The Three Gorges One Dam Thing After Another

The Economist ^ | November 1, 2007 | The Economist

[JACKRUSSELL]

Reservoir of ill-will.

[JACKRUSSELL]

”Made in China” Ping.

(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)

[Publius6961]

I would love to see an impartial report on this.

[RDTF]

ha! When I first read this I thought.. 41, 43, and Frenchie?

[WorkingClassFilth]

This thing has life of its own. Even Mao, who loved the idea, was appraised of the downside and probably problems. After his passing, it became a holy grail of the commie party machinery. Many in the party know its a tremendously stupid waste but nobody is willing to stop this collossal waste and destruction.

[the invisib1e hand]

The Three Gorges One Dam Thing After Another,

what a great title.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

I am having trouble pinpointing in the article whether this is BUSH’s FAULT or the result of Global Warming caused by you driving and SUV. Could you find it?

[Bender2]

Well, rest assured... that when 'it' happens and several million Chinese are drown in the Three Gorges event, it will be laid at the feet of George Bush, The GOP and Global Warming, not the ChiCom idiots that built it in the wrong place.

[OCC]

it became a holy grail of the commie party machinery. Many in the party know its a tremendously stupid waste but nobody is willing to stop this collossal waste and destruction.

China's big dig?

[Jet Jaguar]

Can we get on with the Dam tour?

[norton]

George Bush with an SUV in the Boat House

[Ramius]

I don’t know if the idea itself is by nature a bad one. I’m a big believer in hydropower, and Lord knows they need more power in China. Whether the flood control part works out is something that rmains to be seen.

But what I do worry about is the seeming inevitable outright failure of this dam. It’ll kill people on a scale that even Asia has never seen before. And they’ve seen some massive disasters.

The geology reports are not a fun read. Then there’s reports of construction and materials issues.

Not a good thing to be downstream of, I think.

[TrueKnightGalahad]

Took me a bit to realise that “Chongqing” is the new-fangled way of spelling Chunking. Too bad if it goes - I hear they have really great Chinese food there.

Of course, there they just call it..........food.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Engineers familiar with the project report that the locks, and lock approaches, have been repeatedly blocked by ship collisions, over-eager ships jumping the queue (and thus ramming other ships ahead of them), and by sunken/damaged ships colliding with the lock doors and quays.

[Robert A Cook PE]

If it fails, and the dam technology isn’t that complex, it will be because of rebar (rusting) and failure, tie-rod failure (holding the dam concrete into the upstream slopes), and/or lock door failure - against, because the Chinese bought one item - then made copies of that item with inferior/understrength (cheap) Chinese steel and Chinese (cheap) construction installation techniques.

So the original machine will work as designed, but the local-made copies will fail over time.

[WorkingClassFilth]

The entire object is to avoid flooding. The annual cycles and dike bursting havoc that has gone on for thousands of years has given birth to this age-old idea. Unfortunately, it has also given birth to a rash of new age of problems. For example, as long as the dam and lock system is able irrigate the bread basket, it will accelerate a salination condition of the soils rather than a replenishing as it always has. This alone has far reaching impacts on crop production/hectare.

[investigateworld]

Ping

[Ramius]

Salination of irrigated soils? I’m not familiar with that issue. Can you expand on that?

[B4Ranch]

Do you have any links to specific incidents?

[B4Ranch]

Whom have you selected to write the report?