By Devika

Hydroelectric power generation is one of the worlds oldest ways of generating power. Hydroelectricity started off in 1880 and produces 20% of the worlds electricity. It is basically formed when water flowing down a river is used to spin turbines inside a generator which produces energy.

The Three Gorges Project (TGP) is one of the biggest Hydropower-complex projects the world has ever seen. With 26 generators that produce one tenth of china’s electricity, the same amount of electricity 18 nuclear power plants would make!

The Three Gorges Dam project is located in China in the Xilingxia gorge, one of the three gorges of the Yangtze River. The TGP is equipped with the unique capability to have control over floods, which the Yangtze River has experienced 215 times in the last 2,000 years. In 1998 flooding that occurred in the area that was supposed to be controlled by the dam even though it wasn’t complete, left 4,000 dead.

The TGP was created by the China Yangtze Three Gorges Dam Project Development Corporation. It was also funded by companies such as the China Construction Bank and export credit agencies from Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and Switzerland who also provided funds for the project.

The Three Gorges project took up 1.39 trillion cubic feet, also it’s 1.24 mile-wide length meant that it needed a lot of room. For this it took 20,000 workers to work around the clock for seventeen years to get the project finished on time. This also meant that 1.2 million people have been forced to move to create a hydroelectric dam to produce power for about 18.2 million homes. The cost of the project was estimated at a rough US$6 billion, but turned out to be as much as US $25 billion!

The long term ecological impact of the TGP is said to be awful. With high chances of earthquakes due to the weight of millions of tons of water stored behind one dam. The TGP also threatens wildlife that live near the river because of the amount of destruction it caused to their natural environment.

The Scientific American magazine reports say that the Three Gorges Dam project was an utter catastrophe. Studies show that the TGP would trigger landslides and may endanger the lives of millions. Government officials have always admired the 18,000 megawatts of power the TGP creates and of course its unique capability to control floods. But government officials in charge of the project did admit that “We simply cannot sacrifice the environment in exchange for temporary economic gain."

Supporters believe that the benefits of the TGP stretch far more than the cost. First of all, the main benefit is that it generates valuable power, it has control over floods and of course it’s a renewable source of energy, cutting down that 40 million tons of coal that are used up for electricity.

First of all, the TGP is an ecologically friendly resource for energy. Secondly, it was a project that could put the lives of thousands of people at risk, with high risks of earthquakes and landslides. I believe that this is a risk that should not be taken. At the same time, I also believe that it is important for us to seek more sustainable sources of energy. Therefore, in my opinion, the Three Gorges project was more beneficial overall.

Thank you for your patience and kind attention.