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***Now... about the tunnel(s) below that dam? It sounded an impractical structure to even contemplate under such a danger zone, or, as building a dam over a tunnel, but it was discussed.

In fact, the importance of the 3 Gorges Dam going down, to my understanding, was about a water event so great and Exposing what was going on in that tunnel. It wasn’t anything good.

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I think that a lot of the speculation about “tunnels” came from a (now) discredited source (remember “BDA?”).

🐷

tunnels under the Three gorges dam? There’s a whole bunch of imprecise rambling about possible tunnels under the thing. The notion that the chicoms actually dug a tunnel(s) in the bed rock that the dam sets on is beyond fanciful. After they cleared the dirtish/gravelish overburden they did indeed drill and take core samples of the underlying rock.

But the structure itself would have to have passages, access tunnels, drainage paths of a wide variety to make maintainence of the internal working parts possible. To one degree or another the dam would leak, at least in little bits here and there. Remember the thing is 600 feet high so the water pressure at the base is at least 250 psi. That’s a lot for concrete to contain.

Simultaneously, with large, thick, deep, concrete structures it’s necessary to build in water pipes, which double as re-bar re- enforcement, to cool the large concrete sections. Those cooling pipes need to last for half a century since it takes at least that long for the concrete to mature.

As I recall it wasn’t until the mid 1980’s that they shut down the cooling system in Hoover dam which had been built half a century earlier.

Bottom line: yeah there are spaces inside the dam but no one is in there doing sneaky stuff. They’re working their buttz off to keep it operating. It’s a hydro dam so they need to get some power out of it.

Thanks for that tip, pc.

The tunnel business did trail off, but it was so impractical to imagine that until this threatening event, I hadn’t missed the lack of “discussion”.

“BDL” is so barely familiar I’ve surely seen it, but with all the modern acronyms replacing whole names and syllables, today, I shouldn’t presume I know BDL. 😵‍💫