The famous Three Gorges Dam will no longer be the largest dam in the world. A new Chinese project is coming, which promises an energy production capacity three times greater than that of the Three Gorges Dam.
The Chinese government has approved the construction of a huge hydroelectric plant on what will be the largest dam in the world.
When construction will begin has yet to be defined, it is already known that it will be located on the sacred Yarlung Tsangpo river, in the autonomous region of Tibet.
When ready, the power plant will produce three times more energy than the Three Gorges dam – the largest dam in the world today. Electricity production began in 2012 and currently provides clean energy to more than five million homes per month.
However, as , China’s next project is so ambitious that its energy production capacity, upon completion, will be three times higher than the Three Gorges dam.
Mega hydropower project in Tibet
As previously mentioned, China plans to build this mega hydroelectric project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, on the Tibetan Plateau. The sacred river is home to the deepest gorge on the planet, with a vertical difference of 7,667 meters.
The Chinese government intends to use the river’s potential to generate around 300 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of hydroelectric energy from the project, enough to meet the energy needs of 300 million people per year. To harness the site’s energy, China will have to drill tunnels 4 to 20 km long in the Namcha Barwa mountain.
The government has set aside one trillion yuan (131 billion euros) for the project, which – as Interesting Engineering writes – makes it the most ambitious infrastructure project on the planet to date.
Although the risks are inherent to large-scale projects, this energy mega-project will be situated at the boundary of a tectonic platewhich makes it prone to earthquakes, should they occur in the future. The geology is also different from that of the plains, which makes the complicated project execution.
