Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: In a bid to tackle acute water shortage, China is now reportedly mulling constructing the world's biggest hydro-electric project on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River.
According to the Guardian, Chinese hydropower lobbyists are calling for such a project in order to harness the sources of renewable energy in the Himalayas.
Deputy general secretary of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, Zhang Boting, claims that a huge dam on the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo (Tibetan name for the river) would prove to be profitable to the world as it would produce clean energy.
But there are enough reasons for India and Bangladesh to be concerned as millions of their citizens are solely dependent on the river for water and hydroelectric power.
According to Zhang, research has been done, but no plan has been made as yet. However, documents on the website of a government agency suggest something else, According to the Guardian, the documents claim that a 38 gigawatt hydropower plant is under consideration, which would be having a capacity nearly half as large as the UK's national grid. The new dam would be 1.5 times the size of Three Gorges dam – currently the world’s biggest.
"This dam could save 200m tonnes of carbon each year. We should not waste the opportunity of the biggest carbon emission reduction project. For the sake of the entire world, all the water resources than can be developed should be developed."
Notably, that CO2 saving would be more than a third of the UK's entire emissions.
According to Tashi Tsering, a Tibetan scholar of environmental policy at the University of British Columbia, Tsangpo-Brahmaputra – until recently considered the last great undammed river in Tibet – will be the next focus of government efforts to increase the nation's power supply, reports the Guardian.
First Published: Tuesday, May 25, 2010, 13:28