Oh Three Gorges.

Can't really post this with a straight face. Ah well, we'll hear more things like this when we actually visit the dam.

Also, if you click through to the link, you can hear a robo-voice read the article aloud in English.
=D

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/6899687.html


Three Gorges Dam champions clean energy program
09:02, February 23, 2010

Long before climate change became a global issue, inspiring reams of editorial coverage and the Copenhagen Summit, the Three Gorges Dam, the largest construction project in China since the building of the Great Wall, was attracting environmental ire around the world.

Now the mammoth decade-old project, the world's largest hydropower plant, contains a vast 175 m deep reservoir and stretches 660 km along the Yangtze River in central China. To date, it has generated 364.6 billion kW of electricity.

The China Three Gorges Corporation, the dam's operator, believes that the project's success has confounded the criticism of overseas commentators who sought to highlight its potentially negative impact on the environment. In fact, says the company, the dam is now playing a crucial role in reducing China's overall level of greenhouse gas emissions.

Li Yong'an, president of the China Three Gorges Corporation, recently received an award for his company's contribution to the development of China's clean energy program.

Three Gorges and the Freedom of Information Act?

"The Three Gorges dam on China’s Yangtze is the world’s largest and most expensive dam, though the final cost is unknown because of state secrecy. Estimates of its cost vary between $32 billion and $88 billion."


Interesting use of new legal mechanisms by an ordinary citizen to gain more information on Three Gorges. We'll see how this turns out.

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Rule of law meets the Three Gorges dam

Patricia Adams
Probe International / January 27, 2010

Ren Xinghui, a Beijing resident, has made headlines in the Chinese Internet press by using the country’s new disclosure law to request information about government funding of the Three Gorges dam.

Last October, Mr. Ren filed formal requests for bonds, loans, special electricity charges, among other sources of financing, from three key government departments in charge of the dam: the Ministry of Finance, the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office under the State Council and the China Three Gorges Corporation.

The Three Gorges dam on China’s Yangtze is the world’s largest and most expensive dam, though the final cost is unknown because of state secrecy. Estimates of its cost vary between $32 billion and $88 billion. Corruption has plagued the project’s resettlement operation, which has flooded nearly 1.2 million people from their homes.

According to the law, Mr. Ren’s request for data on the dam’s cost is entirely by the book: Article one of the regulation, which came into force on May 1, 2008, states that its purpose is to safeguard “the legal access to government information by citizens, legal persons and other organizations, improving the transparency of government work, promoting the administration according to law and giving full play to the role of government information of serving the people’s production, living and social and economic activities.”

Mr. Ren's attempt to use the law to secure government spending records is pioneering. Government officials who fielded his initial requests last October seemed caught off guard, denied knowledge of such things, couldn’t find responsible officials (they were away on a business trip or occupied in meetings), cited internal procedures for prohibiting the submission of the requests and directed Mr. Ren to the Propaganda Office.

Now, having considered his initial request, the Ministry of Finance has rejected it on the grounds that the income and expenditure of the dam project was made available in 2008 and that Mr. Ren’s own production, domestic or research affairs are not affected by the expenditures, so he has no right to the data.

Mr. Ren disputes this and argues that he, like all Chinese electricity consumers, has been forced to contribute to the Three Gorges Construction Fund through a special charge in their electricity rates. On that basis, he says, he is entitled to see the financing and cost data.

On Monday, Ren Xinghui filed his suit against the Ministry of Finance with Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, asking it to decree that the Ministry of Finance provide the data on the cost of the Three Gorges to him. The Court is now reviewing whether to accept the case.

URL: http://www.probeinternational.org/three-gorges-probe/rule-law-meets-three-gorges-dam

Three Gorges may force 300,000 more to relocate

The impacts and unanticipated consequences of large hydro continue to rise, as the Guardian reports. We'll be getting to this topic in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Three Gorges Dam may force relocation of a further 300,000 people
Chinese government report recommends the relocation of an extra 300,000 people at risk of landslides and water pollution

Jonathan Watts
Friday 22 January 2010

A further 300,000 people must be relocated from around China's Three Gorges dam - in addition to the 1.2 million who have already been forced to leave their homes, according to a draft government report.
Less than two years after completion of the world's biggest hydroelectric power plant, site engineers have found landslides and water pollution are more severe than anticipated, prompting calls for drastic remedial efforts.

In a report drawn up over the past year, the managers of the project and regional officials recommend the withdrawal of people from long stretches of the reservoir's banks.