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223 Comments
- metik, on 06/08/2009, -0/+154Just on honest question.
I knows it is bad for the habitat and the people moved, but will this be offset by the energy made from the dam vs coal? As in, over the life off the dam, will it cause less damage to the environment than conventional coal plants would over the same period? - kamikaze134, on 06/08/2009, -2/+148I visited this dam in 2005, shortly before completion. The scale of this project is incredible; what a feat of engineering! It's really something to see it in person.
I saw several of the flooded villages...they looked like ghost towns. The reservoir was still filling at the time, but even then the water level had risen by 150 metres. I think the final level was ~175 metres.
The tour guide told us that the Chinese government had offered a "generous relocation package" to the residents, and that "everybody is very happy with the arrangements." When I mentioned that I had heard otherwise, the guide gave me a stern look and repeated, "EVERYBODY is very happy."
I guess you can't argue with a Chinese tour guide. - leland1, on 06/08/2009, -6/+118The project raised concerns of seismic stress placed on nearby earthquake fault lines by the weight of the water held behind the dam, and forced the relocation of the millions of common people who had their homes & livelihoods uprooted from the river valley.
See how water is filling the valley by comparing satellite imagery from previous years:
1987, 2000, 2004 (3900x2700):
http://landsat.usgs.gov/images/gallery/77_L.jpg
2008 (1064x1071):
http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/three ...
2009 (direct link to large jpg from this article, 1440x1080):
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecor ... - jotchie, on 06/08/2009, -1/+93So like, how many movies will be made surrounding terrorists trying to blow this up?
- SpeedSteamBoat, on 06/08/2009, -3/+78Good old propaganda.
- mejf2loy, on 06/08/2009, -9/+79Oh China! You and your shenanigans!
- ZeeZee2k, on 06/08/2009, -2/+67Did you get a random cavity search at the airport when you left?
- Auraness, on 06/08/2009, -12/+77Dam, China, you scary.
- IcedKasz, on 06/08/2009, -2/+46Good damn question. I'm also wondering how many people won't have to leave their cities and villages due to flooding, and how many people won't starve due to rats eating the crops and... etc etc.
- inactive, on 06/08/2009, -2/+34If the Dam was a person he'd be named Big McLargeHuge
- OpeyKicksAss, on 06/08/2009, -9/+40DAMN!!
- Railz, on 06/08/2009, -1/+32Three Gorge's Dam is huge. Big huge. Like if you compared it to the dams built in the 30s it'd be about 100,000x the size easily. Hell today it is still roughly 10,000x the capacity of any dam
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001334.html
Its something that can't even compared. What China did is relocate a who cities worth of people and changed an entire ecosystem. - irkalla, on 06/08/2009, -4/+34Actually, it doesn't look so impressive from all the way up there.
- JohnFour, on 06/08/2009, -7/+36If you ran the world we'd all be dead.
I guess articles with massive product recalls where dozens of babies die don't phase you at all. - Nosnam2, on 06/08/2009, -0/+26... but the ISS *is* a satellite.
- sipsyrup, on 06/08/2009, -0/+26I didn't realize it was finished already; I thought it still was under construction. Thank you, internets.
- nicktomyskins, on 06/08/2009, -2/+26EVERYBODY LOOK LIKE ANTS!
- inactive, on 06/08/2009, -0/+22Your ***** me, right PandaBear. The reason China is eporting tainted goods is because we're buying them? That's your argument?
Swivelstick, the spec argument is lame and misleading. If a company specifies red paint, that doesn't mean lead based.
The recalls were due to a lack of oversight and a willingness of the manufacturers to put profit above all else. - benroy, on 06/08/2009, -2/+22"Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
- inactive, on 06/08/2009, -0/+16While your correct in that the Three Gorge is indeed bigger than any other dam to date, it's not 10,000X greater.
- Junkyarddawg, on 06/08/2009, -3/+19An estimated 17 species of vertebrate, among them one of the worlds four species of river dolphin and the worlds largest freshwater turtle, were extinguished by this dam.
50000 archaelogical sites were drowned before they could be excavated.
One of the most beautiful landscapes in all of China was drowned.
Yeah, it's controversial - but not in China, where criticism against it is not allowed. - badfish0116, on 06/08/2009, -6/+22hippies>commies
- huff51, on 06/08/2009, -0/+16for ***** sake
- FireStalker3150, on 06/08/2009, -2/+17OK so the setting will be Christan Extremists who hate china for her restrictions on religion who are secretly trained and armed by Corporations who stand to profit from the destruction of the dam.
