Work on China’s Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, was completed in 2006. Located on the Yangtze River, west of the city of Yichang in Hubei province, the project took 17 years and cost $37 billion to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purpose of the Three Gorges Dam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The hydroelectric dam now produces about 0.54 TWh of electricity per day, enough to power 5.4 million households for a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only does it power the communities, but the Chinese government has said the Three Gorges was necessary to stop the ongoing devastating floods in lower-lying areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, about 1.5 million locals were forced to flee their homes as 13 cities and 140 towns across the country were flooded to make way for the project. And now, the country has proposed an even bigger hydroelectric dam along the Yarlung Zangbo River, which could be three times more powerful than the Three Gorges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This has environmental experts worried; especially considering the impact the Three Gorges Dam has already had on our planet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did the dam slow the Earth’s rotation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The US space agency was concerned about a number of factors, including disease, pollution, landslides and seismic activity issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NASA explained on its Earth Observatory website: “The epic scale of the dam project is matched by the level of controversy it continues to generate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Concerns about significant environmental impacts, the relocation of 1.2 million people, and the flooding of 13 cities, more than 1,300 villages, archaeological sites, and hazardous waste dumps were raised throughout the planning and implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Environmental concerns include increased seismicity from water loading, landslides, altered ecosystems, accumulated pollution, increased potential for waterborne diseases, and salinity changes in the Yangtze estuary.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n As if that weren’t enough, the dam has also affected the Earth’s rotation as it travels through the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NASA explained that large changes in where mass is located on Earth can have small effects on how our planet rotates – known as its inertia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, a geophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, explained that the giant dam has a capacity of 40 cubic kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s the equivalent of 10 trillion gallons of water – similar to the amount of mass displaced in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which measured 9.1 on the Richter scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NASA said the quake shortened the length of the day by 2.68 microseconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast, the space agency says that when the Three Gorges Dam is at its fullest, it actually creates a very small drag on the Earth’s rotation – making the day longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Chao’s own calculations say it would increase the length of a day by 0.06 microseconds as well as shift the position of the Earth’s pole by about two centimeters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While these changes may be marginal – and can be caused by natural disasters – it certainly serves as a warning\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Work on China’s Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, was completed in 2006. Located on the Yangtze River, west of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2810,1168],"tags":[161,4127,3983,805,6500,6501],"class_list":["post-22473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate_environment","category-science-technology","tag-china","tag-dams","tag-earth","tag-nasa","tag-rotation","tag-three-gorges-dam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22475,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22473\/revisions\/22475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}