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Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
[Preface]
On May 20, 2006, China's project of the century, the Three Gorges Dam, was finally completed after 12 years of construction at a cost of 250 billion yuan.
This project, which began in the last century, is still one of the largest water conservancy buildings in the world today, attracting a large number of tourists every year.
Up to now, 17 years have passed since the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, during which the Three Gorges Dam has always stood in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, silently guarding this land.
Why did we choose to build the Three Gorges Dam? Has the original construction cost of 250 billion yuan been recouped now? How many years can the Three Gorges Dam be used?
【Project of the Century - Three Gorges Dam】
In almost all myths and legends around the world, there is basically a myth and legend related to the Great Flood, such as Noah's Ark in Western mythology, and Nuwa in Chinese mythology to mend the sky and Dayu to control the water.
Later, in fact, in the early days of human civilization, our ancestors basically lived next to rivers and lived by water, so once the river flooded, it would be a devastating blow to the human tribes at that time.
Even after entering the feudal society, the main living area of the people was still near the water, which led to floods and urban waterlogging, which has always been a problem for all dynasties.
For this reason, in ancient times, we have begun to build various water conservancy projects to prevent flooding, and the key targets of prevention and control are the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.
For example, the ancient Dujiangyan on the mainland, although it is far inferior to the dam built later in terms of flood control capacity, but it has really transformed the Chengdu Plain into a country of abundance.
However, due to the influence of technology, these water conservancy projects can only affect the river to a certain extent, and cannot effectively solve the problem of flooding.
In modern times, due to the development of science and technology, Mr. Sun Yat-sen had the idea of building the Three Gorges Dam as early as 1918.
For this reason, an engineer was invited from the UK to conduct a field trip, but although the results of the investigation were very satisfactory, the plan was not successfully implemented due to the social situation at the time.
It was not until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that there were two major floods during the Yangtze River crossing campaign and in 1954, so we became more urgent about the idea of building the Three Gorges Dam.
However, at that time, we were still limited by national strength, so although we had already begun to draft the design plan for the Three Gorges Dam, we never officially started construction.
It wasn't until the 80s of the last century that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam was picked up again, and at the same time, when we were still designing and building the three major dams, we are now building a Gezhou Dam upstream as a "practice" before the Three Gorges Dam.
From the early 80s of the last century until 1994, after more than 10 years of discussions, we finally came up with a plan for building the Three Gorges Dam, and the Three Gorges Project, which has a bearing on the lives of hundreds of millions of people, has begun.
After another 12 years of construction, the Three Gorges Dam was officially completed on May 20, 2006, after solving various problems such as environmental protection and population migration.
Seventeen years have passed since the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, and there has been a lot of controversy about the world's largest dam.
[Has the Three Gorges Dam recovered its roots?]
One of the topics that has attracted more attention is whether the cost of the 250 billion yuan spent on the construction of the Three Gorges Dam has been recovered since its completion 17 years ago.
After all, when the construction of the Three Gorges Dam began in 1994, China was far from being as rich as it is today, and 250 billion yuan was really not a small amount.
If we want to discuss whether the Three Gorges has recovered its costs, we must first look at the ways in which the Three Gorges Dam can generate revenue.
The first is the electricity generated by the power generation capacity of the Three Gorges Power Station, and the second is the tourism revenue brought by the Three Gorges as a tourist attraction itself.
The Three Gorges Dam, also known as the Three Gorges Hydropower Station, has no doubt that its power generation capacity is also very powerful, and it is by no means comparable to ordinary hydropower stations.
Although the Three Gorges Dam was only officially completed in 2006, the Three Gorges Power Station was already in operation in June 2003.
In the past 20 years, it has been able to contribute more than 80 billion kWh of electricity to the mainland's power grid every year, and the total power generation in these 20 years is as high as 1.6 trillion kWh.
Although on the mainland, both power stations and power grids are enterprises belonging to the state and collectives, the power grid also has to pay money when it uses the power of the Three Gorges Hydropower Station.
