China’s electrical energy use over the past 30 years is a hockey-stick curve, climbing steeply because the nation industrialized, constructed dozens of mega-cities, and have become the world’s manufacturing middle. Although China’s financial system has slowed lately, electrical energy demand is simply climbing. Given the nation has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, they’re going to wish rather more renewable energy than they presently have.
To assist them obtain that objective, the federal government lately introduced plans to construct the largest hydropower dam on this planet.
Medog Hydropower Station, as it will likely be known as, will blow different hydropower dams out of the water (pun supposed), with an estimated annual era capability triple that of the world’s largest current dam (which, maybe unsurprisingly, can be in China). The 60-gigawatt undertaking will be capable of generate as much as 300,000 gigawatt-hours (or 300 terawatt-hours) of electrical energy per 12 months. That’s equal to Greece’s annual vitality consumption.
The dam might be constructed on a river in Tibet known as the Yarlung Tsangpo, with building carried out by the government-owned Energy Development Company of China. It won’t solely be considered one of China’s greatest infrastructure initiatives ever, it will likely be probably the most costly infrastructure initiatives ever, with an estimated price of a trillion yuan or $136 billion (sure, billion with a “b”).
Maybe unsurprisingly, China is already dwelling to the world’s largest current hydropower dam: Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River stands 594 ft tall (Arizona’s Hoover Dam is taller, however Three Gorges is wider) and has a producing capability of 22.5 gigawatts. By comparability, the largest hydropower dam within the US is the Grand Coulee in Washington state, and it has a producing capability of 6.8 gigawatts. China is the world chief in hydropower deployment, accounting for virtually a 3rd of world hydropower capability. Lots of these dams are on the Yangtze (a few of them constructed by robots!) and a few are on the identical river the place the Medog undertaking might be constructed.
The Yarlung Tsangpo river begins in western Tibet, flowing east after which south, the place it merges with India’s Brahmaputra then flows south by Bangladesh and into the Bay of Bengal. It’s the highest river on this planet, and a 31-mile (50-kilometer) part within the South Tibet Valley drops by a pointy 6,561 ft (2,000 meters); there’s a great deal of untapped potential for all that transferring water to show some generators on its means down.
However the undertaking shouldn’t be with out its challenges, each engineering and political.
Environmental teams say the dam will disrupt ecosystems on the biodiverse Tibetan Plateau. Tibetan rights teams see the undertaking as a major instance of China exploiting Tibet’s pure sources whereas harming native communities. The dam’s building would require folks to be relocated, although possible not as many as Three Gorges, which uprooted and moved 1.4 million folks. The Medog dam might be greater, however it’s in a extra sparsely populated space.
India and Bangladesh have each expressed considerations concerning the dam, because it may alter the move of the river downstream the place it runs by these international locations. There are additionally considerations concerning the space’s geological stability, because it sits on the convergence of the Indian and Eurasian continental plates and is taken into account tectonically lively. An earthquake may destroy the dam and trigger catastrophic flooding. Actually, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake killed 126 folks and broken 4 reservoirs simply final week.
Nevertheless, Medog gained’t be a standard dam within the type of one big wall constructed to carry water behind it, like Three Gorges or the Hoover Dam. As an alternative, 4 12.4-mile (20-kilometer) tunnels might be blasted and excavated by a mountain known as Namcha Barwa to divert the river. The water flowing by these tunnels will flip generators hooked up to turbines earlier than working again into the Yarlung Tsangpo.
The Chinese language authorities says the Medog undertaking will assist it obtain the nation’s carbon neutrality objectives. In 2023, coal was nonetheless China’s foremost supply of electrical energy era by a protracted shot, supplying 61 p.c of the nation’s electrical energy. Hydropower was a distant second at 13 p.c, adopted by wind, photo voltaic, nuclear, and fuel, in that order.
Development is slated to start out in 2029, and if all goes as deliberate—which might be spectacular for a undertaking of this scale—it is going to take 4 years to finish, with the dam starting business operation in 2033.
