China breaks ground on the world's largest hydroelectric dam
Rights — di Andrea Barolini
Construction has begun on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, raising environmental, social and geopolitical concerns.
China breaks ground on the world's largest hydroelectric dam
Construction has begun on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, raising environmental, social and geopolitical concerns.
China has officially begun construction of an immense hydroelectric power plant. The dam will be built along the Yarlung Tsangpo river, which rises in Tibet and flows eastward along the northern slopes of the Himalayas before reaching India and Bangladesh, where it is known as the Brahmaputra.
The hydroelectric plant will be built at nearly 5,000 metres above sea level
Once completed, the mega-dam will have a capacity of 60 gigawatts: for a point of comparison, Italy's largest hydroelectric plant, the Luigi Einaudi facility in Entracque, Piedmont, barely exceeds 1 gigawatt. The dam will thus be the largest in China, and in the world, surpassing the already colossal Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river.
China begins building world's largest dam, fuelling fears in India bbc.in/4f8OIVu
The construction site was inaugurated in Tibet itself, at nearly 5,000 metres above sea level, in the presence of Chinese Premier Li Qiang. The plant will cost the equivalent of 127 billion dollars. According to Beijing's authorities, the project is a crucial step towards achieving the Asian nation's climate targets https://www.lifegate.it/cina-calo-emissioni-co2. Hydropower is indeed a renewable, low-emission source of electricity generation: once operational, the plant is expected to produce each year as much energy as the whole of Germany. And yet, the immense project is raising serious concerns, even from an environmental standpoint.
"Tens of thousands of people could be forced to leave their lands"
When the scale of infrastructure projects becomes colossal, the implications and risks inevitably multiply. According to Vincent Metten of the non-governmental organisation International Campaign for Tibet, speaking to the French broadcaster France Info, the entire region will be disfigured by the plant: "Potentially, tens of thousands of people could be forced to abandon their lands. All of this to satisfy Beijing's and its companies' thirst for energy," he explained.
The facility – which will in fact consist of a system of five cascade power stations – will be built in a seismic zone, raising concerns about the risks associated with major seismic events. But above all, the Yarlung Tsangpo river is vital to roughly two billion people living downstream. And dams of this kind risk trapping the sediments that are essential for maintaining fertile agricultural land.
Environmental and geopolitical risks, above all for India and Bangladesh
"We are witnessing a frenzy and a scramble for natural resources in Tibet, whether it is lithium, uranium, copper, cobalt, or water as in this case," Metten added. This is why India and Bangladesh have expressed concern over the project, not least because the regions through which the river flows are densely populated in both countries. The geopolitical factors must not be overlooked either: the new dam could allow China, should it wish, to drastically reduce the flow of water in the Brahmaputra.
#China started building a major dam on the #BrahmaputraRiver in southeastern #Tibet near border with #India
The project was approved by #Beijing in December and is being linked to China's carbon neutrality targets and development goals in the Tibet region.
More details 🔗
The project was approved by #Beijing in December and is being linked to China's carbon neutrality targets and development goals in the Tibet region.
More details 🔗
The hydroelectric plant could thus become a tool of geopolitical leverage, and given that Sino-Indian relations have been highly fraught in recent years, the concern expressed by New Delhi is easy to understand. For its part, the Chinese government assures that nothing will be altered and that the dam will have no adverse impacts. The technical specifications of the facility, however, have not been disclosed by Beijing, at least for now.