The description of the Yarlung Tsangpo project as 'three times larger than Three Gorges' is conventional in a sense but also misleading. It's only 3x larger by power capacity, but it's vastly smaller by flow rate and reservoir size. The project neither intends, nor will be capable, of impounding significant quantities of water or significantly disrupting the flows on the lower Brahmaputra. It really isn't comparable with the Ethiopian GED or the Mekong damsf You gloss over this and I think it would be better to be clear.
The hydropower equation is — of course — flow x head, and nearly all the power in the project is coming from the incredibly large head (nearly 2.5km). It's a series of large sluices with four very long tunnels, in essence. The sluices are unremarkable except for their remoteness. It's the tunnels which are unprecedented in size. There's no need for a vast reservoir because the topography does all that work already.
There are a series of narratives around this project which are obviously politically motivated. Much of the anti-campaign has already switched to arguments about sediment loss which also seem pretty speculative. I think WIP should try to be clearer about the technical facts although it would mean giving up your clickbait headline!
This is a valid critique which came up and I love the attention to detail we are getting from readers! The current project is not a "mega dam" per se- it is a mega *scale* damming project made of multiple tiered systems- however, as you pointed out, the scale of the project, especially the diversion tunnels, is unprecedented! (The project includes 80km of diversion tunnel through huge mountains!!!)
This informs us of China's capabilities to accomplish more in the future, which may resemble their projects in SE Asia, which are more conventionally (and controversially - see the section of the post about droughts and floods along the Mekong and in Thailand respectively) operated.
Taking into account their domestic display of ambition for diversion projects and with the history of proposed dam/diversion projects involving the Brahmaputra, like the Red Flag River or Shoutian Canal, which I wrote about separately on my blog, and it becomes clear that this is unlikely to be the peak of Chinese ambitions for Himalayan water supplies. India and Bangladesh have both voiced opposition to the dam and they ought to be concerned, given the lack of rights afforded to downstream countries internationally.
Yes, that's all fair. The project in question is remarkably low impact for the quantity of power it produces (with the significant caveat: as long as nothing goes wrong). But as you say, it's unrepresentative.
Very interesting article. I'd love to read a good piece on the economics of water desalinisation. I'm from Portugal where every summer there's talk of water scarcity, however, many argue it would be more cost efficient to transfer water from the north of the country to the south. I have my doubts given the abundance of solar energy and what has been achieved in places like Israel and the UAE.
The description of the Yarlung Tsangpo project as 'three times larger than Three Gorges' is conventional in a sense but also misleading. It's only 3x larger by power capacity, but it's vastly smaller by flow rate and reservoir size. The project neither intends, nor will be capable, of impounding significant quantities of water or significantly disrupting the flows on the lower Brahmaputra. It really isn't comparable with the Ethiopian GED or the Mekong damsf You gloss over this and I think it would be better to be clear.
The hydropower equation is — of course — flow x head, and nearly all the power in the project is coming from the incredibly large head (nearly 2.5km). It's a series of large sluices with four very long tunnels, in essence. The sluices are unremarkable except for their remoteness. It's the tunnels which are unprecedented in size. There's no need for a vast reservoir because the topography does all that work already.
There are a series of narratives around this project which are obviously politically motivated. Much of the anti-campaign has already switched to arguments about sediment loss which also seem pretty speculative. I think WIP should try to be clearer about the technical facts although it would mean giving up your clickbait headline!
This is a valid critique which came up and I love the attention to detail we are getting from readers! The current project is not a "mega dam" per se- it is a mega *scale* damming project made of multiple tiered systems- however, as you pointed out, the scale of the project, especially the diversion tunnels, is unprecedented! (The project includes 80km of diversion tunnel through huge mountains!!!)
This informs us of China's capabilities to accomplish more in the future, which may resemble their projects in SE Asia, which are more conventionally (and controversially - see the section of the post about droughts and floods along the Mekong and in Thailand respectively) operated.
Taking into account their domestic display of ambition for diversion projects and with the history of proposed dam/diversion projects involving the Brahmaputra, like the Red Flag River or Shoutian Canal, which I wrote about separately on my blog, and it becomes clear that this is unlikely to be the peak of Chinese ambitions for Himalayan water supplies. India and Bangladesh have both voiced opposition to the dam and they ought to be concerned, given the lack of rights afforded to downstream countries internationally.
Yes, that's all fair. The project in question is remarkably low impact for the quantity of power it produces (with the significant caveat: as long as nothing goes wrong). But as you say, it's unrepresentative.
Very interesting article. I'd love to read a good piece on the economics of water desalinisation. I'm from Portugal where every summer there's talk of water scarcity, however, many argue it would be more cost efficient to transfer water from the north of the country to the south. I have my doubts given the abundance of solar energy and what has been achieved in places like Israel and the UAE.
I read an article about this in Scientific American. I think it was this one. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/ Israel had new (at the time) tech which made things a lot cheaper.
Wonderful, thank you Laura. I’ve added that to my reading list!