Tibet: an Endangered Paradise?

Chen Guanguo, the Communist Party Secretary in Tibet affirmed he will protect Tibet 'last piece of pure land on earth'.
According to China Tibet Online, Chen affirmed “Tibet will take environmental protection as the bottom line, lifeline.”
What does this mean?
For Chen, the time has come “to ban the projects with big energy consumption, high emission and serious pollution [and] implement the exclusive approval mechanism of projects related to mineral resources development.”
The Party boss speaks of “one-vote veto mechanism in order to protect the ecological condition on the plateau.”
Lobsang Gyaltsen, chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region’s (TAR) Government confirmed that “Tibet would never introduce energy-consuming processing lines or products with high pollution and emission in its economic development, nor erode vast area of land, pollute drinking water, rivers or groundwater, nor cause any severe ecological disaster by any human action.”
That sounds good.

The tourists arrive

China Tibet Online reminds its readers that Tibet, The Third Pole is the waterhead of South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as the ‘regulator’ of the climate of the Mainland 'as well as the eastern hemisphere at large'.
The Chinese site, quoting the Environment Report 2012 asserts that "the water, air and soil has been kept intact in the whole region, and most of the areas have been in their state of nature with no accidents ever occurred due to major pollution. Up to now, Tibet remains one of the areas with the best environment on the globe".
The Government in Lhasa conveniently forgets the wild mining projects.
The Department of Environmental Protection of the Tibet Autonomous Region mentions that by the end of 2012, 47 nature reserves have been set up with the total area of 412,200 square kilometers, taking up 34.35 percent of the whole region, which ranks the first in the entire China.
The Nyingchi Prefecture, north of the Indian border (Arunachal) “has been noted for its natural environment as beautiful as that in Switzerland and, and some of its villages or small towns have become hot tourists spots home and abroad, which have brought about economic returns for the local farmers”, says the China Tibet Online.

Apparently, the TART government follows the principle of "development in protection and protection in development" and projects have to go through an approval mechanism before being implemented.
Chen gave the assurance that during the next five years, “Tibet will beef up its efforts in building up an ecological safety barrier to make it an eco-friendly, economically advanced and livable home to its residents.”
Obviously, everything is relative and compared to other areas in China, Tibet is much better off.

Compared to Beijing
Emily Brill wrote an interesting piece in The Atlantic.
She explains: “When I moved to Beijing from New York in February to study Chinese, a question began to haunt me: Could Beijing’s air in 2013 be more dangerous than the toxic brew produced by the 9/11 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center, which hung over Lower Manhattan for months, sickening thousands of firefighters, recovery workers, and ordinary New York residents?”
She remarked: “Every morning, I would wake up in my apartment in central Beijing barely able to see the buildings across the street. Then, I would check online for postings from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which uses a device on its roof to measure air quality each hour of the day. Despite intensifying media coverage of Beijing’s bad air—especially around the “airpocalypse” in January, when pollution levels in Beijing climbed well above the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) upper threshold for air that is hazardous even to healthy adults—I often found myself at pains to express to friends just how alarmed I was by the air outside my window. My friends in the U.S. could not seem to fathom it and my Beijing friends seemed used to it, even numb. As a native New Yorker, in addition to being the life-changing tragedy and wake-up call that it was for every American, 9/11 was what I considered the worst air pollution disaster of my lifetime. Could that experience help put the severity of Beijing’s air pollution into comparative perspective?”
Well, Tibet is certainly better than Beijing and other large metropolises in China, but despite Mr. Chen’s promises, will it remain so?
Fifteen millions of tourists every year are a polluting factor. Uttarakhand has recently tragically discovered that eco- or religious tourism can be destructive simply because it means more roads, more hotels, more dams to provide comfort to the visitors who ‘consume’ more during their holidays, and this in a fragile environment.
And what about the mineral wealth of Tibet, is Mr. Chen going to stop legal and illegal mining?
And the dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo and other rivers, will Mr. Chen stop their construction?
It is doubtful. In the years to come, Tibet will probably catch up very fast with Beijing and other mainland cities.
In the meantime, Beijing has decided to reduce levels of atmospheric pollutants in Beijing by as much as 25 % to try to improve the air quality in the Chinese capital.
In a policy document, the State Council promised that “concentrations of fine particles” in Beijing’s air will fall by “approximately 25 %” from 2012 levels by 2017, while other cities including Shanghai will see reductions of between 10 and 20 % from 2012 levels over the same period.
Let us hope for the best, but wild development usually does not rhyme with ‘safe air’ and 'nature paradise'.

Dams and the Civil Society

 

Interestingly, China seems to becoming more open than India as far as dam construction and safety is concerned.
For example the minutes of  Report of the Technical Expert Group on Brahmaputra Water Diversion (2009) prepared by the Government of India are still classified despite members of the civil society asking for it under RTI. 
Who is this civil society anyway, will ask the Government? But it is another issue.
The Times of India recently reported that the Arunachal Pradesh government and Neepco, the project authority of the 405-MW Ranganadi Hydro Electric Project (RHEP), were accused of robbing the livelihood of indigenous tribals living in the downstream areas of the Ranganadi by depriving them of the water of the river. 
The Lichi Cher Ranganadi Project Affected Area Management Committee (LCRPAAMC) asserted: "The affected people are now feeling that their traditional right over natural resources has been completely snatched with 100 per cent diversion of the waters of the Ranganadi on which the livelihood of many indigenous tribals was entirely dependent. ...The law-abiding citizens of downstream areas wholeheartedly welcomed the project commissioned in 2002 keeping in mind the economic interest of backward and younger states like ours. In the beginning, it was expected that the problems being faced by the downstream people like heavy siltation, complete extinction of aquatic lives and floods due to construction of the dam would be addressed by the stakeholders. But nothing has happened till today."
The petition continue in this vein.
The LCRPAAMC, at a meeting on August 18 asked that Neepco authorities to release 50 % of the Ranganadi in the downstream areas to revive aquatic life.
Unless they start a fast at the Ramlila Maidan, who will listen to them?
Dams safety is of course another issue, but it is high time that it is looked into. 
Is not the responsibility of any Government to take care of its citizens?

Dams gone wrong: Is danger lurking in China’s dams?
(August 24, 2011)
One of China’s premier investigative news agencies reveals China’s dams “are like ticking time bombs”: beset by disaster, flaws, poor construction, neglect, and fraud.

Chinese officials are beginning to admit to problems at the country’s showcase Three Gorges dam, but little has been said about the safety of Three Gorges and China’s 87,000 other dams. Now, a report from Southern Weekend (one of China’s premier investigative news agencies) reveals shocking details about dam collapses and other safety concerns presented to a meeting of the Chinese National Committee on Large Dams. Never before have such details of dams gone wrong been revealed to the public. Even Southern Weekend’s seasoned investigative journalists were taken aback to learn of the spillway tunnels that have been destroyed by flood waters, of flood discharge channels ripped apart as if by a bomb, and the collapse of one dam after only 13 hours in operation. Cracks have appeared in the shiplock of the Three Gorges dam — some 733 of them with a total length of 4,688 metres. Meanwhile, the Danjiangkou dam, which is slated to divert water to Beijing as a part of China’s South-North Water Diversion project also has cracks. In all, 3,481 dam collapse incidents have occurred in the 50 years from 1954 to 2003. Officials are now scrambling to shore up a host of poorly constructed and neglected dams, and to raise the standards for the very tall dams China is building in seismically active areas of the country.
Read Probe International’s translation of Southern Weekend’s original article below, published by Southern Weekend (Nanfang zhoumo) on July 07, 2011
By Lu Zongshu and Shen Nianzu
China has built over 87,000 hydro dams, more than any other country in the world. Hydro dams and reservoirs perform many functions including flood control, power generation, irrigation, and water supply and so forth, but the issue of dam safety has always been treated as a sensitive subject. Now, incidents at a number of dams and reservoirs have cast doubt on the quality of these projects, but they are rarely reported to the general public.

