Chinese Operated the Latest MEGA-DAM, the Baihetan Dam

Baihetan hydropower project is a 16GW hydroelectric facility under construction on the Jinsha River, which is a tributary of

the Yangtze River in south-west China. It will be the world’s second biggest power station after the Three Gorges Dam, upon completion.

The dam has been operationalized during the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) on July 1 2021.

The baihetan dam to raise a concern with the total installed capability of 16,000 million kilowatts and the hydropower station is equipped with 16 hydro-generating units, each with a capacity of 1 million kilowatts, the largest single-unit capacity in the world which will make it second in size after the Three Gorges Dam, opened in 2003 on the Yangtze, with 22.5 million kilowatts of generating capacity.

The Baihetan Dam is the world’s biggest arch dam as well as the world’s first project to use a giant one-gigawatt (GW) hydro-turbine generator and also Baihetan ranks as the world’s second-largest hydroelectric facility.

Environmental group have criticised the large-scale damming of the Yangtze and its tributaries because of concerns the over-engineering of the river has destroyed major habitats and damaged natural flood plains.

Also the facts that giant dams can damage ecosystems, drives freshwater species to extinction, and emit more greenhouse gases than fossil-fuel power plants do.