario where somebody is bombing central China where things haven't gone to heck anyway, but...)
I though this article was about three very attractive women.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
modern slow spinning (ie quiet, taboot) wind turbines kill less birds than big orange bridges and flag-poles do, and splat orders of magnitude less birds than cars.
(raptors munching on road-kill & don't get out of the way fast enough; which attracts more birds to eat the more road-kill, et cetera)
stop spreading wind farm FUD, it doesn't help humanity (ie you) any.
see:
http://www.homepower.com/files/birds.pdf
That article gets a little wishy-washy towards the end, which detracts from it, but it is otherwise quite good.
If you made a dam in Oklahoma say, you could power texas, arkansas, kansas, missouri, and perhaps even some states as far as colorado, with basically no problems at all. In case you haven't been to oklahoma, its full of rivers AND LOTS AND LOTS of open land where this sort of project would be VERY viable.
Oklahoma is too damned flat to be viable for a superlake with a hydrodam. And Texas's large metro cities alone consume far more electricity than such a dam could ever produce. Hoover dam does NOT *power* 3 states. It's power is distributed to 3 states alright (due to geographic position), but is a tiny fraction of the total consumed power for those states.
His grammar stinks, though!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
... and you'll keep him warm for one night. Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
18.2 Gigawatts a year? you could go back to 1955 15 times!
Spyder
You know, if it breaks it'll be a major moral defeat for the communist China. It will also happen to kill millions of current and potential soldiers that we might have to fight some day.
Ok, fine, straight to hell I go...
Whenever I read crap like this, I think it would be nice if the INS had a policy where people who spout this crap would be made to change places with some peasant in a third world country.
The third world country gets a citizen who claims to enjoy living in poverty, and the US gets a productive, happy citizen who's happy as hell to be here. And they wouldn't even have to risk dying from heat stroke in some semi trailer to get here. Everyone comes out ahead.
Modern medicine hasn't really extended your life at all (to any large degree, much less 40+ years ), rather they have decreased the infant mortality rate (so that most infants survive, increasing the 'expected life-span')
http://students.washington.edu/djwatson
... a weapon of mass destruction.
It seems the Iraqi Infomation Minister decided to post AC.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
Why do you HATE CHINA?!!
I LOVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING!! it reminds me of the good old days when people still believed in things. before totalitarian communism and capitalism between them destroyed our dreams.
> December 17, 1997
>
> CERTIFIED MAIL
>
> Mr. Ryan DeVries
> 2088 Dagget
> Pierson. MI 49339
>
> SUBJECT: deq File No. 97-59-0023-1 T11N, R10W, Sec. 20, Montcalm County
>
> It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above
> referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
> Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet
> stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of
> this type of activity. A review of the Department's files show that no
> permits have been issued.
>
> Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in
> violation of Part 301,. Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural
> Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of
> 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled
> Laws annotated. The Department has been informed that one or both of the
> dams partially, failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and
> flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are
> inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore
> orders you to cease and desist all unauthorized activities at this
> location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing
> all wood and brush forming the dams from the strewn channel. All
> restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 1998.
>
> Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so
> that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure
> to comply with this request, or any further unauthorized activity on the
> site, may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement
> action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this
> matter.
>
> Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> David L. Price
> District Representative Land and Water Management Division
>
>
> ----Reply Letter----
>
> Dear Mr. Price:
>
> Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N, R10W, Sec 20; Montcalm County
>
> Your certified letter dated 12/17/97 has been handed to me to respond
> to. You sent out a great deal of carbon copies to a lot of people, but
> you neglected to include their addresses. You will, therefore, have to
> send them a copy of my response.
>
> First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal landowner and/or
> contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan - I am the legal owner and
> a couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of
> constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet
> stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, nor authorize their
> dam project, I think they would be highly offended you call their
> skillful use of natural building materials "debris."
>
> I would like to challenge you to attempt to emulate their dam project
> any dam time and/or any dam place you choose. I believe I can safely
> state there is no dam way you could ever match their dam skills, their
> dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their
> dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
>
>
> As to your dam request the beavers first must fill out a dam permit
> prior to the start of this type of dam activity, my first dam question
> to you is: are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers
> or do you require all dam beavers throughout this State to conform to
> said dam request? If you are not discriminating
You know, if China didn't have such a ridiculous government, and if it was easier to travel there, they might have a much more lucrative tourist industry. I would like to have seen the 3 gorges, but do you have any idea how risky and expensive it is to travel there? Or how little encouragement there is for travelling to a communist country?
They aren't being made homeless. It's a communist country. The government has built new, preplanned communities for the people to be relocated to at higher elevations.
The houses are a bit spartan, but in most cases provide better shelter than what they lived in before.
The people are being uprooted, and are losing a lot fo things of emotional improtants, but they won't be homeless.