Shocking dam incidents
A nation-wide survey focusing on key dams and reservoirs in China will be carried out, but the authorities have yet to disclose details. Given the recent debates about whether dams and reservoirs have caused droughts and floods, this idea is interesting and significant.
The announcement that the survey will be carried out was made at the 2011 Annual Conference of the Chinese National Committee on Large Dams (CNCLD). Zhang Rushi, Deputy Director of the Work Safety Department of the Ministry of Water Resources made the announcement and stated that, through surveys and field investigations, the study aims to discover the true situation with China’s hydro dams.
On June 18, 2011, about three hundred leading experts in China’s water resources and hydropower industry gathered in Yichang, Hubei Province, to attend the Annual Conference held by the CNCLD. The participants included Wang Shucheng, former Minister of Water Resources and current chairman of the CNCLD, and Lu Youmei, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and former general manager of the Three Gorges Corporation.
“Dam safety” was among the most oft-mentioned words by the experts at the conference. “Safety comes first,” insisted Wang Shucheng. “Dam safety should always be put first in the construction of hydro dams. We should not be the people who are condemned by history, feeling ashamed and regretful for what we have done to the motherland and to our people.”
During his presentation at the CNCLD meeting, Zhou Jianping, chief engineer of the China Hydropower Engineering Consulting Group, showed the audience about ten photos of different dam accidents. These images, never before disclosed, shocked the general audience, but especially reporters from the media. Afterwards, reporters from Southern Weekend did a great deal of research, but could find little detail about the incidents on the Internet.
The first picture was about the Ertan Hydropower Station built on the Yalong River (a tributary of the Yangtze, in Sichuan Province), whose spillway tunnel was completely destroyed by flood waters. For the general, non-technical audience, like us, it was especially difficult to imagine how such a solid reinforced concrete structure could be washed away and broken into pieces like a heap of loose sand. As the speaker, Zhou Jianping said, it was very fortunate that they found the problem in time and fixed it, or the Ertan dam would have been seriously threatened.
Another photo caused a buzz in the audience: the flood spillway of the Sanbanxi dam in Jinping County, in southeast Guizhou Province, was totally destroyed on July 26, 2007, after only 13 hours of operation. Apparently, there was a problem with the quality of construction, causing as much as 13,000 cubic meters of concrete and rock to wash away, leaving a pit as deep as 11 meters, or the equivalent of a three-story high building. According to Zhou Jianping, the consequences could have been disastrous if floods had occurred at the same time and the operators were unable to close the sluice gates.
At the Jinghong dam, built on the Lancang-Mekong River and lauded as one of the most important hydro dams in Yunnan Province, the flood discharge channel twice suffered serious damage from floods, once in 2008 and then again in 2009. As the picture illustrated, the channel was torn open like a big mouth as if blown up by a bomb, with steel bars hanging around like withered plants.
Another of the incidents resulted in casualties: as Zhou Jianping explained, the road leading to the site of the Jishixia dam on the Yellow River in Qinghai Province suddenly collapsed one evening as a result of silt being discharged. Drivers of two vehicles unknowingly drove along the damaged road, crashing into the Yellow River. At least eight people are still missing.
In his speech to the conference, Zhou Jianping concluded that the accidents were the result of low standards, including inadequately prepared surveys, unscientific design and construction plans, mismanaged construction, absence of quality control and supervision, and even fraud in building materials. All of these factors have contributed to the poor quality of dam projects and compromised the safety of dams.

Regulations lag behind reality
Pan Jiazheng, one of the founders of China’s hydropower industry and an expert in water resources, often warned that any errors and oversights in dam design and construction would compromise the quality of the projects. Dealing with the aftermath of these problems would be more costly, he said, including the loss of innocent lives.
For example, on August 27, 1993, the dyke in the Gouhou reservoir in Qinghai Province burst, killing 288 people (the dam’s height is 71 m). Back in August 1975, two large reservoirs, Banqiao and Shimantan, together with two other medium reservoirs and 58 small reservoirs in the Zhumadian area of Henan Province, collapsed one after another, in just a few hours.[i] Ten counties and towns in Zhumadian were flooded by as much as 5.7 billion cubic meters of water, and 26,000 people died as a result.
Dams under construction are also encountering problems. The Xiluodu hydropower station, for instance, China’s second largest hydropower dam on the Jinsha River, has been experiencing construction problems going back to 2010. Engineers and workers on the construction site found that, after pouring hundreds of cubic meters of concrete, the template was incorrectly positioned. A person familiar with the situation said that the financial cost of the mistake was not big, but the time lost to removing the concrete (which had already solidified), and re-pouring it, seriously affected the project’s schedule.
According to a 2009 report by the Sinohydro Engineering Bureau 3 Company Limited, entitled, “A summary report on technological research dealing with problems at hydraulic structures,” problems have occurred at a number of dams: cracks were discovered in section 6 of the Danjiangkou dam (on the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze [ii]; leaks occurred in the Shiban hydrodam structure in Fuling (formerly in Sichuan Province and currently a District of Chongqing Municipality[iii]; leaks also occurred in the Tianshengqiao tunnel of the Erlangba hydrodam in Shaanxi Province; and concrete defects have been found in the shiplock of the Three Gorges dam project. In fact, according to a 2006 survey of Three Gorges, 733 cracks, with a total length of 4,688 meters, on both the eastbound and westbound channels of the shiplock, have leaked water. But, the survey said, these cracks were subsequently repaired in order to meet the design requirements “through professional treatment.”
As the Chinese media put it ironically, China’s hydropower construction has entered a “Great Leap Forward,” with the giant power companies divvying up watersheds and rushing to construct hydropower projects. According to recent news, the Three Gorges Group is accelerating its construction of four giant hydro dams on the Jinsha River that will generate twice the power output of Three Gorges if all the projects go into operation.
This situation worries the older generation of hydropower experts. As Wang Shucheng explained, it used to take years to prepare surveys and investigations before construction of a dam began. Now the job is usually done in a hurry, he added. Especially worrying, many large projects are being built in southwest China where the geological conditions are complicated and the area is seismically active. For that reason, it will be particularly dangerous to build dams without a sound plan and without implementing it stringently, Mr. Wang warned.
According to information provided by CNCLD, as of 2009, China had built and was constructing 5,443 hydro dams with a height greater than 30 meters. Thirteen of those are higher than 200 meters. But the “Dam Safety Regulations,” which are meant to govern dam construction in China, were issued in 1991 and apply only to dams up to a maximum height of 200 meters.
“The problem is that the regulations lag behind the reality,” Zhang Rushi, Deputy Director of the Work Safety Department of the Ministry of Water Resources told the 2011 CNCLD conference. Because the regulations are inadequate when it comes to meeting current needs for dam safety, it is a high priority that they be revised.
China’s poorly constructed dams and those that have become dangerous after years of neglect are like ticking time bombs. According to an earlier report about dam incidents entitled “Statistics and Preliminary Analysis of Incidents with Dams and Reservoirs in China,” more than half of China’s reservoirs were built between 1950 and 1980, most under conditions known as “building while investigating, and building while designing.” These circumstances led to low standards and poor quality construction. To make matters worse, most are today in a dangerous state of ill-repair after decades of operation (see charts below).

Note: The data in Chart 2 comes from statistics gathered between 1954 and 2003. Dams in Chongqing Municipality are included in Sichuan Province’s statistics because Chongqing Municipality did not exist at the time, but came under the jurisdiction of Sichuan Province. Source: “Statistics and Preliminary Analysis of Incidents with Dams and Reservoirs in China,” by He Xiaoyan, Wang Zhaoyin and Huang Jinchi, and Ding Liuqian. (Charts by Li Bogen).
Based on the statistics provided by He Xiaoyan (one of the authors of “Statistics and Preliminary Analysis of Incidents with Dams and Reservoirs in China,” who is now working in the Department of Flood-Control and Disaster Reduction of the China Institute for Water Resources and Hydropower Research), there were a total of 3,481 dam collapse incidents in the 50 years from 1954 to 2003 (excluding Taiwan). He Xiaoyan points out that:
“Inadequate flood-discharging capacity and problems with project quality were the main causes of dam failure and collapse; 96.4% of the reservoirs where these incidents occurred were small ones.”
China has become increasingly concerned about dam safety and has repaired and reinforced 9,225 poorly constructed and dangerous reservoirs in the past ten years. In the last three years alone, 64.5 billion yuan RMB has been spent. In the next five years, 41,000 reservoirs are set to be repaired, requiring large financial commitments from state budgets.
As Zhang Rushi said, the preparatory work for the nationwide survey of big dams and reservoirs has already been done. The investigation will now be carried out by the Ministry of Water Resources, together with the State Administration of Work Safety, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Ministry of Water Resources, together with the State Administration of Work Safety, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Click here to read the original article published in the Southern Weekend.

The Civil Society in China

Things are moving fast in China, faster than in India, at least on the environment front.
The civil society is becoming more and more vociferous about the quality of the environment. 
In the case related by Jonathan Watts, the government had ultimately to bend.
One wishes that similar movements could happen in India where till recently the Government argued that they was no proof that endosulfan could be dangerous for the public. 
Fortunately, on May 13 the Supreme Court ordered a countrywide ban on manufacture, sale and use of the cheap and popular pesticide. 
The Court said that the endosulfan had toxic effects on humans and environment. 
Last week, the Supreme Court refused to relax countrywide ban.
The court said right to life was above all other interests and considerations and it could not 'take on its head' a single child getting affected by the pesticide during the period when the Centre-appointed expert committee conducted tests to determine endosulfan's toxicity.
The Court was wise because it may take decades for the government to prove the toxicity of the pesticide (certain lobbies are very influential!!). 
The question is: where is the Indian civil society in the story?
Nowhere!

