Three Gorges Dam，China

The Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Dam is a construction project unlike anything the world has ever seen . Structures like the Itaipu Dam in Brazil , the Petronus Towers , and even Hoover Dam pale in comparison to this massive public works project . The only projects that compare are the Coliseum , the Grand Canal , and the Great Wall of China and these only because of the difficulty of the era that they were constructed in (Socyberty .com

Introduction

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river , in the Hubei province of China

, is not only the world 's largest hydroelectric dam , it is the largest electricity generating plant of any kind in existence . Spanning a length of nearly 2 .5 kilometers , it is a monumental feat of engineering , a tribute to China 's economic and technological might

At the same time , it is also a most controversial project because of its huge negative impact on the surrounding environment . Its 660 kilometer long reservoir has displaced 1 .3 million people in the densely populated Yangtze valley (Miller , Spoolman , 329 . While it cannot be denied that the dam is wreaking a good deal of havoc upon the local environment just as it was predicted , it will also do a lot of good to the world 's environment in general by dispensing with the need of burning 30 million tons of coal every year . Besides producing the cleanest conventional form of electricity , the dam also significantly increases the Yangtze 's navigation capacity and dramatically...