In remote corner of Tibet, in the world’s deepest and longest canyon on “the Everest of rivers,” China has set out to build the world’s largest hydroelectric power system. The power will be transmitted east to China’s population centers.
Five cascade power stations will be built in the great bend where the Yarlung-Tsangpo River carves a path between 25,531-feet Namjagbarwa and 23,930-feet Gyalaperi, two peaks at the east end of the Himalayas. The dams will generate 300 million megawatts of electricity a year, more than triple the 88-million MW output of Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.
The river, at 699 miles, is Tibet’s longest. It rises near 22,000-foot Mt. Kalish, the “sacred mountain” of Tibet, beginning at 14,800 feet and dropping to 2,100 feet where it crosses the border into India and becomes the Brahmaputra River. It crosses an arid plateau and then plunges rapidly, including three massive waterfalls, into semi-tropical forests.
The project is a giant tradeoff. It will displace villages, as was the case when a total of 1.4 million people were uprooted when the reservoir behind Three Gorges filled. It is in an earthquake zone. Environmentalists and the Indian government worry that ecosystems will be disrupted and streams diverted, a “weaponizing of waters.” India fought a losing war with China in 1962 at both ends of the Himalayas.
Yet, the project is a linchpin in China’s efforts to control and reduce its carbon footprint. The People’s Republic leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions, so the long-run goal has an immediate urgency. Himalayan glaciers, which feed China’s great rivers, are rapidly receding.
At a dedication last weekend, China’s Premier Li Qiang promised, “Special emphasis must be placed on ecological conservation to prevent environmental damage.” Nobody really believes that, since the Yarlung-Tsangpo project is a favorite of China’s President Xi Jinping, and Xi is an impatient fellow. He had hundreds arrested when protests broke out at the Gangtuo Dam and hydroelectric project elsewhere in Tibet.
My interest was aroused years ago, headed down to Ashford for interview with Lou and Ingrid Whittaker. Lou had a mystery climb in the works. Namjagbarwa was the world’s highest unclimbed peak and proved to be for 16 years. Lou was guileless, admitting with a chuckle that this was the destination. He talked about the incredible gorge and its micro-climates. (The mountain was eventually climbed by a Sino-Japanese party. Nobody has been back in the 33 years since.)
The Chinese government has created a corporation, the China Yiang Group, to build the dams. The technical difficulties are daunting. Diversion tunnels will need to be dug beneath Namjagbarwa. The first kilowatts will be generated in 2030, assuming the project remains on schedule.
China is replicating a dam-building craze such as the United States experienced in the 1930s. It was the era that gave us the Fort Peck Dam, Hoover, and Grand Coulee, celebrated by author Richard Neuberger, in his book Our Promised Land, as “the highest thing ever built.” All three projects created pictures of a jaunty President Franklin D. Roosevelt on tour, confined to a wheelchair.
The Yarlung-Tsangpo is officially a “National Reservation,” a nature sanctuary created to preserve such features as Tsangpo Badong Falls and a stretch of river that repelled kayakers for years. Now, power needs have trumped nature preservation.
There are parallels. With the 1964 Columbia River Treaty, Canada committed to storing water to generate power downstream in the US. With an order from the British Columbia Cabinet, Hamber Provincial Park was reduced by 95 percent. The 787-foot high Mica Dam, highest in Canada, backed up a 90 mile long reservoir over forests that had not been logged. There was a massive kill-off of wildlife. The U.S. reaped energy gains, the great third powerhouse at Grand Coulee Dam, while B.C. suffered the environmental pains.
The environmental movement blocked two dams proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for the Grand Canyon, one of which would have inundated Lava Falls, the canyon’s greatest rapid. The famous ads asked: “Would you flood the Sistine Chapel so Tourists Could Get Closer to the Ceiling?”
No such venue or movement exists for defending Tsangpo Badong Falls or Hidden Falls. Tibet will pay a price to power far-away cities and to meet carbon-reduction targets. Soon-to-be-displaced villagers have mounted anti-dam protests, which have been crushed. Tibet is officially an autonomous zone, but President XI brooks no dissent.
Downstream there is discontent. The government of India promises to “monitor and take necessary measures to protect our interests.” Pema Kandi, chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, told a news agency that the Chinese hydroelectric project could “dry up considerably” river flow. It could flood two Indian provinces and Bangladesh, depending on release of water, and Kandi added, “It is going to cause an existential threat to our tribes and our livelihoods. It is quite serious because China could use this as a sort of water bomb.”
Communist governments love cement, and “hero projects” have been a feature of China and the old Soviet Union. The 410-foot-high Bratsk Dam in Siberia backs up a 2,110 square mile reservoir. Sacred sites and unique ecosystems be damned — and dammed. Rivers get diverted, even if the Aral Sea dries up. Meanwhile, the world will benefit from closure of coal plants, and Chinese cities from cleaner air.
This article also appears in Cascadia Advocate.
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Joel Connelly never ceases to surprise. He is a model reporter and commentator who should be an example to any young person taken by the promise of a career in reporting. His latest example benefits from Connelly’s lengvity and experience, dipping into what are well-kept archives, a memory that is vibrant, and experience.
I hope readers will see read the struggle that China undertakes to meet the challenges that a poorly distributed population of 1.4 billion people represent. India’s population is equally large but with more even distribution.China’s natural assets are often found 1000 miles from its population centers. Hence the challenge that Connelly reports. Giant infrastructure projects to deliver the needs of a modern industrialized society that serves not only its own population but the markets of the world, Herein the Pacific NW where environment and development are particular concerns China’s mega solutions likely seem harsh.
The last graph of Connelly’s essay says it all: ying and yang, cost and benefit, plus and minus. there are winners and losers; the cost of our modeern societies, science and economics.