China orders petrochemical plant shutdown after protests
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
Guardian.co.uk,
14 August 2011
Chinese authorities have ordered a petrochemical plant to shut down immediately after tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of a nearby city, demanding the factory be relocated.
The demonstration in Dalian – one of the biggest in a series of recent Nimby rallies against potential polluters in China – was sparked by the news last week that a protective dike around the Fujia factory, in the Jinzhou industrial complex, had been breached by rain and high waves as typhoon Muifa approached.
In a rare concession the local Communist party chief, Tang Jun, and Dalian's mayor, Li Wancai, promised to move the project out of the city, Xinhua reported.
The protesters demanded a clear timetable for moving the plant, with some refusing to leave until a plan was in place, the state-run news agency said.
Minor scuffles were reported at the demonstration, but the ranks of riot police mostly looked on as the largely peaceful and white-collar crowd – variously estimated at 10,000 to 70,000 – assembled without a permit in People's Square.
Some chanted old revolutionary songs, and others held banners spelling out local concerns about the factory, which produces paraxylene (PX), a benzene-based chemical widely used in plastic bottles and polyester clothing.
Mobile phone photographs of the protest have circulated rapidly on the internet. Slogans included "PX Out!", "Refuse PX", "PX out of Dalian". Some protesters wore gas masks; others stood on top of a police car.
The gathering was organised through websites such as Sina Weibo and Renren, despite the efforts of censors to remove comments calling for action. David Gao, a local student, said the demonstration grew so large that it expanded beyond the concrete square outside the city government office and into local streets.
"We need to kick the PX factory out of Dalian to protect our environment," he said. "If something as serious as the storm happens again, it will be a disaster.
No poisons are thought to have leaked during last week's storm, but thousands of local residents were evacuated. Some said they did not trust official reports. "Even if there was contamination, the government would restrict the news," said Cindy Xin, who was taking part in a demonstration for the first time.
Concerns about the safety of the plant were heightened by reports that Chinese reporters who went to investigate were denied access and beaten by security guards.
PX plants are far from being the most dangerous of China's chemical facilities, but they have proved politically toxic. In 2007, tens of thousands of people in the southern city of Xiamen went on a protest walk against a PX plant, prompting the local government to move the facility out of its jurisdiction.
Several of the online notices about the Dalian protests referred to the Xiamen case, to a large oil spill in Dalian last year and to recent leaks from an oil field in the nearby Bohai Sea that went unreported for a month.

Looking at the wrong place with the wrong lens

Sometimes news found in the main Indian press can be flabbergasting. Take the case of the purported ‘diversion’ of the Yarlung Tsangpo.
A serious national newspaper spoke of the “Yarlang Tsangpo, it is what the Brahmaputra River is called in Mandarin”. The Yarlung (and not Yarlang) Tsangpo is the Tibetan name for the river originating near Mt Kailash, it has nothing to do with Mandarin. A mere detail!
The article further says that the Ministry of Water Resources has asked the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for a report on the Chinese building activities near the Great Bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo, as it enters into Indian territory: “Sources do not rule out the possibility that the ‘new’ images could be of existing structures, since the resolution of India's satellite images has increased substantially in recent months. The resolution has gone up from 181m to 10cm. This means structures, which have been there, are now visible in much greater detail.”
Great news, but the NRSC scientists are wasting their time looking for structures near the Grand Bend of the Brahmaputra: the diversion is planned a few hundred kilometers upstream, near the city of Tsetang.
Had the Ministry done its homework before sending a request to NRSC?
External Affairs Minister SM Krishna is also not a good pupil: he mixes the ‘diversion scheme’ with the dams being built on the Brahmaputra, when, answering a question on the diversion, he affirms that Zangmu Dam “is no cause of concern to India as it is a ‘run off the river’ dam”.
In fact, Beijing is planning a string of 6 dams in this area in Lengda, Zhongda, Langzhen, Jiexu, Jiacha and Zangmu.
No need to mention here the utopian dream of a 38 Gws power station (nearly twice the size of the Three Gorges Dam) in the Great Bend, near the Indian border; there are too many geological and technical issues involved to be taken seriously in the decades to come.
The smaller dams (about 500Mws each) are not directly linked with the diversion scheme which is proposed to be built a few hundred kilometers upstream. It would make no technical sense to have such a project at a relatively lower altitude near the Great Bend, when the waters can be pushed up towards the north from a much higher altitude, near Tsetang in Central Tibet.
Headlines Today mentioned a top secret report prepared by the Cabinet Secretariat in Delhi on June 13 which would state: “Beijing is not responding to India's concerns on the Brahmaputra dam. There is an urgent need to take up this issue with China as these dams will 'severely impact' the flow of water into India."
According to the same source, SM Krishna would have assured Assam CM Tarun Gogoi that “ISRO satellite maps showed no construction”.
No construction where?
On November 15, 2010, The People’s Daily had announced: “The Brahmaputra River, which has long been praised as a ‘heavenly river’, was dammed for the first time on November 12 …the Zangmu Hydropower Station, the first large hydropower station in Tibet, will soon begin its main construction.” In fact, the construction had been started several months earlier.

But let us go back to the source of the ‘diversion’ story.
A couple of weeks ago, Prof. Wang Guangqian, a senior scientist at Chinese Academy of Sciences Engineering was quoted as saying: “Chinese experts have raised a new proposal to divert water from the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River to the country’s northwestern province of Xinjiang”.
Prof Wang’s project is a variant of a scheme prepared some 10 years ago by two Chinese engineers: Gao Kai, a retired PLA General, considered by many as the father of the mega scheme and his colleague Li Ling who wrote a book Tibet's water will Save China. The project was then called the Shuomatan Canal (from Suma Tan in Central Tibet to Tanjing in China).
Interestingly, Wang Guangqian seems to have the backing of Li Ruihuan, a former member of the Standing Committee of the CCP's Politburo and former Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Many in the PLA as well as the mega dam companies are said to be supporting the project.
Wang Guangqian spoke about the proposed route: “Brahmaputra waters are expected to be rerouted to Xinjiang along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Hexi Corridor – part of the Northern Silk Road located in Gansu Province”.
Wang admitted: “We thought this would be a plan 50 years later,” adding that presently Chinese experts and governmental officials are still studying the possible impacts (technical and political) of the proposal.
The Chinese engineers are clearly conducting a ‘feasibility study’, no construction has started.
But the project, planned to be undertaken in 50 years time, might now start much earlier: “Faced with severe challenges brought by reduced water resources and a severe drought that has affected a large portion of the country, China has started to consider diverting water from the Brahmaputra River.”
One can reasonably think that it would begin in 10 years at the earliest, keeping in mind that it is a political decision which could only be taken at the highest level of the Chinese State by President Hu Jintao’s successors.

The issue
An article by Zhang Ke on the website chinadialogue.net provided more information. Wang Guangqian admitted that his proposal, also called the Major Western Route, has been inspired by the work of Guo Kai.
The hard fact: fast developing China has less and less water and Beijing has to locate possible sources of water to survive. Scientists are looking in the only two possible directions: the sea (the Bobai Sea) or the mountains (the Tibetan plateau).
Wang quoted a survey by the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Figures from the Chinese Academy of Sciences showing that “rivers on the Qinghai-Tibet and Yunnan-Guizhou plateaus, including the Yarlung Tsangpo, Salween and Mekong, carry between 637 billion cubic metres and 810 billion cubic metres of water out of China each year”.
What disturbs some Chinese engineers is that most of these rivers flow down to India and South-East Asia, becoming the Brahmaputra, Salween and Mekong; in other words, the waters are ‘wasted’ for China.
The diversion project envisaged by Wang (and Gao Kai) could move some 200 billion cubic metres of water a year up to Northwestern China – the equivalent of four Yellow Rivers.
According to Li Ling, the Institute of Advanced Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is using supercomputers and data modeling to simulate the project and evaluate its feasibility. Wang Guangqian himself works with the South-North Water Transfer office to prepare a ‘scientific’ report.
In 2006, the Chinese government pretended that 'a few mad men' were thinking of this pharaonic project, but if these few 'mad men' (supported by a former Politburo's Standing Committee member) are able to use the super computers of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for their calculations, they may not be as mad as painted by the Government.
Three important factors have to be understood.

One, China’s hydropower lobbies have a financial interest in ‘concretizing’ the project as soon as possible. Last week, an article in The Financial Times affirmed: “China’s Three Gorges Project Corporation has proposed a $15bn hydropower scheme to Pakistan to dam the Indus river valley at several points, in a project aimed at controlling floods and tackling electricity shortages.” Dams, whether in Pakistan or Tibet, mean big business and the large Chinese corporations will continue to lobby hard to get these projects through.

