Energy News  
China reaches milestone with completion of Three Gorges dam

The Three Gorges Dam in China
by Peter Harmsen
Beijing (AFP) May 20, 2006
After 13 years of immense physical effort and technical ingenuity, China Saturday put the finishing touches to its controversial Three Gorges dam, the world's largest hydropower project.

The official completion of the dam was marked by a short ceremony at the site broadcast live on state television, which touted it as an "important historic moment".

"I can announce to the Chinese people ... that the Three Gorges dam is completed," Li Yong'an, manager of the Three Gorges Construction Company, said shortly after the last load of cement was poured onto the top of the dam.

The 2,309-meter-long (7620-feet), 185-meter-high block of concrete across the Yangtze river is meant to control floods and generate electricity for a power-hungry nation, but for many Chinese it is about much more than that.

"The Three Gorges dam is excellent proof of what Chinese can accomplish," said Cao Guangjing, vice president of the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Co. "This project will serve to inspire the Chinese people."

Although the final tonne of concrete has been poured, the immense structure will still not be fully operational for another two years.

The last generators need to be installed, and work still needs to be done on the ship lift that, together with a ship lock, will allow ocean-going vessels to navigate the vast reservoir that is filling up behind the dam.

Although it is not all over yet, many of the engineers felt it as if a page had been turned and a chapter in their personal lives was nearing conclusion.

"I started in 1993, fresh from university, and I have been here ever since," said engineer Wang Zilin, 43, from eastern Zhejiang province. "It's been my whole life. I even found my wife here."

Even while work was being carried out on the dam, engineers and laborers were reminded that flood control was one of the main reasons behind the giant project.

In 1998, a devastating flood on the Yangtze uprooted millions of families and killed more than 1,500 people. Two much larger disasters in the 1930s each claimed more than 140,000 lives.

Nevertheless, critics continue to argue that silt build-up and other problems mean the dam will fail to provide the hoped-for flood relief.

Opponents also see damage to the environment, ruin to China's heritage and misery to local residents forced from their homes for the project.

However, harnessing the power of China's mightiest rivers is a dream harbored by generations of Chinese.

In the early 20th century, Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, waxed lyrical about creating electricity that would be the equivalent of the strength of hundreds of millions of men.

Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, wrote a poem hailing a dam that would some time in the future "strike the goddess of the Three Gorges with the miracles of the modern world".

It is no longer just the stuff of poetry. On the left bank, 14 sets of 700-megawatt turbine and generator units are already in operation.

On the right bank, another 12 700-megawatt units are under construction.

With a capacity already equivalent to Itaipu on the border of Brazil and Paraguay, currently the world's largest operating hydro-electric dam, the Three Gorges will eventually overshadow all others.

A new tender process is due to be held by the end of the year for adding a new power station with another six 700-megawatt generators, underground on the right bank.

The dam will then become "the biggest in the world," according to the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Corporation.

One final benefit touted for the project is that it will elevate the Yangtze for hundreds of kilometers (miles) inland, allowing ocean-going vessels to travel as far as the enormous but little known metropolis of Chongqing.

This will, planners hope, help open up China's underdeveloped west, which has in many ways missed out on economic reforms largely because of its isolation from overseas markets.

To ease upstream navigation, a ship lift will enable vessels of up to 3,000 tonnes to pass the dam in 45 minutes, while a ship lock will do the same to 10,000-tonne vessels in two hours and 45 minutes.

With work on the dam complete, thousands of migrant workers will go home, many of them to Yunnan province near the border with Vietnam, and to Qinghai province near the Tibetan plateau.

But Wang the engineer was confident the dam's completion would not leave him unemployed.

"Every project takes at least 10 years, so I'll have more than enough work until I retire," he said. "I've been lucky to work with something that I really love."

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


New Laser Technique That Strips Hydrogen From Silicon Surfaces
Twin Cities MN (SPX) May 19, 2006
A team of researchers have achieved a long-sought scientific goal: using laser light to break specific molecular bonds. The process uses laser light, instead of heat, to strip hydrogen atoms from silicon surfaces, a key step in the manufacture of computer chips and solar cells.







  • China reaches milestone with completion of Three Gorges dam
  • Scientists say they have cleared technical hurdle in fusion research
  • Critics say price of China's Three Gorges dam too high
  • New Laser Technique That Strips Hydrogen From Silicon Surfaces

  • Sevmash Wins Tender For Floating Nuclear Reactor
  • Canada, Australia seek to protect uranium exports
  • Europe's new-generation nuclear plant vulnerable to 9/11 attacks: expert
  • Russia offers to build Turkey's first nuclear plants

  • In The Baltics Spring And Smoke Is In The Air
  • UNH And NASA Unlock The Puzzle Of Global Air Quality
  • Project Achieves Milestone In Analyzing Pollutants Dimming The Atmosphere
  • The 'Oxygen Imperative'

  • Smithsonian Helps To Plan For Panama's Coiba National Park
  • Scientific Group Endorses Radical Plan To Save Rainforests
  • Himalayan Forests Disappearing
  • Global Pulp Mill Growth Threatens Forests, May Collapse

  • Who Really Buys Organic
  • Alternatives To The Use Of Nitrate As A Fertiliser
  • Researchers Trawl The Origins Of Sea Fishing In Northern Europe
  • Greens Happy As EU Tightens GMO Testing

  • Activists Press Ford On Environmental Policies
  • Prototype For Revolutionary One-Metre Wide Vehicle Is Developed
  • Highly Realistic Driving Simulator Helps Develop Safer Cars
  • Research On The Road To Intelligent Cars

  • British Aerospace Production Up Strongly In First Quarter
  • Face Of Outdoor Advertising Changes With New Airship Design
  • NASA Denies Talks With Japan On Supersonic Jet
  • Test Pilot Crossfield Killed In Private Plane Crash

  • Could NASA Get To Pluto Faster? Space Expert Says Yes - By Thinking Nuclear
  • NASA plans to send new robot to Jupiter
  • Los Alamos Hopes To Lead New Era Of Nuclear Space Tranportion With Jovian Mission
  • Boeing Selects Leader for Nuclear Space Systems Program

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement