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Text: Li Mianzhi
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On May 20, 2006, the Three Gorges Dam was completed in its entirety, which lasted 12 years and cost 250 billion yuan.
Even in the 21st century, when human imagination is highly developed, the magnificence of the Three Gorges Dam is still difficult to describe in words, and it can be called the eighth wonder of the world.
Today, the Three Gorges Dam has been in operation for 17 years, and in the 17 years that the river has flowed with the years, it is like a giant standing alone, still watching over this fertile land.
Why was the Three Gorges Dam built? How long does it last? Will the original investment in the project pay for itself? All this has to start with the concept of the Three Gorges Dam.
Three Gorges Dam
The origin and opening of the Three Gorges Project
In 1918, according to the water conservancy situation in the upper reaches of Yichang, Mr. Sun Yat-sen wrote in the "Founding Strategy": "The water should be weired by the sluice, so that the boat can trace the river." ”
This groundbreaking engineering concept was the origin of the Three Gorges Dam.
Sun Yat-sen's vision of the Three Gorges Dam was not limited to shipping, because he once proposed that "the water bursts and the banks burst, and millions of lives and hundreds of thousands of goods are destroyed." Since ancient times, Chinese politicians have not been deeply affected. ”
Sun Yat-sen believes that even if the construction of the dam requires huge manpower and material resources, this project is imperative, because it is a people's livelihood project that "benefits the present generation and the future generations".
As an out-and-out doer, Sun Yat-sen invited the British engineer Powell to the Yangtze River for a field trip in the second year after the concept was proposed.
Sun Yat-sen
In the spirit of professionalism of the engineer, Powell submitted a development proposal to Sun Yat-sen, saying that if a dam was built in the Three Gorges, it would not only be beneficial for shipping, but also used for power generation, which could reach more than 30 million horsepower, much larger than the power generation of many countries in the world at that time.
This was a pleasant surprise to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who later mentioned it in his speeches during his time in the Nationalist Government in Guangzhou, and knew that he might not have the opportunity to see the Three Gorges Dam rise from the ground in his lifetime, so he could only pin his hopes on the next generation.
On March 12, 1925, Dr. Sun Yat-sen died of illness in Beijing, but his obsession with the Three Gorges Dam and his desire for China's modernization and development were passed on like a fire in the world.
Chairman Mao swam the Yangtze River
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao also put forward the idea of the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project, and compared with Mr. Sun Yat-sen, Chairman Mao's desire to build the Three Gorges Dam was more urgent.
Because as the leader of New China, in less than six years before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao twice faced the threat of flooding from the Yangtze River.
In the summer of 1949, during the battle to cross the Yangtze River, the Yangtze River suddenly flooded, and 10 provinces along the Yangtze River, including Yunnan, Guizhou, and Anhui and Suzhou, Jiangxi, and Anhui were affected by floods of varying degrees, and more than 20 million mu of farmland in Hubei Province alone were affected, with about 2.5 million people affected.
In 1954, the Yangtze River had a once-in-a-century catastrophic flood, according to incomplete statistics, 47.55 million acres of farmland were submerged, nearly 20 million people were affected, and more than 30,000 people died in the flood.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao went to Wuhan many times to investigate, and wrote "Water Tune Song Tou Swimming" when swimming in the Yangtze River in 1956.
Deng Xiaoping
"More erect the stone wall of the Xijiang River, cut off the clouds and rain of Wushan, and the high gorge out of the Ping Lake. This sentence alone reflects Chairman Mao's vision for the Three Gorges Project and his heroic attempt to transform nature.
In the years that followed, Chairman Mao also sent people to explore the Yangtze River water conservancy and draft a dam construction plan.
It is a pity that, like Mr. Sun Yat-sen, he was confined to a weak economic foundation until his death, and Chairman Mao could not wait for the Three Gorges Project to be officially launched, and the heavy task of building the Three Gorges Dam fell on the shoulders of Comrade Deng Xiaoping.
Compared with Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Chairman Mao, Deng Gong also had to face the problem of power shortage when considering the Three Gorges Project.
Since the 70s of the last century, the mainland has been plagued by power shortages, which has undoubtedly restricted the mainland's modernization and industrialization development.
After Deng Gong started the reform and opening up in 1978, the mainland ushered in a stage of rapid development, and the demand for electricity increased day by day, and it was urgent to solve the power problem.
Deng Xiaoping
As a result, the Three Gorges Project has been on the agenda again since the 80s, but the pre-project preparations are far more complex than anyone imagined, and even more difficult than the obstacles encountered in the construction process.
Controversy before the start of the project
As the largest and most complex project in the world at that time, the Three Gorges Project attracted worldwide attention as soon as it was launched, and the mainland had just organized its experts and scholars to discuss the plan, and foreign countries were actually discussing the feasibility of the plan at the same time.
The central authorities have also adopted a "positive and very cautious attitude" toward this project, which is no less rigorous than fighting a large-scale war.
The main battleground of this debate is focused on two main areas: whether it can be built and how much it will benefit if it is built.
Flooding of the Yangtze River
First of all, on the question of whether it can be done, the mainstream opinion is that the national strength at that time has allowed to support this grand project, and the expert group has also given a relatively reasonable construction plan, the technology is basically mature, and the talents and experience required to build the dam are complete.
The reason for the delay in starting construction is that there is a lack of courage to make decisions, and if the argument continues on whether the project should be started, the project will also be extended indefinitely, which will cause losses to the country's power development, navigation planning and other aspects.
However, at that time, some people still believed that the construction period of the Three Gorges Dam was too long, and the construction process would have a negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment and social life.
At a time when the people of the two factions were holding their own views and arguing, Comrade Deng Xiaoping stood up and made this bold decision.
In July 1980, when Deng Xiaoping inspected Gezhouba, he learned about the details of the construction of the Three Gorges Project, and then Deng Gong said in a local conversation: "Wherever the flood hits, there will be bad luck and the people will suffer, and the construction of the Three Gorges Project will play a great role in flood control and will have great power generation benefits." Therefore, it is not good to easily deny the Three Gorges. ”
Flooding of the Yangtze River
Deng Gong's remarks played a decisive role in the launch of the Three Gorges Project, and since then the progress of the work related to the Three Gorges Project has advanced rapidly.
Second, how much benefit the Three Gorges Dam will bring to the mainland after it is completed.
At the time, it was believed that the Three Gorges Dam would limit flooding to the greatest extent and greatly reduce the threat of flooding in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, so that natural disasters such as the 1954 flood would not be repeated.
On the issue of power generation, the engineering team concluded that the installed power generation capacity of the Three Gorges Reservoir is huge, and once the reservoir is completed and the units are put into operation, the revenue created will soon recover the construction costs.
Moreover, the geographical location of the Three Gorges Dam is in the center of the country, which can play a role in central allocation, which is conducive to the optimization of the regional energy structure of the mainland.
Finally, in terms of shipping, the completion of the Three Gorges Dam will inevitably raise the upstream water level, and the past rapids will be relatively moderate or even disappear, which will make the Sichuan River channel more passable and can accommodate 10,000-ton cargo ships, which is greatly beneficial to shipping.
Yangtze River Shipping
Even so, the debate over the Three Gorges Dam continues.
Even in April 1989, when answering a reporter's question, the then leader of the State Council said that there was still controversy about the Three Gorges Project, and that there was some truth between the pros and cons sides, and it was conservatively estimated that it would take at least five years to reach a clear result.
In December 1994, after more than 10 years of contention, the central authorities finally reached a unified opinion, and the Three Gorges Project officially began.
On May 20, 2006, after 12 years of construction, the central government overcame all difficulties and solved a series of problems such as population migration and environmental protection, and the Three Gorges Project was completed in its entirety, marking that the Yangtze River, which had been unruly for thousands of years, was finally tamed by the Chinese people.
The longevity and profitability of the dam
Although it has been 17 years since the Three Gorges Dam was built, the debate over the project continues to this day, with one of the most important questions being the question of how long will the Three Gorges Dam last?
Yangtze
In the summer of 1958, Chairman Mao asked Mr. Lin Yishan, who was in charge of water conservancy on the Yangtze River, to which Lin Yishan replied that it could be used for at least 200 years, and that if the sediment accumulation problem was improved, the life span could be extended to 400 years.