Hows that? Also we'll get Michel (BOOM)bay to direct it. - burketo, on 06/08/2009, -0/+14in reality, it produces about 11X the power of the hoover dam and roughly twice the power of Itaipu (the world's next largest dam), about 22.5 GW at full capacity. Interestingly, that is over a third of the total nuclear power generated by france (~63 GW).
In other words, It's BIG! - LanceUppercut, on 06/08/2009, -2/+15yeah until we put a sniper rifle in the hands of every midwest and southern male/female and ask them to defend against the invasion.
Same reason we wouldn't invade them. no point. We have a few million hicks trained on xbox and ps3 to kill without remorse. - norman619, on 06/08/2009, -0/+12For the nth time China is not a communist country. They are a fascist socialist nation experimenting with capitalism. They haven't been communist for a very long time time.
- SuperCujo, on 06/08/2009, -0/+12All the Chinese have to do is not disrupt cable services and they could roll through most states with nary a whimper.
- freakstyle571, on 06/08/2009, -0/+12Actually there was an article on digg a while ago about this. I'm too lazy to dig up the source exactly. But it stated something to the effect that it was supposed to supply roughly 12% of China's total energy. But do to the prolonged build time and setbacks, along with new technology that isn't going to be implemented, it will only supply about 8% of China's electricity.
It has also gone WAY over budget for a few years now and the cost has been passed on to Coal plants to make up for the energy that was supposed to be already available. So has there been a net gain for China in the construction of this dam? I don't think many people think so. It is however a testament to how much man can directly affect the world around us to suit our needs. - stoanhart, on 06/08/2009, -1/+12Why do people always try to make the argument that methane from decaying plant matter adds to climate change?! The term is carbon neutral; it means that the carbon from that biomass was already in "circulation", but which I mean it would have died and decomposed anyway and is part of the current environment. The problem with fossil fuels is that they've been locked away for millions of years and are not part of the current environment; releasing them into the environment causes large changes since you are actually altering the composition of the environment.
- masterc, on 06/08/2009, -1/+12Water you doing? You ruined it.
- schnikies79, on 06/08/2009, -0/+11Pure water has a pH of 7, neither acidic nor basic. "Pure water" doesn't exist naturally though, so you're correct in saying that the river water is (slightly) acidic.
- TerrapinRangler, on 06/08/2009, -4/+14Yeah, but since they built the wonder first, all their factories now have power on all cities on that continent.
- will-rom, on 06/08/2009, -0/+10I personally liked the text effects USGS used.
- SuicideMouse, on 06/08/2009, -1/+11I'll be honest. The actual impact of dams never really set in for me until I saw these images.
- ZeeZee2k, on 06/08/2009, -0/+10If you go to war with china, the dam will be their weak point.
- Gareth321, on 06/08/2009, -1/+11"Good damn question"
Ha ha ha... - voteobama4, on 06/08/2009, -1/+11I was there last summer. And while I think a lot of residents are unhappy about the loss of history, the government essentially moved a lot of them out of poverty and into apartments with full amenities... for the same cost. Most had never had running water or electricity.
Also, the whole dam project created thousands of new jobs in a pretty poor area.
Not gonna back up the Chinese government too often, but I really don't think the locals are too pissed about the whole thing overall. - B1665r, on 06/08/2009, -1/+11It also caused the zombie outbreak in World War Z
- Ajjah, on 06/08/2009, -6/+16*Sad Panda*
- cortjezter, on 06/08/2009, -0/+9clearly. and neither do people anymore! :-P
- inactive, on 06/08/2009, -9/+17And while you are on the DAM tour, you can ask any DAM questions that you want, and if you want to take any DAM photos, you can take as many DAM photos that you want.
- Tubal22, on 06/08/2009, -5/+13But but but... the environment!
- 2Six119, on 09/10/2009, -0/+8Also: http://news.cnet.com/i/ne/p/2007/dam_china001_550x ...
- inactive, on 06/08/2009, -0/+8I have another game to play : How many of the 13 destroyed "cities" can you spot on the before pic?
- PorcusWallabee, on 06/08/2009, -2/+9More like: Oh China! You and your Shanghaians.
- dstz, on 06/08/2009, -8/+14"What China did is relocate a who cities worth of people and changed an entire ecosystem."
Which is also called human development. The way China did it is totalitarian, but i can assure you that the present French ecosystem has nothing to see with what it would look like without intensive farming and urban development. I guess it's pretty true for vast parts of the USA too. - nroose, on 06/08/2009, -3/+9Eh, what's a few zeros among friends?
3 Georges? And I thought 2 Georges was bad for the environment! - milkmage, on 06/08/2009, -1/+7TVA displaced 15k families, somewhat less than 1 200 000
- govtdoesnotwork, on 06/08/2009, -0/+6Dams destroy river ecosystems.
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