China acknowledges Three Gorges dam 'problems' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

China has admitted that the Three Gorges Dam has created a range of major problems that need solving quickly.

Top leaders say the project has led to environmental problems and issues involving relocating 1.3m people.

The Three Gorges is the world's largest dam and could have cost up to $40bn. This appears to be the first time that central government leaders have admitted to problems with the project.

The admission came in a statement from top government body, the State Council.
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In this latest statement, the State Council said it knew about some of the problems even before work started 17 years ago.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13451528 (not much detail)

[liberal N proud]

1. Someone didn't copy the western design properly

[NewJeffCT]

2. This is what started the zombie apocalypse in "World War Z"

if I recall...

[FBaggins]

3. $40 Billion?

I can't think of a cheaper way to produce 20+ GW of electricity (give or take) reliably for the next century or more.

[GliderGuider]

5. A lot depends on how much the remediation is going to cost.

$40 billion was just the original capital cost. There's a lot more yet to be spent on that fiasco.

ETA: For instance, if they were to spend a couple of billion a year on remediation for the next fifty years it might not seem like quite such a screaming deal. Add in an "environmental catastrophe" on top of that, and my enthusiasm wanes dramatically.

[FBaggins]

6. I don't think that was just capital costs.

The earlier estimates ($25Billion?) already included almost half that amount for the relocation of something like one and a half million people.

The question is what remediation they agree is necessary. You or I might have a very different standard than a nation that puts millions of her citizens into unsafe coal mines and puts up with the incredible amounts of polution that results.

[qb]

4. At least it can generate electricity without irradiating the rest of the world.

:nuke:

[FBaggins]

7. What would the results be if it collapsed in a massive quake 10-15 years from now?

How many would die?

Hint - They've already had one dam-failure event that killed almost 200,000 people.

[Terry in Austin]

8. When I first read about the Three Gorges project

I immediately thought "ain't too many ways THAT could go right!"

It'll still have to go a ways to top the sheer ironic folly of the Aswan Dam: turned out that most of the electricity generated went to manufacturing the fertilizer they had to produce in order to replace the natural fertilization of the annual Nile flooding that the dam pretty much prevented.