Chairman Mao was a little disappointed when he heard this answer, and he thought that such a huge project would be a bit of a waste if it could only be used for two or three hundred years.
The same ambition was also embodied in Premier Zhou, who also proposed in 1958 when Premier Zhou led Chinese and foreign experts to inspect the Three Gorges Dam to be built as a millennium project, hoping that it would benefit the millennium like the Dujiangyan Water Conservancy Project.
After the start of engineering demonstration in the 80s, the issue of engineering service life also became one of the points of contention, and the more pessimistic views at that time should be represented by Professor Huang Wanli.
Three Gorges Dam
He believes that within 10 years, the accumulation of sand and gravel will paralyze the waterway of the Sichuan River, and the flood disaster will intensify, and the Three Gorges Dam will have to be blown up.
Fortunately, Mr. Huang's prediction did not come true, and according to the real-time monitoring after the dam was completed, the sediment accumulation situation in the reservoir is very optimistic, thanks to the implementation of soil erosion control measures such as afforestation in the upstream area and returning farmland to forest on the hillside land in the reservoir area.
Coupled with the fact that the hydropower stations developed upstream have been put into operation one after another, which has played a role in intercepting sediment, we have reason to believe that the threat of sediment accumulation to the Three Gorges Dam is negligible.
In recent years, fake news about the Three Gorges Dam's "deformation" and "forced opening of the flood gates" has flooded the Internet, making people who do not know the truth mistakenly believe that the Three Gorges Dam is nearing its limit.
In fact, this is the result of unscrupulous media hype, because the bedrock of the Three Gorges Dam site is granite, which has the advantages of strong compressive capacity and weak permeability, while the main body of the dam is made of reinforced concrete, which shows the degree of solidity.
Three Gorges Dam
In addition, the dam manager maintains the dam every year, takes the most advanced measures to prolong the life of the dam, and replaces the machinery in various parts of the dam to keep it in a healthy state.
However, the Three Gorges Dam has a long service life is not enough, and the construction of the dam has cost countless manpower and material resources, with an investment of about 250 billion yuan, so the benefits brought by the Three Gorges Project have become the focus of people's attention.
Has the Three Gorges Project recouped its original cost? The answer, of course, is yes.
At the beginning, Mr. Sun Yat-sen quoted the data of foreign experts and judged that the dam could generate more than 30 million horsepower after completion, equivalent to 21 million kilowatts, and the total installed capacity of the Three Gorges and Gezhouba reached 25.215 million kilowatts.
By the end of 2021, the Three Gorges Dam had generated 1.4 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity, and the average electricity price of urban residents in 2021 was 0.59 yuan, and the Three Gorges Hydropower Station had generated more than 700 billion yuan in revenue.
Considering that this data also needs to take into account the average electricity price and inflation in previous years, the actual income may be at least halved, but it is also far more than the project investment.
Three Gorges Dam
Judging from the amount of power generated alone, the Three Gorges Project has already recovered its original cost, but as a livelihood project, the Three Gorges Project cannot be considered whether it can be used or not.
Since the Chinese nation began to live and multiply in the Yangtze River Basin, the flooding of the Yangtze River has been a lingering haze on the heads of the people, and the economic losses caused by floods have long been astronomical.
After the Three Gorges Dam was born, there will be no flooding in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the people will live and work in peace and contentment, and social prosperity and stability will be the greatest benefit of the Three Gorges Dam.
Of course, we should not completely relax our vigilance because of the existence of the Three Gorges Dam, but should always be prepared for danger in times of peace, because 17 years may be a long time for a person, but for human history, it is just a drop in the ocean.
Only by maintaining the Three Gorges Project with a rigorous attitude and constantly promoting technological innovation in the Three Gorges Project can we win more 17 years for the Three Gorges Project.
Bibliography:
1. "On the Service Life of the Three Gorges Dam"
2. How Long Is the Life of the Three Gorges Project?
3. Controversy and Demonstration of the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River
4. The Social Construction of the Three Gorges Dam