The second crucial factor is the cost-benefit perspective. The Chinese leadership is down-to-earth, rational. A friend who worked on the issue told me: “If the price of transferring water is cheaper than conservation or getting water from the sea, China will go ahead.” Why divert the Brahmaputra and risk a conflict with India, if there is a possibility to avoid it?

Three, China badly needs water and can’t import it.
The diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: to take water from the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea on the coast of Northeastern China and push it up to Xinxiang.

The rationale remains, China needs to:

1. To stop the desertification in Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia
2. To help a dry and polluted Yellow River flow again
3. To feed its people, for which large amounts of water are required for agriculture

If such grandiose and seemingly unrealizable projects are even thought of, it is because the situation is quite desperate and nobody is able to foresee any ‘realizable’ solution.
So far, China has refused to collaborate with downstream States. When in May 1997, when the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, China was one of 3 countries voting against. The rather mild Convention "aimed at guiding States in negotiating agreements on specific watercourses”.
In the long run, whether it will be by adopting such a Convention or by signing a bilateral treaty like the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) between India and Pakistan, Beijing has no choice but to collaborate with its downstream neighbours on a crucial issue like water on which the future of Asia depends. The current ‘imperialist’ attitude does not tally with the status of ‘responsible power’ which China is striving for.

The Bohai Diversion project

Apparently, the diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: the idea is to pump water from the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea on the coast of Northeastern China and push it up to Xinxiang.
The Chinese press reported that on November 5, 2010, the Xinjiang People’s Government Development Research Center and Institute of Western and Eastern Economy sponsored a conference in Wushi to discuss 'The Plan for the Diversion of Sea Water to Western China'.
Over 120 experts from throughout China gathered to find a solution to the water issue which is obstacle for Xinjiang's development: “Huo Youguang, a professor at Xian Transportation University, along with Chen Changli, a professor at China University of Geosciences, came up with the basic idea of diverting seawater from the Bohai Sea to Xinjiang. They believe that such a diversion project can thoroughly improve the deteriorating environmental conditions of north and northwest China.”
Later, it was announced that the Development and Reform Commission [Planning Commission] of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning province had approved the project and that five construction sites related to the project had become operational. This was later denied.
On November 17, 2010, Xinhua published a news item under the title Experts: Water diversion from Bohai to Xinjiang unfeasible (see below).
A similar discussion will probably take place for the Great Western Diversion (the diversion of the Brahmaputra).
Some scientists/bureaucrats will say it is ‘impossible’; some will argue, 'we can do it'.
The fact remains that today, China is badly in needs:
1- To stop the desertification in Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia
2- To have the Yellow running again
3- To feed its people (for which water is required)
If such grandiose and seemingly unrealizable projects are even thought of, it is because the situation is quite desperate and nobody is able to foresee any better solution.
But Beijing should look again into the disastrous performances of the Gorges Dam and the two first legs of the Diversion scheme (Eastern and Central parts) before taking a hurried decision.

Experts: Water diversion from Bohai to Xinjiang unfeasible
November 17, 2010
Source:Xinhua   
A proposal to divert water from the Bohai Sea on China's eastern coast to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far west to fight deserts and sandstorms is "unfeasible" and an "illusion," water resources scientists and experts said Tuesday.
They made the remarks while responding to questions at a press conference in Beijing concerning a study on Xinjiang's water strategy and sustainable development.
Shi Yulin, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a research fellow at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the salt contained in the huge amount of diverted sea water could further encrust the saline land in Xinjiang.
Li Zechun, an academician at Chinese Academy of Engineering, and former director of National Climate Center, said the sea water could not produce sufficient vapor to create enough rainfall to affect the climate in northwestern regions.
Ning Yuan, former deputy director and research fellow of the South-North Water Diversion Project Commission (SNWDPC) of the State Council, said the Bohai Sea was 5,000 km from Xinjiang, five times the distance of the South-North Water Diversion from Danjiangkou, in central Hubei Province, to Beijing.
That meant the laying of a pipeline, the huge cost of the project, and the water distribution were all problems "beyond imagination," Ning said.
In a widely reported meeting on November 5 in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, researchers and local government officials discussed the proposal to divert water from east China to the west.
According to the proposal, the huge amount of sea water, if diverted to the west, could form man-made lakes and rivers and serve as vapor source to create more rainfall to contain the threat of desertification in north and northwest China.

Large Dams, large problems

It is probably the first time that the State Council (the Chinese Cabinet) acknowledges serious problems for the Three Gorges Dam. "Urgent problems must be resolved regarding the smooth relocation of residents, ecological protection, and geological disaster prevention", affirms the Statement of the Council chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao. 
This article of Reuters quotes Dai Qing, an environmental activist who said the damage caused by the dam in some cases is irreversible.
In the post Fukushima era, one can expect that all governments will honestly study the geology around these mega plants: "The most serious threat is that of geological disasters. Now that the dam is in place, no amount of money can fix the problem. It fundamentally cannot be resolved," said Dai.
Will this trigger new researches into the most seismic region of the planet: the Tibetan plateau? 
One can hope so. The construction of myriads of dams on the Tibetan rivers should take into account this issue which cannot solved once the dams are built. 

China acknowledges downside to Three Gorges dam
Reuters, Wed May 18, 2011
Michael Martina
BEIJING May 18 (Reuters) - China's landmark Three Gorges Dam project provides benefits to the Chinese people, but has created a myriad of urgent problems from the relocation of more than a million residents to risks of geological disasters, the Chinese government said on Thursday.
The statement from China's State Council, or cabinet, marked a rare acknowledgment of the issues that have shadowed the world's largest dam, an engineering feat designed to tame the Yangtze River that snakes from the Tibetan plateau to Shanghai.
"At the same time that the Three Gorges project provides huge comprehensive benefits, urgent problems must be resolved regarding the smooth relocation of residents, ecological protection, and geological disaster prevention," the statement said, which appeared on the government's website (www.gov.cn).
Premier Wen Jiabao presided over the meeting that produced the statement, which also said problems existed for down-river transport, irrigation and water supplies.
Problems emerged at various stages of project planning and construction but could not be solved immediately, and some arose because of "increased demands brought on by economic and social development", the statement said.
The government said it would continue to address the problems caused by the dam, and vowed to set-up disaster alert systems and increased funding for environmental protection.
Enormously expensive and disruptive, the dam has cost over 254 billion yuan ($37.47 billion) and forced the relocation of 1.3 million people to make way for the reservoir. [ID:nTOE66M01Q]
Towns, fields and historical and archaeological sites have been submerged, just as pollution and geological threats have risen around the slopes around the 660-km (410-mile) reservoir.
Last year, China's media began fretting about whether the dam could meet one if its long-term objectives of flood control and officials have since been toning down claims of its flood-taming abilities.
Dai Qing, an environmental activist who has opposed the Three Gorges project said the damage caused by the dam is in some cases irreversible, and in other cases would require vast sums of money to resolve.
"The most serious threat is that of geological disasters. Now that the dam is in place, no amount of money can fix the problem. It fundamentally cannot be resolved," she said.
Dai said that Wen and President Hu Jintao, trained in geological and hydraulic engineering respectively, did not appear at a celebration ceremony for the opening of the dam because as industry insiders they were aware of the risks of the project.
"There is no question that the problems with the dam are extremely serious, but this statement is likely just an attempt to shirk responsibility," she said. (Editing by Alex Richardson)

China, Shale Gas and Earthquakes

While a debate is raging in Europe, and more particularly in France, whether the exploitation of shale gas is safe or not, China has decided to go for this relatively new source of energy, extensively used in the United States since a few years.
A long article in The New York Times (Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers) explains: "

The gas has always been there, of course, trapped deep underground in countless tiny bubbles, like frozen spills of seltzer water between thin layers of shale rock. But drilling companies have only in recent years developed techniques to unlock the enormous reserves, thought to be enough to supply the country with gas for heating buildings, generating electricity and powering vehicles for up to a hundred years.
So energy companies are clamoring to drill. And they are getting rare support from their usual sparring partners. Environmentalists say using natural gas will help slow climate change because it burns more cleanly than coal and oil. Lawmakers hail the gas as a source of jobs. They also see it as a way to wean the United States from its dependency on other countries for oil.
But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas."

Since the projection of a documentary Gasland on the extraction methods, shale gas has become highly controversial.
Another report from Reuters China set to unearth shale power goes into detail about China's efforts to get the new technology. It states "China has spent billions in its hunt for energy across the globe, but it may have untold riches in its own backyard." 
Not only the extraction of the shale gas is extremely polluting for the aquifers, but according to some recent scientific studies, it could provoke earthquakes.
A scientific report "Potential Connection Between Earthquakes and Saltwater Injection" says: 

A study of seismic activity near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport by researchers from SMU and UT-Austin reveals that the operation of a saltwater injection disposal well in the area was a "plausible cause" for the series of small earthquakes that occurred in the area between October 30, 2008, and May 16, 2009.

