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Asia: China: Flooding puts Three Gorges Dam on Alert

In China, the Yangtze River is flooding heavily, displacing hundreds of thousands of people in the Sichuan province and putting the controversial Three Gorges Dam project on alert. Flood control is one of the major reasons the dam is being built.

The Three Gorges Dam is a major state-sponsored project in China that has attracted controversy from environmentalists and social scientists in and out of the country. The dam would be the largest structure of it's kind in the world, and bring prestige to Chinese socialism. The project would also displace millions of chinese and thousands of archeological sites and one of the world's natural wonders underwater.

ChinaOnline has a general summary of the project.

China currently does not meet it's own energy needs, and as the Chinese economy continues to grow at tremendous rates, so will the average standard of living and energy needs will explode. China has built much of it's growth on coal-power, and is looking towards cleaner energy projects like this one.

The US Dep of Energy has an overview of Chinese energy.

posted by fullcircle @ 9/08/2004 05:59:00 PM