With four more new gigantic hydro plants coming up, the Yangtze River in China will be choked with power plants. Thousands of residents will be dislocated and the environment threatened as a result of building the new plants.
On June 19, the China Three Gorges Corporation held a press conference in Beijing, to announce the speedy construction of four giant hydro power plants upstream of the Yangtze River. The planned capacity of the four plants is nearly 43 gigawatts, which is twice the capacity of the Three Gorges Project. The annual electricity production will be around 190,000 gigawatt-hours.
The 2,308 km (1,434 miles) long Jinsha River is the upper stream of the Yangtze River; it starts from the Batang River in Yushu Prefecture in Qinghai and ends with the Min River in Yibin City in Sichuan Province. After flowing through northern Yunnan Province and passing through Yibin, it is then officially called the Yangtze River.
The flow of Jingsha River is abundant and stable with a wide waterfall. It is well known for its rich hydro resources. Its total hydro power potential reaches 112.4 gigwatts, which account for 16.7 percent of hydro potential in China; the actual harvestable hydro-capacity is around 90 gigawatts.
In 2002, the Chinese state officially gave the Three Gorges Corporation the right to develop the lower portion of the Jinsha River by constructing fours giant hydro power dams: Wudongde, Baihetan, Xiluodu, and Xiangjiaba.
Among them, construction of the Xiluodu Dam started in 2005 and will be ready for operation in 2013. The total installed capacity is at 13.86 gigawatts, which is the second largest in China, third largest in the world. Xiangjiaba Dam construction started in 2006 and plans to go into operation in 2012 with a capacity of 6.4 gigawatts. Wudongde Dam and Baihetan Dam are part of the second phase of this cascading development.
The large hydro stations are required to be separated by a distance of at least 100 km (62 miles). But the provinces located on the riverbanks each clamor to build a plant of their own, causing some hydro plants to be only 50 km (31 miles) apart.
China Central Television (CCTV) revealed in a special program in June 2009 that various state-owned electricity corporations and private investors compete for portions of the river. Just on the lower-stream of the Jinsha River 12 large-scale hydro power stations are planned.
On June 11, 2005, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection reported that, even before getting approval, the two electricity giants Huaneng Corporation and Huadian Corporation started building Huaneng Longkaikou hydro plant and Huadian Ludila hydro plant on the Jinsha River.
There are currently eight large hydro plants planned or under construction up stream of the Jinsha River, including Ludila and Longkaikou hydro stations. These eight plants will have a total capacity of 20.58 gigawatts, require the relocation of 100,000 people and cost 200 billion yuan (US$30.91 billion).
According to a report from sznews.com, Yang Yong, famous Chinese environmentalist and chief scientist of Hengduan Mountains research society said, “the Jinsha River ecosystem is very fragile; the construction of hydro plants will increase the likelihood of landslides.” He pointed out that at least eight of the hydro plants are located in an earthquake fault zone.
Locals Are Forced to Relocate
Pingshan County in Sichuan and Suijiang County in Yunnan are two areas that will be submerged after the Xiangjiaba Dam is constructed. The land and houses of nearly 10,000 farmers will be expropriated, and the entire town will be relocated.
According to a report from hotnewsnet.com on March 31, nearly 10,000 residents went on March 29 to the Suijiang County government to protest against the meager compensation provided for their land and homes. The crowd of protesters blocked all major routes in and out of the county.
On the afternoon of March 29, armed police and a riot squad came to clear the area and the protesters threw bricks to fight back. The fighting resulted in the injury of 30 demonstrators and 21 police and government workers.
A farmer from Suijiang County said that officials offered to compensate each farmer 30,000 yuan (US$4,640) in the form of a locked–in bank deposit with only the monthly interest of 160 yuan (US$27.73) made available. The farmer said, “160 yuan is only good for 12 jin (13.2 pounds) of meat, the cheapest cabbages right now are 2 yuan per jin (1.1 pounds), how do the famers live on that? There’s no provision for children’s education. After some years, no one will know where the actual compensation money went.”
Read the original Chinese article.