Two Injection Methods Used in Gas Production
The incidents under study occurred in an area of North Texas where the vast Barnett Shale geological formation traps natural gas deposits in subsurface rock. Production in the Barnett Shale relies on the injection of pressurized water into the ground to crack open the gas-bearing rock, a process known as "hydraulic fracturing." Some of the injected water is recovered with the produced gas in the form of waste fluids that require disposal.
The earthquakes do not appear to be directly connected to the drilling, hydraulic fracturing or gas production in the Barnett Shale, the study concludes. However, re-injection of waste fluids into a zone below the Barnett Shale at the nearby saltwater disposal well began in September 2008, seven weeks before the first DFW earthquakes occurred and none were recorded in the area after the injection well stopped operating in August 2009. The largest of the DFW-area earthquakes was a 3.3 magnitude event reported by the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

Faults Near the Injection Site
A state tectonic map prepared by the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology shows a northeast-trending fault intersects the Dallas-Tarrant County line approximately at the location where the DFW quakes occurred. The study concludes, "It is plausible that the fluid injection in the southwest saltwater disposal well could have affected the in-situ tectonic stress regime on the fault, reactivating it and generating the DFW earthquakes."

Field Investigations and Non-Felt Earthquakes
An SMU team led by seismologists Brian Stump and Chris Hayward placed portable, broadband seismic monitoring equipment in the area after the earthquakes began. The seismographs recorded 11 earthquakes between Nov. 9, 2008 and Jan. 2, 2009 that were too small to be felt by area residents. Cliff Frohlich and Eric Potter of UT-Austin joined the SMU team in studying the DFW-area sequence of "felt" earthquakes as well as the 11 "non-felt" earthquakes. Their study appears in the March issue of The Leading Edge, a publication of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

Let us hope that the Chinese geologists will conduct studies in Sichuan before starting extracting the gas, especially at a time when Beijing has decided to dam most of the Tibetan rivers, thereby creating another risk of earthquake.  Read my earlier posting on the subject.

Sichuan's Gas Frontier
Reuters
April 21, 2011
Sichuan province is about four times the size of Pennsylvania, the US state which holds the huge Marcellus shale deposit.
Sichuan is where China's Song Dynasty people invented bamboo wells to drill for salt about 1,000 years ago. Today, the province pumps nearly a quarter of China's total natural gas production.
One of China's main rice-growing provinces, Sichuan has rich water sources, sitting at the upper reaches of China's longest river, the Yangtze. Access to water is key to shale development because fracking is so water-intensive.
"If there are any major breakthroughs, they should come from Sichuan," said Guo Tonglou , chief geologist of Sinopec South Exploration Company. "We've done lots of work in the basin."
Explorers have sunk wells over 7 kms deep and made major discoveries such as Puguang, a conventional gas reservoir with proven reserves of 400 billion cubic metres, one of the country's largest gas fields. Geologists believe shale deposits normally sit close to big conventional reservoirs.
Few at Chinese firms think money will be a problem once companies prove sizeable reserves can be tapped.
"Decisions on spending come really quick nowadays if you can convince management it's a good project," said Sinopec's Wei.
The rising cost of importing gas is imparting some urgency to those decisions.
China is set to secure nearly a third of its gas consumption through imports by 2020, much of it from costly sources such as gas piped from Turkmenistan and a string of long-term purchase agreements for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Australia, Qatar and Indonesia. The price of the gas in those contracts is indexed to oil, making them relatively expensive when oil prices are high compared to other fuels.
A rapid rise in domestic gas reserves, boosted by shale development, would be likely to depress domestic prices and may make China think twice about those LNG deals.
PetroChina's Chief Financial Officer Zhou Mingchun said in March the company lost 3.7 billion yuan in marketing 4.3 bcm of imported gas last year, mostly from Central Asia, because domestic gas prices were capped lower than import costs.
Still, China faces huge development costs in bringing shale gas supplies online. It only has 49,000 kms of gas pipeline grids, barely a tenth of the US system, and would need to spend billions of dollars to build infrastructure to pump the gas to market.
Farmers such as Cui Jinlian, who is planting peas and eggplants by a conventional gas well near Yuanba county in Sichuan, say they've never heard of "shale gas" -- or had any idea it could contaminate the water they use for cooking and farming.
But Cui is aware the gas under their land has a poisonous component -- hydrogen sulphide (H2S)-- that can kill people. Gas pumped from the Sichuan basin, both conventional and unconventional, is mostly sour gas that contains H2S.
"It is no good for immediate use. The gas needs to be sent somewhere for processing first," said Cui in her musical Sichuan dialect, while resting by her small vegetable field. Piling up at the backyard of her simple one-story brick house were the dried tree twigs her family uses for cooking.
She knew also that hydrogen sulphide leaked from an explosion at a PetroChina exploration well in 2004 in Chongqing, killing hundreds of villagers in their sleep.
"Shale gas is a bit controversial, it can have a negative impact if done improperly," said Johnny Browaeys of CH2M, a US consulting firm providing environmental and engineering services with an office in Shanghai.
"It's something we need to do right from the very start," said Browaeys, a fluent mandarin speaker who once lived in western China. "You don't want to get into a reputation issue."

No Water

In the 1980’s, the American agronomist Lester Brown wrote Who Will Feed China in which he studied the cases of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The conversion of agricultural land for other uses (factories, residential areas, airports, roads, flyovers, etc…) had provoked the loss of 52% of Japan’s grain harvested areas, 46% of Korea’s and 42% of Taiwan’s, while more and more waters were being used for industrial purposes. Brown deducted that the same process will occur in China and ultimately China will be unable to feed its own people. A real nightmare for Beijing!
But ultimately the problem will be the lack of water to irrigate and to ...drink.
This is confirmed by this report of the National Development and Reform Commission (the Chinese Planning Commission).
It is why China needs Tibet. But as the Sichuan earthquake has shown, the big dams are as dangerous as the nuclear plants (if not more) for the downstream populations.


A Quarter of Chinese Residents Have No Clean Drinking Water    
According to a report released by the National Development and Reform Commission, a quarter of Chinese residents have no clean drinking water, one third of the urban population breathes polluted air, and less than 20% of garbage goes through proper treatment. The report says that, "Large numbers of people are exposed to polluted air, water, and soil.” It further states, “China's ecological environment is very fragile; forests cover only 18.21% of China's land surface, which is less than 67% of the average for the world's countries. China has 1.74 million square kilometers of desertified land. 90% of its natural grassland suffers from degradation.”

Source: Economic Information, March 9, 2011, reprint by People’s Daily
http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/14096289.html

About Nuclear Safety

Let us hope that the tragedy in Japan will trigger some  reflection in India as well as in China where Areva is setting up nuclear plants (EPR technology).
At the same time, the 'greens' who are occupying the TV studios to lecture us against the nuclear technology, do not seem to have a balanced opinion. They are led by an one-sided 'anti-nuclear' ideology, which is unable to solve any energy problem. 
A more scientific approach is required and perhaps more sustainable consumption patterns.
And the so-called clean hydropower energy is probably more dangerous than the nuclear.


NPCIL hopes techno-commercial deal with Areva in Mar-April
Kolkata, Mar 13 (PTI)
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) is hopeful of signing a techno-commercial agreement with France''s nuclear group Areva SA this month or in the following one.
"We expect to sign the final agreement on scope of work for Areva for building the two reactors at Jaitapur and cost will be signed within March-April," NPCIL Chairman and Managing Director S K Jain told PTI.
The state-owned nuclear power company expects to begin work on 9,000 MW Jaitapur power plant at Maharashtra shortly after the agreement.
In December last, both NPCIL and Areva had signed two agreements comprising a "general framework" agreement and an "early works" agreement for the construction of two of Areva''s Evolutionary Power Reactors, or EPRs, of 1,650 megawatts each in Maharashtra.
The agreements also covers the supply of nuclear fuel for 25 years at the Jaitapur site, which is expected to eventually have six of the 1,650 MW reactors.
India aims to expand its nuclear power generating capacity to 63,000 MW by 2032 from around 4,000 MW now.
On agitation against setting up of the nuclear power plant at Jaitapur, NPCIL officials termed the "opposition as more of a political rather than opposition from the local people".
"As the ruling Maharashtra government is in favour of the project, opposition are trying to take political mileage by opposing it," they said.
NPCIL officials said the Centre had given its nod for the project earlier, including the environment clearance. PTI BSM RG NIK
 
China May Consider Japan Nuclear Accident in Drafting Future Energy Plans
Bloomberg News
Mars 13, 2011
A blast at a nuclear facility in Japan after a record earthquake may become a factor in China’s drafting of future energy plans, a top planning official said.
China may consider the effects of the nuclear accident as it finalizes its energy plans for the 2011-2015 period, Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in Beijing. Radiation at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant exceeded Japanese limits after an explosion yesterday destroyed the wall of the reactor building and injured workers following Japan’s strongest earthquake on record.
“Evaluation of nuclear safety and the monitoring of plants will be definitely strengthened,” Xie said today, while attending the closing of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
China, the world’s biggest polluter, is building more nuclear reactors than any other nation in an effort to cut emissions and protect its environment while trying to maintain economic growth. The country is tripling the number of reactors, building 27 units to add to the 13 that are already operational, according to the London-based World Nuclear Association.
“China will become more cautious while developing nuclear- power plants but is unlikely to alter its long-term nuclear development plans,” Dave Dai, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Co., said by phone today. “The accident in Japan may trigger increased public concerns over building atomic plants.”

