World’s second largest dam built at rattling speed

World’s second largest dam built at rattling speed in just 4 years time.

The construction of Baihetan Dam (白鹤滩大坝) started in 2017 and is expected to meet its deadline to go operational this coming July. China’s newest giant 16GW hydropower on the upper section of the Yangtze River, known as Jingsha River, in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, will produce about 16 times more energy than the Hoover dam and is world’s second largest dam after the Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province.

Made from more than 8 million cbm concrete standing at a height of almost 300 meters in a remote and mountainous location, the speed of construction has raised many eyebrows, even in China. As a comparison, the Three Gorges Dam took about 8 years to completion in a convenient and accessible area earlier this century.

Artificial Intelligence with satellite overviews played an important factor in optimizing logistics and production advance and management. The dam will power millions of homes and industries as far as in coastal Jiangsu province. Nearly 100,000 residents have been relocated from the flooding area during the past years.

After Baihetan gears up to full capacity in late 2022, China will have completed five of the world’s 10-biggest hydropower plants in just 10 years. China’s dams generated more electricity in 2017 than the total supply of every other country in the world besides the U.S. and India.

#china #hydropower #hydroenergy #greenenergy #sustainability

Sources info and pictures : inkstone, scmp, xinhua, bloomberg