Burst of New Dams in Southwest China Produces Power and Public Ire

 The China Environment Forum has produced an in-depth look at new dam-building in China, view it here: 

http://tinyurl.com/6kt78yl

 

Here are just the first few paragraphs to give you an idea:

Burst of New Dams in Southwest China Produces Power and Public Ire

Tuesday, 22 March 2011 11:51

By Rachel Beitarie
Circle of Blue

CHENGDU, China—Even in China, where power plants, coal mines, water-transport networks, and other big tools of industrialization are built at astonishing scale and with surprising speed, the hydropower dam construction program in Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, and other southwest provinces has no equal in China, or anywhere else for that matter.

Here in Suijiang County—a remote and mountainous region on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces—the immense scope of the most aggressive dam-building program in history is immediately apparent. Near the county's center, an army of men and equipment is building the Xiangjiaba Dam, a wall of concrete and steel that is 909 meters (2,982 feet) long and 161 meters (528 feet) high.

When completed in 2015, the dam will house eight turbines capable of generating just over 6.4 gigawatts. It will be the fourth-largest hydropower plant in China and one of the 20 largest power plants of any kind in the world, according to industry figures.

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