Nuclear Accident
An explosion at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 reactor, which had begun venting radioactive gas after its cooling system failed, injured four workers yesterday. The utility reported no damage to the building housing the reactor. It began flooding the reactor with sea water and boric acid today to prevent a meltdown and eliminate the potential for a catastrophic release of radiation.
China won’t change its plans to develop nuclear power after the Japanese earthquake, Zhang Lijun, vice minister of environmental protection, said yesterday.
Global expansion of nuclear power may draw more scrutiny and skepticism as the world watches Japan struggle to prevent a meltdown at the reactor damaged by the earthquake, said Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
There are 442 reactors worldwide that supply about 15 percent of electricity, the World Nuclear Association said. There are plans to build more than 155 additional reactors, most of them in Asia, and 65 reactors are currently under construction, the association said on its website.

Emission Cuts
China has pledged to cut carbon emissions by switching to clean energy such as nuclear and wind power. It wants at least 15 percent of its energy mix to come from non-fossil fuels by 2020 and is building more atomic plants to help meet that goal.
The government may approve 10 additional nuclear power projects during the 12th five-year plan which covers the period from 2011 through 2015, the China Daily reported Jan. 26, citing Zhang Guobao, former director of the National Energy Administration. China is expected to raise its 2020 target for nuclear power generation to 86 gigawatts, accounting for 5 percent of China’s total power generation, the newspaper reported, without citing anyone.
The country is also studying specific measures to control total energy use and conduct carbon-trading trials during the next five years, Xie, who is also the nation’s top climate negotiator, said today, without elaborating.
Wang Ying. Editors: Allen Wan, John Liu

More problems for China

On this blog, I have repeatedly written about the folly of China's grandiose projects. 
In this article published by The Guardian, Peter Boshard of International Rivers writes : "this program would cut off the country's nose to spite her face".
What to say? 
China needs a Tunisian type of Revolution to give back the power to the masses. Today, the power is centralized in the hands of some powerful lobbies like the ones building dams or infrastructure. As the case of the dams on the Salween river has shown, these lobbies can be more powerful than the government (State Council).
  
China's dam-building will cause more problems than it solves
Under pressure to cut emissions, China risks irreversibly destroying its great rivers and biodiversity hotspots
Peter Bosshard
The Guardian,
March 4, 2011
In 2007, China became the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Since then, not only the EU and the US, but also developing nations such as the alliance of small island states have put the government in Beijing under pressure to adopt binding emission cuts.
At the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, China announced that it would reduce its carbon intensity - the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of economic output - by at least 40% by 2020. Achieving this ambitious goal has become an overriding political priority for the Chinese government. The draft of its new five-year plan, which will be discussed by the National People's Congress in March, includes an environmental tax and other carbon-cutting measures.
The five-year plan also includes the most relentless dam-building effort that any nation has ever undertaken in history. If approved, this program would cut off the country's nose to spite her face. It would irreversibly destroy China's great rivers and biodiversity hotspots of global importance.
China already counts more dams within its borders than any other country. It has paid a huge price for this development. Chinese dams have displaced an estimated 23 million people. Dam breaks in the country with the world's worst safety record have killed approximately 300,000 people. Scientific evidence suggests that one particular project, the Zipingpu Dam, may have triggered the devastating earthquake in Sichuan of 2008. Dams have also taken a huge toll on China's biodiversity, causing fisheries to suffer and driving charismatic species such as the Yangtze River Dolphin to extinction.
As part of its low-carbon diet, the Chinese government plans to approve new hydropower plants with a capacity of 140 gigawatts over the next five years. For comparison, Brazil, the United States and Canada have each built between 75 and 85 gigawatts of hydropower capacity in their entire history. Achieving the new plan's target would require building cascades of dams on several rivers in China's south-west and on the Tibetan plateau - regions which are populated by ethnic minorities, ecologically fragile, rich in biodiversity, and seismically active.
As a harbinger of the new trend, the Chinese government recently announced that it would allow a dam cascade on the Nu River or Salween - a pristine river at the heart of a World Heritage Site - to be built. China's premier, Wen Jiabao, had stopped these projects in 2004 as a major concession to environmentalists. The government also agreed to shrink the most important fisheries reserve on the Yangtze River so that a new hydropower scheme could go forward.
The unprecedented dam building spree is being pushed by provincial governments and state-owned energy companies, which often pursue vested interests. In the past, these actors were kept in check by a coalition of environmental activists, journalists and government officials, who often managed to gain the ear of China's top leaders. This has changed since Copenhagen. International pressure to limit greenhouse gas emissions is the single most important factor behind the huge push for hydropower in China.
Climate change is the most serious environmental threat of our generation. Yet the international community should address this threat in a holistic way, without losing sight of other challenges to the planet's future. The world is losing biodiversity at an alarming rate. Rivers, lakes and wetlands have suffered more dramatic changes than any other type of ecosystem. Because of dam building and other factors, freshwater species have on average lost half their populations between 1970 and 2000, and more than a third of all freshwater fishes are at risk of extinction.
As the head of the UN Environmental Programme warned last year, it would be arrogant to assume that humanity can survive without biodiversity. We cannot sacrifice the planet's arteries to save her lungs. China not only has a moral obligation to participate in the fight against climate change. The country has also committed to protecting its ecosystems under the Convention on Biological Diversity. It deserves respect for trying to limit greenhouse gas emissions at a per-capita level which is much lower than what industrialised nations emit. World leaders should let the government in Beijing know that they don't want China to destroy her rivers and the rich biodiversity they support to reach her ambitious carbon goals.
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/04/china-dams-emissions-carbon-hydropower
Peter Bosshard is the policy director of International Rivers, an international environmental and human rights organization.

Green Mountains, Clear Rivers and Disasters

 

It is good when a Senior Researcher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences says: "The riches of economic development are not as valuable as green mountains and clear rivers".
He can't be accused to be a China baiter or a fanatic.
With the number of new projects sanctioned during the last few weeks, we are bound to see more and more human-made disasters in the future.
The problem is that there is too much money involved and the local apparatchiks have to fill up their pockets. 
As Jiang Gaoming writes: "Zhouqu exploited its mountains, its water and its rivers and, in return, suffered a powerful mudslide", in other words, nearly-instant Karma.
When will humans learn from past mistakes?

