China has announced plans to build the world's biggest hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsanpo river, generating even more energy than the Three Gorges Dam. Concerns have emerged over the impact the dam could have on countries downstream, like India and Bangladesh. To learn more, TaiwanPlus spoke to Ruth Gamble, a senior lecturer at La Trobe University.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00China has announced the construction of the world's largest dam near its border with India.
00:06The massive project will be built in the lower reach of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet,
00:11which is known in India as the Brahmaputra River.
00:14The dam is expected to cost US$137 billion.
00:19Once completed, it will generate over three times the energy of China's Three Gorges Dam,
00:25the largest in the world.
00:27The announcement has sparked concerns in India and Bangladesh, who depend on the water that
00:32flows downstream from the river.
00:36To learn more about the implications of China's new dam, Adil Brar spoke to Ruth Gamble, a
00:40lecturer at La Trobe University.
00:44China has announced plans to build a new hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo River.
00:49Could you explain the significance of this project?
00:52This is going to be, as far as I've announced it, the biggest dam ever built in terms of
00:58the capacity that it will output.
01:02So at the moment, we have the Three Gorges Dam, which is a massive dam, one single dam
01:07producing a lot of energy, and this will produce up to three times as much energy as the Three
01:12Gorges Dam, mainly because not so much, they don't have to build as big a dam, if that
01:18makes sense.
01:19The Three Gorges Dam is massive, and the thing that they're relying on building on the lower
01:24reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo is that the geography there is so unique, so steep, that
01:33they don't need to build as big a dam to create as much, to get as much energy out of that
01:37space.
01:38Considering the dam's location near the border with India, how might this impact the dynamics
01:44between China and India?
01:46I think that building this dam is seen within the Chinese public, or the Chinese scientific
01:55community and engineering community, as the same as going to the moon.
01:59It's an incredibly difficult engineering feat, and they've been developing their engineering
02:05capacity in dams way beyond what anyone else in the world is doing.
02:09So the whole idea that you can develop what some people, not me, some people in the Indian
02:16media have been saying is a water weapon, that wouldn't be one massive reservoir.
02:21But if you have small cascading dams, then that can alleviate some of India's fears,
02:27and possibly, like a big possibly, have less effect on the particular and unique environment
02:34of that region.
02:36For downstream countries like India and Bangladesh, this project will have a major impact.
02:41Will China address their concerns?
02:44So even if they alleviate their concerns at the outset of building this dam, by saying
02:50they're going to do tunnels and smaller dams and so on, and giving India access to make
02:56more information about the dams being built, the real issues between China and India about
03:02this dam are going to happen in 20-30 years, when you have glaciers melting and a glacial
03:08lake outburst flood in the region, or a massive earthquake.
03:14One of the largest earthquakes in the whole region was right near this dam in 1950, the
03:19Assam earthquake, or the Assam-Tibet earthquake.