Three Gorges Dam

When construction is completed in 2009, the Three Gorges Dam will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Spanning Asia's longest river, the Yangtze, at Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei Province, the Three Gorges Dam will be 1.45 miles wide, 607 feet in height, and have 26 generating units with a combined capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts, producing 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. When the reservoir created by the dam is filled, its waters will rise to be 574 feet deep and stretch for some 360 miles, flooding thousands of villages over 243 square miles of land, and displacing roughly 1.2 million peasants. A system of ship locks are intended to bring ocean liners from Shanghai 1,500 miles inland to the city of Chongqing, ...