Category: Three Gorges Probe

No country for private houses

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(October 26, 2012) The history of government property seizure in China reads like an appalling dystopian fiction. A new film, which debuted in New York on October 28, looks closely at the astonishing but all-too-true stories of individual citizens – survivors of this ongoing battle for property rights – who have been robbed of their homes, their lands, unconscionably beaten, tormented and forced to endure bizarre and cruel new realities as a result of a social-political ideology gone mad and corrupt officials and developers who will stop at nothing in their pursuit of power, privilege and gain.

Chinese environmentalist on trial for protecting the environment

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(October 18, 2010) A former forestry official-turned environmental activist is on trial in China for publishing a book about a controversial coal power plant without state permission. He stands accused, under China’s surreal justice system, of “conducting illegal business.”

No water, no power: is there enough water to fuel China’s power expansion?

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(October 16, 2012) A new report by Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) warns that water shortages in China could undermine power production by water-intensive thermal generators and hydro dams, putting economic growth at risk, especially in the metals and mining, utilities, and manufacturing sectors. Allocating water resources by decree in China’s planned economy is unlikely to work, predicts HSBC’s strategist Wai-Shin Chan. Investors should beware and attempt to estimate the effect of looming shortages on the life of their assets: without water security, investors could be left stranded.

Whitewashing the Three Gorges Dam

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(October 15, 2012) Lauded by Chinese officialdom as a symbol of its growing might, the Three Gorges Dam had already been in operation for eight years when the Three Gorges Corporation issued its first-ever corporate social responsibility report. The release of the CSR report coincided with a wave of heightened concern surrounding the dam’s failings and impacts, and a rare admission by China’s State Council that all was not well with the jewel in its crown of modernity. A commentary by Li Tie at the time, published by China’s respected South Weekend, described the Corporation’s document as awash in insipid content” and exactly not what the public needed, which was honesty. Li even went so far as to say reports that did not respond honestly to widespread concerns, in effect, posed a threat to the nation’s social stability, leaving Chinese citizens more likely to place their faith in the country’s rumor mill than official documents they could not trust. Li’s misgivings appear to have only gained in resonance this year, as China’s recent summer of protest bears out.

A disconcerting beauty

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(October 15, 2012) Photographer Nadav Kander has documented the transformation of China’s famed Yangtze River by its infamous Three Gorges Dam since construction began in 2006. Many of his pictures contrast people as ant-like subjects against the enormity of the Yangtze itself and its dramatic insubordination to the dam’s rising infrastructure, at times even integrating the routine of their day with the chaos around them. Kander’s award-winning series, Yangtze: The Long River made its debut in New York at Flowers Gallery in October. Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan surveys Kander’s series.

Dammed and betrayed

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(October 3, 2012) Wang Like is a Three Gorges Dam migrant who moved thinking it was his duty and honour to do so. Wang and his family, along with so many others, gave up everything for the construction of China’s concrete colossus – an edifice that would later be described as equal parts vanity project and technological marvel – in the belief that it was for a greater good. But on arrival in their new resettlement area, Wang’s family experienced what has become standard for countless Three Gorges Dam migrants: a welcome of open hostility, corruption of resettlement funds, broken promises and incomprehensible ill-treatment – as though he and his fellow migrants were being punished for their sacrifice. Wang’s story is rendered in powerful detail here, in a letter he wrote to a sympathetic journalist, in the hopes his voice would be heard.

Red Yangtze

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(September 17, 2012) China’s famed golden waterway turns a disturbing red in the southwest region’s largest industrial centre. Speculation as to why runs the gamut from industrial dye dumps to an omen of biblical doom.

Mapping disaster

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(September 14, 2012) This spring, Probe International used the power of hazard mapping to assess the risks of China’s breakneck dam-building along its western rivers. Now, a new study published by the international scientific journal Tectonophysics discusses how flawed hazard maps may have underestimated such risks and been partly to blame for the devastation caused by the 2011 Japan, 2010 Haiti and 2008 China earthquakes.

Activist Dai Qing: How China limits change, and stores discontent

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(September 11, 2012) The dispute between Japan and China over Japan’s decision to purchase a number of islands in the East China Sea, also claimed by China and Taiwan, has provoked spirited public protest in China this summer. But territorial disputes with Japan aren’t the only issue driving China’s summer of protest. Large, organized and, at times, violent demonstrations often sparked by environmental concerns – recently the wastewater drainage pipeline from the Japanese-owned Oji Paper plant – have become more frequent as citizens discover strength in numbers as a way to unleash long, pent-up anger at authorities. Japan’s highly regarded Asahi Shimbun newspaper turned to Probe International Fellow and correspondent, Dai Qing, to understand China’s recent wave of anti-Japanese protest and learned that Chinese officials would rather their people march against Japan than take to the streets to demand democracy, human rights and freedom. This interview also explores Dai’s own history as a champion for the environment and human rights in China, her stance against the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam and ongoing restrictions of her activities by Chinese security: even a surprise party in celebration of her 70th birthday could not go ahead as planned by friends. Dai Qing reflects on such foolishness: “It is truly a waste of money to monitor such a patriot as me,” she insists.

Seismic signs

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(September 5, 2012) Probe International has been at the forefront of research on the connection between seismic activity and large-dam construction, focusing on examples in China such as the Zipingpu Dam, which is thought to have triggered the deadly 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Now, a new article by U.S.-based quake warning advocate, David Nabhan, calls for a rethink of seismic forecasting in North America that draws on connections so often overlooked: specifically, the trigger effect of dams, and the impact of lunar and solar gravitational tides on earthquake activity.

Big, complicated, hard to manage

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(September 1, 2012) The staggering costs of China’s Three Gorges Dam—the displacement of 1.7 million and counting, and a price tag six-times the original estimate—are well known. But the enormous project’s complicated operational demands are largely unknown, and they promise to get more vexing as more dams are built upstream. Power magazine looks at the complexities of delivering power from such large-scale hydropower plants trans-region, trans-province, and trans-basin and the pressing need for peak regulation, frequency regulation, and emergency reserves for hydropower plants.

10 most expensive energy projects in the world

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Surprisingly, CNN put China’s behemoth Three Gorges Dam ‒ at a cost of $28 billion ‒ in last place for the ‘honour’ of world’s most expensive energy project. In fact, had CNN used the most recent cost figures for Three Gorges, the world’s largest dam would have come in second place (at $60 billion) between the $116-billion Kashagan oil field in Central Asia and the $57-billion Gorgon gas project in Australia.

Too many masters

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(August 20, 2012) A severe test of the Three Gorges dam’s capacity to withstand a major flood peak in July initially showed the mighty dam ready and able. However, downstream areas found themselves at higher risk when floodwaters were released by the dam. Meanwhile, upstream areas are impacted when the dam holds floodwaters back. This article looks at the many pressures, and potential disasters, weighing on the ability of China’s biggest dam to fulfill its design mandate and asks: is July’s flood peak—the biggest test of the dam so far in its nine-year history—just the start?