Posted on 05/20/2006 12:08:25 AM PDT by HAL9000
Do they have wheelbarrows now?
The price of concrete has gone up with everything else that takes energy to make. The overinvestment in China in factories has made a difference, but the dam is a small part of that difference. What happens next (don't know when) is the growth in production in China slows down and commodity prices start to fall (actually already did this past week). To say "the dam is done, that's what made prices fall" is to pick on yet another coincidence.
On a more serious note, I'd love to read the article that talked about that if you have a link. TGD was something we talked a lot about during my MBA classes but I didn't hear any of the geologist reports. They must have been recent or we were just not looking in the right places for info.
More people die from breaks in dams than from nuclear power mistakes. More nuclear (beyond the 20 or so they are currently on the boards) would have been a better option for China than this dangerous monstrosity.
Don't even think about it... '-}
I've been hearing on FreeRepublic for years now that "this thing is going to fail" because the Chinese can't build anything right, etc. Does anybody actually want to put their reputation where their mouth is and name a date by which it will have failed, otherwise these statements are idiotic. Obviously it will "fail" one day, be that 1000 years from now, or 100,000, just like the Hoover dam will "fail" someday, as geologic changes occur in the land around it.
Now, if you are willing to say "it will fail by 2020", then that is fine, because we can look back in 2020 (or whatever year) and say if you were right or wrong.
Also, it is pointless to suggest that the dam is of major military significance to us. We could destroy it in a conventional war, but if we did the Chinese would obviosly view it the same as they would view a nuclear attack, and they would respond in kind. If we simply wanted to start a nuclear exchange, we could do that already with our own nuclear weapons, dam or no dam.
my post #2 summed up my view rather well i think. they've been patching it since before it was built. can i name a date? of course not.
They've already stated that any attempt to harm the dam will be justification for nuclear retaliation.
Thats the first thing I thought, now I can wait a few months and build my secret bunker.
"Do they have wheelbarrows now?"
Part of the deal Clinton made with the Chicoms was wheel technology. Looks like it's taken them a few years to figure out where the axle goes.
That traitor!
Well put. And regarding the hydroelectricity -- the site was first suggested by Sun Yat Sen (if memory serves), and the really important reason for the construction is to run water up to the north to replenish the Yellow River, which has nearly vanished due to long term (probably permanent, from human perspective) drought. China (like a lot of nations) is trying to ensure it can feed itself.
It has been estimated that, meanwhile, over 40 per cent of Chinese have TB, there's a huge surplus of male Chinese under age 40, and due to the draconian birth control laws, the population will halve each generation, leading to a huge problem with caring for the elderly beginning about 40 years from now, as well as economic stagnation and collapse.
Luckily, the Chinese gov't will probably launch some major ground wars (as well as the invasion of Taiwan) to use up some of that surplus. But that won't solve the other problems, only make them worse.
"It has been estimated that, meanwhile, over 40 per cent of Chinese have TB"
BS. *cough*
Put it this way, most Asians will test positive for TB if you use the skin test. It's some genetic reaction to the test itself - plus, most Asian countries use TB vaccinations that will test positive for TB with skin test. Xray is the only way to make sure you don't have TB.
If 40% of Chinese have TB, the world would already be in a TB epidemic.
Spreading misinformation here on FR is faster than SARS spreading in China, it seems.
Spreading disinformation by calling BS is pretty easy to do as well. This reply took about two minutes:
"Tuberculosis ranks as the third leading cause of disease and disability among adults in the world, and nearly on-third of the world's population is infected with the tuberculosis bacillus. Of these cases, more than 9 million people become sick with TB and 1.6 million die each year. In China, tuberculosis is the leading cause of death from infectious disease among adults. Every year, 400 million people are infected with TB and 1.4 million people develop active TB. In 1990, 360,000 people in China died from the disease."
http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/millionssaved/studies/case_3
"Tuberculosis is the leading infectious cause of death in China, with more than 400 million infected people, and with 1.3 million new cases and 150,000 TB deaths each year. The rate of TB in poor rural areas is nearly three times higher than in economically developed urban areas, a difference attributed to poor living conditions, underlying health and nutritional status, not enough money to pay for health care, inadequate access to health services, and lack of knowledge about TB."
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20041881~menuPK:34457~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html
The first quote is irrelevant, that's in 1990.
It's funny you fail to note the second part of your article:
China achieved a 95 percent cure rate for new cases within two years of adopting DOTS, and a cure rate of 90 percent for those who had previously undergone unsuccessful treatment. The number of people wi ht TB declined by over 37 percent between 1990 and 30,000 TB deaths have been prevented each year. More than 1.5 million patients have been treated, leading to the elimination of 836,000 cases of pulmonary TB.
GUARNTEED CHINESE BROWN TROUT
WASHED DOWN FRESH FROM THE LOCAL RICE FIELDS
Tuberculosis is the leading infectious cause of death in China, with more than 400 million infected people, and with 1.3 million new cases and 150,000 TB deaths each year.It's funny that the cure rate for new cases hasn't had an impact on the 400 million infected people. And what was my original remark that caused you such trauma? That 40 per cent of China's population has TB? Go play with the other children.
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