Dam Gallery

Big Dam Gallery

How is China able to build more big dams within its borders than in the rest of the world combined? Through stealing dam technology from the West, mastering it, and making it much cheaper in China. And then proceeding on reckless dam-building — with total disregard for any cost to the environment, to the people along the rivers involved, and with total disregard to the impact on the nations downstream.

Click images to enlarge

Big Dams, Big Tunnels

Jinhe Dam

30 48 21 N, 97 19 58 E
Jinhe Dam, Chamdo Prefecture
Altitude: 3250 metres
Jinhe Dam is on Jinhe (Gold) River, a tributary of the Mekong. Dam capacity is 60MW. It is connected by a tunnel over a kilometre long to Jinhe HPP power station, on the Mekong. The tunnelling is not visible on Google Earth, but it is certainly there. This is a favoured configuration for Chinese dam-building at a V-bend of a river. China's tunnel engineering is probably the world's most sophisticated.

>> Next: Salt Lake Exploitation