When the State Grid collects the electricity generated by the hydropower station, because the electricity consumption at different times is different, the price given is also fluctuating, with an average of 0.25 yuan per kilowatt-hour.
If calculated in this way, the electricity generated by the Three Gorges Power Station alone will bring them a whopping 400 billion yuan in revenue.
However, we certainly can't calculate it in this way, after all, the Three Gorges was built in the last century, and we calculate the current price of electricity.
Moreover, the maintenance of various facilities of the Three Gorges Dam and the salaries of the staff are not a small amount, so if we only look at the electricity cost of power generation, the Three Gorges Dam cannot achieve the extent of recovering the cost at present.
Of course, the Three Gorges Dam does not only rely on power generation to make money, but also the tourism value created by the Three Gorges Dam as a world-class project.
Tourists began to visit the Three Gorges Dam before it was officially completed, and after the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, an average of more than 2 million tourists came every year.
Although these tourists themselves may not bring much benefit to the Three Gorges, they will also generate a certain amount of income for the local tourism industry when they play, maybe not much, but it is better than nothing.
[Practical significance is greater than economic significance]
In this way, after the construction of the Three Gorges Dam for so many years, it may not have fully recovered the original construction cost, but it is only a matter of time.
If we only look at these economic interests, it will be a bit of a short-sightedness, after all, we did not build the Three Gorges Dam to make money.
In the eighties of the last century, with the process of reform and opening up, our demand for electricity is also increasing.
Therefore, the Three Gorges Power Station made up for the lack of power supply in China at that time, and this alone was more important than the amount of revenue it bringed.
Not to mention the great convenience that the Three Gorges Dam has brought to the Yangtze River basin, of course, the most important thing is its most essential function, that is, flood control.
I believe that many people still remember the flood in 98, which caused 230 million people and economic losses of more than 700 billion.
At the time of this flood, the Three Gorges Dam had only been under construction for less than two years, and by the time the Three Gorges Dam was successfully built, there had been no similar disaster on the Yangtze River.
But what we can imagine is that because of the existence of the Three Gorges Dam, a catastrophic flood like the one in '98 is no longer possible.
Some experts have estimated that since the Three Gorges Dam was built, its flood control capacity alone has reduced our losses by 1.5 trillion yuan every year, that is, the year it was built alone, it has actually achieved a "return to capital".
【Service life of the Three Gorges Dam】
But this raises another question that many people are concerned about: how long will the Three Gorges Dam last, and will it become a water conservancy project that can last for thousands of years like Dujiangyan?
Here we must first understand a problem, that is, Dujiangyan has not been managed since Li Bing and his son were built, but people in all dynasties have been constantly repairing.
Therefore, the Three Gorges Dam is the same, no matter how strong we build, we can't leave it alone after it is repaired, but it needs long-term maintenance and repair.
At the same time, when the Three Gorges Dam was built, Professor Huang Wanli, a hydraulic engineer at Tsinghua University, held a very pessimistic attitude, believing that the Three Gorges Dam would not last long.
He believes that in a maximum of 10 years, the sediment brought by the Yangtze River will block the entire waterway, thus exacerbating the flooding disaster in the Yangtze River basin.
At that time, we can only blow up the entire Three Gorges Dam for the safety of the lives and property of the people downstream.
Fortunately, this view has not become a reality, according to the current results, the Three Gorges Dam is still very healthy, as for how long it can be used, it depends on the future maintenance and whether there are earthquakes and other things in the surrounding area.
So it is not known how many years the Three Gorges Dam will be able to be used, but we can be sure that its service life will be at least 150 years.
Because in 2014, the Ministry of Water Resources issued the "Code for the Design of Reasonable Service Life and Durability of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Projects", which stipulates that the Three Gorges Dam and other first-class water-contaminated buildings must have a service life of at least 150 years.
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Bibliography:
1. Engineering Research - Engineering from an Interdisciplinary Perspective———— Social Construction of the Three Gorges Dam
2. Baidu Academic ———— "On the Service Life of the Three Gorges Dam"
3. Lake Science ———— "Controversy and Demonstration of the Three Gorges Project of the Yangtze River"