The Chinese corporation in charge of building the massive Three Gorges dam has already started building another giant dam on a downstream tributary and has plans for another two dams upstream.

The People’s Daily reported on February 1 that the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation has begun preliminary construction of the Shuibuya dam on the Qing Jiang river, a Yangtze tributary downstream from the Three Gorges dam in Hubei Province.

If completed, the Shuibuya dam would be a 233-metre high structure made of concrete and rockfill, the highest dam of its kind in the world, with an installed generating capacity of 1,600 MW and an expected cost of $1.5 billion (all figures in U.S. dollars). Proponents also claim that the dam will help control floods in the region. The project is expected to be completed in 2009 and the first generator put into operation in 2006.

This announcement follows a report in the People’s Daily last July that the central government had approved plans for two other major dams on the Jinsha River, a Yangtze tributary upstream of the Three Gorges. The first dam, Xiluodu, would be situated at the Sichuan-Yunnan border, nearly 800 kilometres upstream of the Three Gorges dam. The project would take 12 years to complete, cost $13.4 billion, and have an installed generating capacity of 12,000 MW. The second dam, Xiangjiaba, would be downstream of Xiluodu, with an installed capacity of 6,000 MW.

The plans call for all three dams to be built and financed by the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation using electricity revenues from the Three Gorges dam. But Canada’s Probe International doubts that this is realistic. In a recently released report (see Three Gorges Probe 14), Probe International predicted that the Three Gorges corporation would have trouble finding customers for its power because Chinese consumers now have access to cheaper, more reliable alternatives such as high-efficiency cogeneration plants. As a result, the $30 billion Three Gorges dam is at risk of not being able to generate enough revenue to cover its costs let alone those of an additional three dams. In Sichuan province, China’s second largest hydro dam, Ertan, faces the same predicament. The newly-built Ertan is running at a loss because it can’t find enough customers and its largest prospective customer, Chongqing municipality, has complained that Ertan power is too expensive.

Three Gorges Probe welcomes submissions. However, it is not a forum for political debate. Rather, Three Gorges Probe is dedicated to covering the scientific, technical, economic, social, and environmental ramifications of completing the Three Gorges Project, as well as the alternatives to the dam.

Publisher:Patricia Adams Executive Editor: Mu Lan ISSN 1481-0913