{"id":90442,"date":"2021-03-23T19:23:44","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T19:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=177709"},"modified":"2021-03-23T19:23:44","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T19:23:44","slug":"china-goes-ahead-with-more-himalayan-dams-despite-huge-risks-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/23\/china-goes-ahead-with-more-himalayan-dams-despite-huge-risks-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"China Goes Ahead With More Himalayan Dams Despite Huge Risks: Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) this month gave the green light to a massive hydroelectric power project on the Yarlung Zangbo river in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, sparking concerns over potentially catastrophic environmental effects to come.<\/p>\n
The project is now enshrined in the CCP’s 14th Five-Year Plan and in the party’s long-range objectives through 2035, following an annual meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC).<\/p>\n
A source close to the design of the project told the CCP-run Global Times<\/em> newspaper that the project will take the form of a cascade of power plants.<\/p>\n The paper quoted Yan Zhiyong, chairman of the Power Construction Corp of China, or POWERCHINA, as saying that the Yarlung Zangbo river project could provide 300 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of clean, renewable, and zero-carbon electricity annually.<\/p>\n But Indian scientists have warned that hydropower projects can lead to catastrophic consequences, citing the bursting of the Nanda Devi glacier in Uttarakhand in February 2021.<\/p>\n Around 150 workers at two hydroelectric dams in Tapovan-Reni were missing, believed dead, after being swept away in a torrent of water rushing down from the meltwater, with the power station and surrounding houses completely destroyed.<\/p>\n