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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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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 :)
From:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=st
Now I have to go pee.
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.
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
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.
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.
Maybe he is making stuff up, maybe not.
Back when the Hoover Dam was built over-engineering was considered the best way of building, well almost anything.
You have to consider that it is the computer that has helped us under-engineer stuff.
When the Hoover dam was built you had little choice. If you tried to use the correct amount of concrete on the correct scale you might have gotten it wrong.
If you multiplied that number by a factor of 10 (consider the poster did say 1800 years, 180 years is 1/10th that) then you know that even if you did make a mistake somewhere you still wouldn't have a problem.
Look at the difference between old time skyscrapers (Empire State) and new ones (not a completley fair comparison, but the World Trade Center).
The Empire State building has taken at least 2 plane hits during its lifespan.
Once during WWII with a twin engine bomber.
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.
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.
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
...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.
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.
I've read not too encouraging things about the construction of the dam. Guess I would much rather be one of the people displaced upstream of the thing than live downstream after the water fills in the reservoir. I also read that the weight of the water will likely cause earthquakes. One H*** of an experiment they are running...
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Once during WWII with a twin engine bomber.
That's an unfair comparison (and a little more than "not a completley fair"). The WWII bomber is smaller than a 757, would have been moving at a slower speed, and wouldn't have been carrying as much fuel. Don't forget, it was the fire that caused it to collapse.
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"?
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).
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..."
10,000? Buddy if this things goes at full capacity, it would be more like 1,000,000.
>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.
On the contrary, that idea is generally a myth.
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.
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 !
What do you think?
As if I fucking care what someone who wants to contribute on the basis of a two sentence synopsis of the 3G project thinks.
I fail to see how I am a troll.
OOOHHHHH I disagree with the animal rights movement. Gotcha. Better sensor my ideas. Wouldn't want any impressionable kids to see my line of reasoning.
Next thing you know they will be conservatives, and we couldn't deal with that.
I have a question for you people that think I am a troll.
Since we have instituted the Endangered Species List what percentage of the species we have put on that list have been taken off that list as being 'No longer in danger of extinction'.
Back up your claim.
See the system is broken. I know you find the idea offensive that somehow my life is worth more then say a bunny rabbit, or a turtle, or possibly the SARS virus. I know the mere thought of Capitalism is offensive.
Speaking of that.
Has anyone else taken notice to how this whole 'Green' thing is really bent around 'anti-capitilism'?
Look at the yearly G-8 fiascos.
Since when is rioting and looting gas stations doing anything to help the environment, or poor people.
From where I sit if you think I am a troll then you look like a troll to me.
Speaking of that, am I alone out of getting more satisfaction out of modding people up then modding trolls?
I let other people modd trolls, I mod people interesting and informative. I like rewarding.
Oh, there is that conservative liberal thing again. Sorry about that.
Now back to our regularly scheduled ranting.
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"?