Human error
Jiang Gaoming
China Dialogue
January 07, 2011
Last year’s deadly mudslide at Zhouqu offers compelling lessons on the ability of human development to increase the risk of natural disasters, writes Jiang Gaoming.
“China endured 26,000 geological disasters from January to July last year, nearly four times as many as the same period in 2009.”
2010 was another bad year for China in terms of natural disasters: severe drought in the south-west was followed by floods on the upper Yangtze. Then came the mudslide in Zhouqu and then more flooding, this time in the country’s north-east. Extreme weather played a central role in this series of tragedies, of course. But the ability of humans to increase the risk and impact of such crises should not be overlooked. The mudslide in Zhouqu – and the area’s recent development history – offers a powerful example.
Zhouqu county, in China’s north-western province of Gansu, was once known for its forests, rich water resources, fertile land and pleasant climate. But after the felling of tens of billions of cubic metres of timber and the construction of huge numbers of hydropower dams, the area’s hills have been left barren and unable to absorb rainfall.
Let’s look at the forests first. The county of Zhouqu has historically been rich in vegetation, with 1,300 species of higher plant alone. In the past, 1,940 square kilometres of land was available for forestry, 65% of the county’s total area. Of this, 820 square kilometres, or 45%, was actually forested, a higher percentage than the Gansu and national averages of 7.5% and 22% respectively. Unfortunately, these forests have been decimated by three decades of felling. In the 1970s, 80,000 cubic metres of lumber were already being chopped down annually. Unchecked tree felling and trading eventually led to the county’s forestry resources diminishing by 100,000 cubic metres per year.
Following last August’s devastating mudslide, reporters noted that the hillsides above the Sanyan valley, one of the worst hit areas, were bare of trees and even the brush was sparse. According to local elders, when they were in their teens the valley was covered with large trees. Once the hillsides were stripped, the villagers grazed goats here, worsening the environmental damage. Without the vegetation, heavy rain was able easily to loosen soil and stones, triggering landslides that threatened lives and property below. 
In addition to deforestation, widespread construction of hydropower dams has contributed to the area’s vulnerability. The Bailong River, the largest tributary of the Jialing, is 600 kilometres long, 450 kilometres of which flows within the borders of Gansu province. The rapid flow as the river passes down through the mountains makes this an ideal area for building hydropower facilities – and many have been built. But with no thought given to upstream ecologies, such projects have increased the likelihood of mudslides. The Bailong flows through a zone that is prone to earthquakes and the quarrying of stone from the banks of the river to build the dams has further destabilised the hillsides.
Hydropower stations, both large and small, can be seen on any tributary of the Bailong. Surveys show there are as many as one thousand of them: big ones ranging in capacity from 200 to 300 megawatts, medium-sized ones from five to six megawatts and, more commonly, small dams of several hundred kilowatts each. These dams have all been built since the 1970s, almost in step with the rampant deforestation around them.
Hydropower construction often conflicts with environmental protection goals. Dam-building has led to the destruction of forest reserves, for example, and intervention by the forestry authorities is rarely effective. Even though local government approval processes include an environmental impact assessment, since most hydropower projects are built with inward investment, ecology invariably loses out to hydropower.
Between 2003 and 2007, contracts for 53 hydropower projects were signed in Zhouqu. Forty-one of these have since been built or are now under construction and the remaining 12 will soon follow. Together, they account for 80% of the county’s development projects. It is estimated that the 41 dams being built or already finished will result in the dredging of 38.3 million cubic metres of sediment and the loss of 749,000 tonnes of soil. On completion of a dam, water soaks the hillsides and loosens the earth, creating a situation where landslides could happen at any time. The dredging of sand also leaves the river bed covered in rocks which can be swept away by floodwaters, making those floodwaters much more dangerous.
The third major problem we come to is building on river courses. Although mudslides and landslides have raised awareness of the dangers among local people, there is still a lack of urban planning and construction is still happening in vulnerable areas. The narrow valley floor on which Zhouqu lies is just 12 square kilometres in area. The population has been growing for decades, and the only place left to build is the river banks. Property developers see the Sanyan and Luojia rivers as their only option and have been buying up land for construction. Some people have built houses there. The densely-populated areas that were hit by the disaster – such as Yueyuan, Dongjie and Dongguan – are all alongside the rivers and have experienced explosions in property development.
Zhouqu exploited its mountains, its water and its rivers and, in return, suffered a powerful mudslide. This is the national ecological disaster in microcosm. China endured 26,000 geological disasters from January to July last year, nearly four times as many as the same period in 2009. Around 200,000 geological risk points have been identified. Tens of thousands of these lie in mountainous provinces such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing, Gansu, Shaanxi, Hunan and Hubei and have the potential to unleash disaster on the scale of Zhouqu.
The riches of economic development are not as valuable as green mountains and clear rivers. And it is ordinary, local people who are left to endure the impacts of environmental disasters. The suffering in Zhouqu is environmental suffering. It is time for an approach to human development that avoids putting environment, lives and property at risk simply for the sake of economic growth.
Jiang Gaoming is chief researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Botany.

China going ahead with damming

Something which always surprises me in India, are the pronouncements of the ‘experts’. Take the case of the Brahmaputra and the dams that the Chinese are building on the Tibetan section of the mighty river. Nearly 10 years ago, when I started writing on the subject; some ‘experts’ called me a 'cheap journalist, running after scoops'. Unfortunately for my detractors (and for India), what was then dismissed as a 'scoop', has now taken a very concrete shape.
But some Indian ‘experts’ (I will not name them) still deny that anything is happening. Recently, an eminent professor told an audience at the Kolkata Indian Institute of Management: “It is more important to gather statistics on the effects of climate change than to get preoccupied with China building dams in the region”.
Their argument is usually the following: “Let the Chinese dam (or divert) the Brahmaputra, how much water can they take anyway? 20% or 30%? The rest will continue to flow to India and Bangladesh. Why bother?”
Unfortunately, ‘experts’ not the only blind ones: Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde recently declared: “I have not been communicated by any quarter that China was constructing dams on Brahmaputra. So there is no point to react to it.” No comment.
In contrast the Chinese press is not shying away from admitting hard facts. A recent article in The Southern Weekend, described by The New York Times as ‘China's most influential liberal newspaper’, details the ongoing project(s). Two journalists of the Weekly write: “the construction of a massive dam on the Yarlung Zangbo(the Brahmaputra in India) marks a turning point for Tibet, a development boom is coming.”
On November 15, The People’s Daily had officially announced: “The Brahmaputra River, which has long been praised as a ‘heavenly river’, was dammed for the first time on November 12, indicating that the Zangmu Hydropower Station, the first large hydropower station in Tibet, will soon begin its main construction.”
In fact, the work on the project began more than two years ago. As The Southern Weekend explains: “The backer of the Zangmu project, the Tibet Generating Company, has already built a residential area on the open spaces alongside the river at Zangmu and a flourishing town is taking shape, with a supermarket better-stocked than those in the county’s main town. The boss, from Zhejiang, moved here from the Xiaowan dam in Yunnan, south-west China, two months ago and is positive about the future”. He told reporters: “There’ll be loads of workers next year, business will be great.”
The journalists rightly say that the Yarlung Zangbo is the last of China’s great rivers to remain undammed; and add that ‘it will soon be history’.
While the Indian ostriches bury their head, the Guangzhou newspaper states: “Around 7.9 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) is being invested in the project, located in a V-shaped valley 3,200 metres above sea level. At 510 megawatts, the plant is much smaller than China’s 18,000-megawatt Three Gorges Dam, but still equivalent to the entire existing hydropower-generating capacity of Tibet. The construction workers have now reached the centre of the river. The water is being diverted into sluiceways and rows of grouting machines and stone crushers are working at full pace, while trucks come and go.”
The newspaper quotes Yang Yong, a geologist who believes that the activity on the dam represents the start of a new age: “Hydropower development on the Yarlung [Tsangpo] has begun, marking the start of a hydropower era for Tibet’s rivers.”
It is quite frightening for the people downstream.
But let us look at Beijing’s rationale.
To maintain a tempo close to a double-digit growth, the Communist regime in Beijing has become an ogre devouring energy world-wide. Most of the raw materials (such as oil, gas, wood, minerals, etc.) necessary to feed the economic engine can be ‘bought’ from outside China, except for one, water.
Water is therefore crucial to the survival of the Chinese model for two main reasons: first, the energy generated by hydropower plants is badly needed for the economy. China's theoretical hydro-power resources have been estimated at 384 gigawatts.
Seeond, why water is so important to China? It is because the leaders need to feed more than 1.3 billion people. In the 1980’s, the American agronomist Lester Brown wrote a book, Who Will Feed China in which he studied the cases of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Already 25 years ago, the conversion of agricultural land for other uses (factories, residential areas, airports, roads, flyovers, etc…) had provoked the loss of 52% of Japan’s grain harvested areas, 46% of Korea’s and 42% of Taiwan’s. In the meanwhile more and more waters were being used for industrial purposes. Brown deducted that the same process would occur in China and ultimately China would be unable to feed its own people. A real nightmare for Beijing!
The most acute problems facing China today are food and water. The future of the Middle Kingdom depends on the success or failure of the present Emperors to tackle these issues which are closely interlinked and, if not solved, are bound to have grave social, political and strategic consequences for the Chinese nation and indirectly for its neighbours.
With this in mind, Beijing engaged in the construction of mega-dams in the 1980’s. During the past 25 years, China has built some of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world.
And let us not forget that most of Asia’s waters have their sources on the Tibetan plateau, the principal watershed in Asia. Tibet’s waters flow down to eleven countries and are said to bring fresh water to over 85% of Asia’s population, approximately 50% of the world’s population.
To come back to The Southern Weekend, it gives details on the present stage of the damming plans: “A series of hydropower stations is proposed for the Yarlung Zangbo. If they are all built, Zangmu will be the fourth in a row of five on the Sangri to Gyaca stretch of the river, between the Gyaca and Jiexu plants. There has been no official confirmation that the construction will go ahead.” Yan Zhiyong, the general manager of China Hydropower Engineering Consulting however told the media: “By about 2020 most of China’s hydropower projects outside of Tibet will have been completed.” Several well-known Chinese hydropower firms are participating in the blue-gold rush to Tibet.
“Could the world’s biggest hydropower station be built in Tibet?” was the title of an article in the Guangming Daily in 1998. It was written by Chen Chuanyou of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The researcher proposed building a reservoir on the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo to raise the water level ....and then drill a 16-kilometre tunnel to carry the water. It estimates that a drop of 2,300 metres would allow for three mega hydropower stations.
Indian 'experts' will continue to deny the possibility of such a project or conclude that it will have no impact downstream: "The apprehension is political perception, that’s all. ...The Chinese share is minimal — sensitive only in the lean, winter months when the discharges in the regional river basins dry up", Chen says.
Already in 1972 the Chinese Academy of Sciences ordered a survey of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Guan Zhihua, who headed the team worked for four years on the field project (with the help of some 400 people across 50 different disciplines) to prepare the first comprehensive and systematic study of the plateau. He calculated the hydropower potential of the Yarlung Zangbo: “The river flows for 2,057 kilometres within China’s borders, and its hydropower potential is second only to the Yangtze. It has more power-generating potential per unit of length than any other river in China.”
Later studies found that the Yarlung Tsangpo had hydropower potential of 114 gigawatts. Further the potential was highly concentrated, with the possibility of a 38-gigawatt hydropower station near the Great Bend in Metok county, which is nearly double the capacity of the Three Gorges Dam (22 gigawatts).
Coincidentally, the day Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in India, the last tunnel for the road linking Metok County to the rest of Tibet was inaugurated; the way for eventual mega-projects was open.
The Southern Weekend elaborates on the current projects by quoting, Zhi Xiaoqian, the head of the Chengdu Surveying Institute who said that “plans had been drawn up for all of Tibet’s major rivers, including the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo. But a lack of clear policy direction has meant approval for those plans has been slow and the projects have not commenced.” Zhi is supposed to have also stated: “Now the time and conditions are ripe. China’s energy supply is becoming ever more pressured, and there’s an urgent need to develop the rich hydropower resources of Tibet. ...Currently less than 0.6% of Tibet’s hydropower resources have been developed. In comparison with the rest of China, this is virgin territory.”
In November, Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of State for Environment and Forests gave a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha: "China has so far denied any proposal for diversion of Brahmaputra water in China. As per the information available with Government of India, no instances of water diversion activity on river Brahmaputra have been noticed so far."
The diversion is perhaps ‘so far’ denied, but the damming is going on full swing. A report from Reuters confirmed: “China has approved several new hydropower projects recently, in a sign that the government is speeding up development of clean energy after an approvals slowdown in recent years because of concerns including environmental impact. ...The country's total hydropower capacity reached 200 GW in August and top energy official Zhang Guobao said capacity had to reach 380 GW by 2020 if the country was to meet its clean energy and emissions targets. He said China needed to start building 120 GW of hydropower projects in the six years through 2015.”
Whether hydropower is clean is a separate issue, the fact remains that mega projects are on track in Tibet and India is not informed about it.

