It's interesting how China is still pushing ahead with huge hydroelectric power projects for South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, predominantly those along the Mekong and Irrawaddy river...
It's interesting how China is still pushing ahead with huge hydroelectric power projects for South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, predominantly those along the Mekong and Irrawaddy river basins. Because China has played an outsized role for nearly 2 decades in financing these megaprojects, they can also take the credit for helping to improve the quality of life for the people across large swathes of Southeast Asia and providing electricity to industrialized areas which improves manufacturing output.
That said, I view China's initiatives as a severe case of "debt-trap diplomacy," along with its Silk Road initiative. China is becoming the sole financier for so many projects across East Africa and southern Asia that they can claim to be doing it for the betterment of developing nations around it, but they aren't really doing it for altruistic reasons. And China stands to gain the most from pulling these countries into its sole sphere of influence and holding them there as a source of cheap labor and manufacturing for its own economic ascent.
Interestingly, one of China's own recent hydroelectric power facilities uses GE Vernova equipment. So the US or European nations could be supporting similar initiatives, but I suspect that traditional dams for hydroelectric are falling out of favor in the west due to red tape and more awareness of the severe environmental impacts that dams have that are difficult to quantify as being a net positive or net negative. Dams can have a negative short-term and long-term impacts on fish populations, habitat, and biodiversity, while also changing or even encouraging rapid evolution in some fish species' behaviors and environmental adaptations with the right dam types and locations selected. This of course also has a knock-on effect for fishermen and people immediately dependent on the food security the river previously provided, what fish species are capable of inhabiting post-dam waterways (both upstream and downstream), and so on. On the other hand, the dam can aid in meeting the needs of reservoirs for drinking water and irrigation for distant farmlands, which can dramatically improve food security. But as the article mentions these benefits can be claimed for the upstream country and not the downstream country, causing energy insecurity as well as political turmoil within a region. We've seen political hand-wringing from Mekong river nations for years about exactly that.
Edit: The Reuters article doesn't mention the estimated cost of this dam, just saying it would be more than the Three Gorges dam. The BBC cites a cost of "a trillion yuan ($127bn; £109.3bn) according to estimates by the Chongyi Water Resources bureau."
I wanted to also share this somewhat related and very recent article from the US Energy Information Administration (US EIA) about China's in-country pumped storage capacity. The map towards the...
I wanted to also share this somewhat related and very recent article from the US Energy Information Administration (US EIA) about China's in-country pumped storage capacity. The map towards the bottom of the article is kinda mind-blowing. That's a lot of future capacity that not only translates into environmentally friendly energy on-demand, but also energy security and independence.
It's interesting how China is still pushing ahead with huge hydroelectric power projects for South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, predominantly those along the Mekong and Irrawaddy river basins. Because China has played an outsized role for nearly 2 decades in financing these megaprojects, they can also take the credit for helping to improve the quality of life for the people across large swathes of Southeast Asia and providing electricity to industrialized areas which improves manufacturing output.
That said, I view China's initiatives as a severe case of "debt-trap diplomacy," along with its Silk Road initiative. China is becoming the sole financier for so many projects across East Africa and southern Asia that they can claim to be doing it for the betterment of developing nations around it, but they aren't really doing it for altruistic reasons. And China stands to gain the most from pulling these countries into its sole sphere of influence and holding them there as a source of cheap labor and manufacturing for its own economic ascent.
Interestingly, one of China's own recent hydroelectric power facilities uses GE Vernova equipment. So the US or European nations could be supporting similar initiatives, but I suspect that traditional dams for hydroelectric are falling out of favor in the west due to red tape and more awareness of the severe environmental impacts that dams have that are difficult to quantify as being a net positive or net negative. Dams can have a negative short-term and long-term impacts on fish populations, habitat, and biodiversity, while also changing or even encouraging rapid evolution in some fish species' behaviors and environmental adaptations with the right dam types and locations selected. This of course also has a knock-on effect for fishermen and people immediately dependent on the food security the river previously provided, what fish species are capable of inhabiting post-dam waterways (both upstream and downstream), and so on. On the other hand, the dam can aid in meeting the needs of reservoirs for drinking water and irrigation for distant farmlands, which can dramatically improve food security. But as the article mentions these benefits can be claimed for the upstream country and not the downstream country, causing energy insecurity as well as political turmoil within a region. We've seen political hand-wringing from Mekong river nations for years about exactly that.
Edit: The Reuters article doesn't mention the estimated cost of this dam, just saying it would be more than the Three Gorges dam. The BBC cites a cost of "a trillion yuan ($127bn; £109.3bn) according to estimates by the Chongyi Water Resources bureau."
I wanted to also share this somewhat related and very recent article from the US Energy Information Administration (US EIA) about China's in-country pumped storage capacity. The map towards the bottom of the article is kinda mind-blowing. That's a lot of future capacity that not only translates into environmentally friendly energy on-demand, but also energy security and independence.