The Three Gorges Dam, planned to be finished in 2009, began to impound water in June 2003 and is producing electricity, running five turbines from an eventual total of 26.  Add-on generation projects will double the power production of the dam itself.  Dam officials downplay environmental damage, sedimentation risks, and ill effects on the 1.3 million people relocated by the mega-project.

Dam Built for Flood Control and Power Generation

Mr. Liu Youmei, Chairman and President of the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corporation (CYTGPDC) and Mr. Chen Hongbin, Deputy Director of International Cooperation Department of CYTGPDC described the Three Gorges project during a recent visit by United States Government officials.  Construction of the dam has been right on schedule, according to Mr. Liu.  He said the dam has two purposes: flood control and power generation.

Massive Dam’s Water Level at Minimum Prior to Flood Season

Construction of the dam has been an enormous project, and has employed 10,000 people. More than 103 million cubic meters of earth and rock were excavated to build the dam, and another 28 million cubic meters of concrete will be used to complete the dam.  The dam also contains 463,000 tons of reinforcing steel rods and an additional 266,000 tons of other metal works.  The dam is 2,309 meters from end to end, and the elevation is 185 meters above sea level, with a water height of 175 meters above sea level. 

Mr. Liu said the dam is equipped with 23 deep outlets, and that leading up to flood season each June, the water level of the dam will be drawn down to 140 meters.  The water level will rise during the flood season in July to September but not above a safe level, he said.  Mr. Liu also explained that through the flood season, the dam would practice sediment sluicing through the deep outlets.  He said this will forestall a large sediment buildup in the reservoir.

The dam also has an already functioning series of locks that have the capability to handle 100 million tons of shipping annually, Liu said.  He said this would allow for improved shipping along the Yangtze River.  The dam will also include the world’s largest ship lift, similar to a freight elevator that can lift a 3,000 ton load 113 meters straight up. 

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Impact on Fish Mitigated, According to Dam Officials

When questioned about the freshwater dolphin and the dam’s impact on this endangered species, Mr. Chen responded that the dolphin’s primary habitat is 100 kilometers downstream of the dam, and that construction and dam operation should not affect the dolphin’s habitat.   Mr. Chen also ventured information on the Chinese sturgeon that also lives in the Yangtze River.  The migration of the sturgeon was blocked previously by the construction of the Gezhouba Dam 20 years earlier.  Since that time hundreds of thousands of artificial spawned fish have been put into the Yangtze every year and new natural spawning areas have been created downstream from both sites, he said.  Mr. Chen explained that these efforts have been strengthened since the beginning of construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

Relocation Said to Raise Standard of Living

Mr. Chen said that a total of 1.3 million Chinese will be relocated by the end of the project.  Over 750,000 have already been relocated, many to newly created cities, he said, and the remainder will be relocated before the completion of the dam in 2009.  Relocation costs are expected to total around $9 billion, Chen said.

Mr. Liu stressed that the flood control benefits of the dam will help raise the standard of living of people in the area.  He added that those who have been relocated are “simple” people that are “happy with their new homes and what they say is a much improved living situation.”

Financed by the Chinese Taxpayer

The estimated cost to build the dam in 1993 when the project began was $25 billion.  This cost didn’t include power transmission, but did include relocation costs.  It is currently estimated that when completed in 2009 the actual cost will be $22 billion.

The dam was financed almost entirely with internal Chinese investment.  Forty percent of the project was financed by the central government and sixty percent was financed through loans to the CYTGPDC.  Mr. Liu explained that the reason for the large percentage of government investment was due to the fact that flood control and transportation benefits to area residents couldn’t be recouped by CYTGPDC.  The central government’s funding was achieved by the State Council levying a tax of 0.3-0.7 cent/kilowatt hour since 1992 on all power networks across the country.  The project also received a $1.1 billion credit for purchasing hydroelectric components. 

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Electricity Equivalent to 50 Million Tons of Coal per Year

The Three Gorges Dam when completed will be the largest single electricity generating facility in the world, according to Chinese statistics. When completed in 2009 the dam will have 18.3 gigawatts of installed capacity.  A thermal plant in China would have to burn approximately 50 million tons of coal a year to produce similar amounts of electricity.

According to Chinese officials, the dam, when completed in 2009, will have twenty-six 700 megawatt turbines purchased from GE and Siemens, each producing an average of 4,500 megawatt/hours a year.  Eighteen turbines on average will be running at any given time.  Currently, there are five operating turbines, and the sixth turbine is expected to be online by the end of the year.  The dam has fifteen power circuits, three of which are direct current that take the electricity to Shanghai and Guangzhou.  The cost of the electricity will be three cents per kilowatt-hour, according to official statistics.

Mr. Liu said that his company had just received central government permission to build a power generating facility at the right (south) bank of the dam with an additional six hydro turbine generator units totaling 4.2 gigawatts of installed capacity.  The intakes of these units will be constructed simultaneously with the regular dam project and are already represented on the main control board.

The Future – Going Public

Mr. Liu also explained that the CYTGPDC plans to go public in early November on the Chinese stock exchange in Shanghai.  (Note:  This occurred on November 17, 2003.  End note.)  The Yangtze Electric Power Company Ltd plans to issue 2.36 billion “A” (domestic) shares in order to raise about $1.2 billion.  This would be the fourth largest initial public offering (IPO) in mainland history, according to Liu.  The company originally planned to go public in September, but regulators forced them to delay, Liu said. 

According to Liu, CYTGPDC plans to invest the capital from their public offering into building four power plants downstream from Three Gorges on the banks of the Yangtze River by 2015.  Liu said when this project is completed, these hydro power plants will generate twice as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam.  The combined 58,000 megawatts produced by the dam, the underground power generating facility and the downstream hydro-plants will make CYTGPDC a larger energy producer than some of the former state-owned power companies, Liu said.

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