Advice from a /.er in Edmonton:
Bundle up. -15 deg F is what, like -26 C? Put on something windproof and you can easily deal with -40, unless you have to work outside.
My two cents. 1. People need to live. 2. Only live people gives a damn about environment. With current power outage, people need the electricity to survive. THUS Screw the Western Press. People's lives are more important than losing a couple historic sites. Thus, thumbs up to the development.
i guess czar bennett was right, CRACK is dangerous... hmmm.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx
I'm not particularly angry at anyone.
Most the people here think it would be really cool to have worked on the greatest hydroelectric plant on the planet.
What I, and it seems some of them, take issue with, is shoddy craftsmanship. The idea is that if you're going to build something you build it right, the first time.
In modern society, that requires massive amounts of research (simulation), analysis, and proper funding and materials.
If anyone remembers the High Answan Dam in Egypt, it had the same premise. "Build the biggest best hydroelectric dam in the world." It now works at less than 25% of the power level it was designed for because the engineers didn't take into account the type of stone they were building the dam on. The stone was porous and THAD never fills up to full capacity because the engineers didn't think it through...the water just seeps away
Reports of Shoddy craftsmanship or poor planning should never be swept under the rug, especially when human life is at stake.
This project had the potential for being a masterpiece of engineering, but the corruption of the Chinese government and the workers on this project are probably going to see it go the way of the High Answan Dam, a failure.
So, there you go, a little enlightenment from "a racist, extorting, Imperialist American". Maybe you should be one too!
Huge Dam...
Shabby construction...
Cracks forming...
Thrifty spending on building materials...
Sideshow Bob...
Bart...
(must focus mind...resist urge...)
One of my coworkers came from a small town near Chernobyl. He died last year from complications brought about by radiation exposure from the meltdown. Nuclear power requires that the people using it be responsible and treat it with proper respect and fear. That didn't happen in Chernobyl, and a lot of good people died because of it.
The dam will ultimately be able to crank out 18,200 megawatts of energy a year, the equivalent of 26 nuclear power plants or 10 big coal-fired power stations burning 50 million tons of coal.
Think of all the Beowulf clusters that could be powered!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
> what they have is a GIGANTIC
> WATER-BASED TIME BOMB.
Or a GIGANTIC TIME-BASED WATER BOMB....
According to one Discovery channel special many of the communities that have been there for thousands of years are in those particular locations because none of the areas anywhere nearby are suitable, even if the government helps build the houses. The land can't support the population.
Not that I have any knowledge about it, or, frankly, care. There are a billion people over there, and I'm sure they can handle their own problems without the input of random slashdotters.
> Actually it was not the aviation fuel that caused the collapse, it was the truss design.
a gar-0112.html, for example, discusses how the heat of the fire not only removed approximately 50% of the steel's strength, but the strong temperature gradient caused asymmetric thermal expansion that led to buckling.
Not according to experts. http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/E
Moreover, the report notes that the WTC was by no means defectively designed - nobody had ever considered a 90,000L jet fuel attack before.
Despite your claims, fireproofing would probably not have made a difference - the problem was the heat transferred to the steel, not burning of the support structure. Additionally, your claim that the trusses melted appears to be completely unfounded - this report estimates the maximum temperature reached by the fire at approximately half the melting point of steel.
> A fire that acted exactly like a controlled demolition.
/ Ea gar-0112.html, among other places, has a good explanation of why the towers collapsed in the manner they did.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar
The short form is that the supports of each floor could not withstand the impact of the floors above them dropping, and so the collapse of each tower took only 2 seconds longer than freefall. At that speed, there was no time for the towers to do anything other than fall straight down.
Three gorges?! oMg! n00bs!!!oneoneone11.. *cough* oh right. Not that kind of gorge :)
Subject says it all guy hit it on the head rather solidly.
I've been tarred and feathered as a Commie. Anybody who knows me would laugh at this. I have much more to say, so I think I may take the unusual step of writing about this in my /. journal. Maybe in the next few days. TTFN.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I have followed the thread with interest.
6 48 63-2003Jun1.html
Is the answer we simply do not know if the 'benefit' will prove worth the price ?
John Pomfret wrote an excellent piece in Monday's (2nd June) Washington Post (Page A11) under the heading 'Monumental Gamble'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A
A well balanced article finishes with a throw away final paragraph which is (imho) significant.
(Quote)
Already the water's rise has prompted unexpected consequences. Millions of water rats have scampered up the banks, seeking succor in the new towns. That has sparked a mass campaign to kill them, and their carcasses, laden with poison, will now roll back into the reservoir.
(End Quote)
I believe this was actually a forseeable consequence not evaluated if considered at all
What other truly unexpected consequences will time expose?
Monumental tampering with nature might produce equivelent benefit without a higher price than that already paid.
I hope so
From what I have seen remain unconvinced.
I accept an Englishman has no right to pontificate, the river will have the final say.