Dams again

"Reversing a long halt caused by environmental concerns and the social upheaval of relocating people living in the shadow of dam sites" Beijing has decided to restart the construction of large dams on an unprecedented scale.
This is bad news.
Bad news for the Chinese people (millions will have to be resettled), bad news also for the neighbours (India, the Mekong countries, Burma, Kazakhstan, etc.).
The pretext is the global warning and the promises made in Copenhagen: "In 2009, ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit, China pledged to cut carbon intensity — or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of gross domestic product — by between 40 percent and 45 percent by 2020, using 2005 levels as the base", says The Shanghai Daily. 
The energy produced by hydropower plants being considered as 'clean' by the leadership in Beijing, building megadams becomes good for the environment of the planet by reducing the CO2 emission. Such is the theory.
On these lame premises, the construction will soon restart in the Middle Kingdom. Tibet will obviously the first affected.

China ready for flood of hydropower
Shanghai Daily
January 06, 2011
WITH 2020 clean-energy targets to meet, China is set to accelerate the building of hydroelectric dams, reversing a long halt caused by environmental concerns and the social upheaval of relocating people living in the shadow of dam sites.
The trend will create a "golden decade" for the nation's hydropower sector, analysts say, as high fuel prices continue to squeeze margins of coal-fired power plants that comprise the bulk of China's electricity-generating capacity. Renewable energy sources like solar power have been slow to come on line on a big scale because of high costs and grid-configuration problems.
The Chinese government now aims to have 430 gigawatts of hydropower capacity by 2020, increasing its earlier target of 380GW, the China Securities Journal -reported last month, citing unidentified sources.
"That means each year, the equivalent of one new Three Gorges Dam will be added in China over the next decade," said Shao Minghui, an analyst at China Post Securities, using the 2020 target of 380GW as a base. "The market is really sizable."
The 18.2GW Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtze River and is located in Yichang, Hubei Province, is the world's largest.
A revision of targets in the 12th Five-Year Plan that starts this year calls for China to increase -construction of conventional -hydropower plants by about a third to 83GW and to raise the construction of pumped-storage hydro-capacity by 60 percent to 80GW, the China Securities Journal reported. The -revision is pending approval before the National Development and -Reform Commission.
In pumped-storage hydropower generation, water is pumped from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation by using low-cost, off-peak electric power, and then is released to generate power during periods of peak demand or when electricity prices are higher.
China's hydropower generating capacity reached 200GW as of August - accounting for more than a fifth of the nation's total power-generation capacity. The last operating unit to be added was in Yunnan province in China's southwestern corner.
Shao estimated that the -conventional hydropower sector will need an investment of 900 billion yuan (US$136 billion) by 2020, of which 140 billion yuan will be spent on equipment. This may benefit -listed companies such as -hydroelectric works contractor China Gezhouba Group Co and equipment supplier Ningxia Qinglong Pipe Industry Co.
China had planned to install 70GW of new hydropower projects as part of its 11th Five-Year Plan, but construction was started on only about 20GW. Delays, especially of large-scale projects was mainly caused by the -massive amount of human relocation the -projects require and concerns about the environmental damage to surrounding landscapes.
The government's attitude, however, appeared to be changing since the second half of last year.
In July, China Huaneng Group and China Huadian Corp, two of China's main state-owned power groups, won clearance from the Ministry of Environmental Protection for major dams on the Jinsha River, the upper reach of the Yangtze River. In June 2009, the ministry had ordered a suspension in construction because of environmental violations.
The National Development and Reform Commission in late October granted approval for China Three Gorges Corp to proceed with the early-stage of studies on its two planned power stations - one of 8.7GW; the other, 14GW - downstream on the Jinsha River.
In an interview with Xinhua news agency in August, Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, reaffirmed the strategic role of hydropower as the best option for clean energy.
Though China's hydropower capacity already ranks as the world's biggest, the utilization rate of its hydro resources still lags behind other countries.
Zhang Boting, a vice secretary general of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, said droughts in early 2010 in southwestern China confirmed that more hydropower facilities are needed in the nation. Analysts also agreed that hydropower would be one of the cheapest and most achievable ways to help China meet its clean energy consumption target.
In 2009, ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit, China pledged to cut carbon intensity - or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of gross domestic product - by between 40 percent and 45 percent by 2020, using 2005 levels as the base.
The government also aims to raise the proportion of non-fossil fuels in the nation's primary energy mix to 15 percent by 2020, from an estimated nine percent last year. Of the 15 percent, nine percent will come from hydropower and four percent from nuclear power, Zhang said.
Other renewable sources, like wind and solar, lack competitiveness in terms of scale, economics and technology compared with hydropower in China.
Zhang acknowledged that -hydro-power goals would be difficult to achieve, based on the approval status in the sector in recent years. He encouraged relevant agencies to -accelerate the approval process, while still adhering to strict -development rules.
The China Electricity Council, which represents the nation's power producers, also confirmed last month that the floodgates to build new hydropower projects are now open and the sector will enjoy priority status during the 12th Five-Year Plan. Projects will be mainly in mountainous south-western provinces such as Yunnan and Sichuan, according to Ouyang Changyu, vice secretary general of the council.
"To expedite approvals, China must address the problems of environmental protection and people relocation," said Zhou Yanchang, an analyst at Huatai United Securities. "And that will increase construction and operating costs."
One solution is to raise the price of hydropower electricity.
At present, the on-grid tariff - or the price charged by power producers to grids - for hydropower is below that of energy produced by coal-fired plants. The prices are set based on operational costs of -producing the power. -Hydropower projects require larger investments and involve longer construction times than coal-fired plants, but they run at lower costs upon completion.
In September 2009, Zhang, the energy chief, said China aims to equalize hydropower prices with those of coal-fired electricity in the long term, though many hurdles remain to achieving parity between the two energy providers.