China has approved the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, launching an ambitious project on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau that could affect millions downstream in India and Bangladesh.
The dam, which will be located in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, could produce 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually in 2020, according to an estimate provided by China’s Power Construction Corp.
This would more than triple the proposed 88.2 billion kWh capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest, in central China.
The project will play a major role in meeting China’s carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, stimulate related industries such as engineering and create jobs in Tibet, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.
The Yarlung Zangbo section drops a dramatic 2,000 meters (6,561 ft) in a short span of 50 km (31 mi), offering enormous hydropower potential as well as unique engineering challenges.
The cost of building the dam, including engineering costs, is expected to dwarf the Three Gorges Dam, which cost 254.2 billion yuan ($34.83 billion). This included the resettlement of the 1.4 million people it displaced, more than four times the original estimate of 57 billion yuan.
Authorities have not said how many people the Tibet project would displace or how it would affect the local ecosystem, one of the richest and most diverse on the plateau.
But according to Chinese officials, hydroelectric projects in Tibet, which they say contain more than a third of China’s hydropower potential, would not have a major impact on the environment or downstream water supplies.
Still, India and Bangladesh have raised concerns about the dam, with the project potentially changing not only the local ecology but also the flow and flow of the river downstream.
The Yarlung Zangbo becomes the Brahmaputra River as it leaves Tibet and flows south into the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam and finally Bangladesh.
China has already started hydropower production on the upper reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, which flows from west to east in Tibet. He is planning other projects upstream.
