Is The Three Gorges Dam on the Brink of Collapse?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

The article leaves out sooo many details about what this dam was built for, and what it can sustain.  Such as the fact that it was constructed to replace a number of dams built over centuries that were too old and at risk of failing, and currently ineffective at doing an acceptable job.  That the dam's main, number 1, overriding reason for being built was to alleviate annual flooding downstream that consistently wiped out agriculture, property, and human and animal life.  2nd, although very important, was/is power generation.  The reason for the power generation is obvious in their expanding society and development, but the 1st reason not as much.  The 1st reason, to stop annual flooding, was/is to break the chain of flooding which inhibited agriculture downstream to contribute to and sustain the population with food and other agricultural products consistently.  "Downstream" of the 3 Gorges is a huge landmass that floods almost every year.  There is obvious financial impact to those losses but more importantly China simply cannot afford to have any kinks in its production of food, and this was a big one.

The 3 Gorges is designed with all of the world's old dam's problems and shortcomings in mind.  There was a quote in the article that was telling: In Chongqing, authorities dredged 100,000 tonnes of silt overnight as levels rose.

The reason I say it is telling is because it sounds like it was some sort of emergency response.  It was not.  The dam has silt dredging built into it. One of those things learned and technologies designed to control and alleviate.  If you think about it, silt is not only dangerous to the dam's structure, but it can compromise other working sections of the dam as well.  This dam and at least one other major dam they have built have this silt removal technology built in.

I would love to see a reference on the automatic silt control! Decatur just spent millions on dredging Lake Decatur which runs through the city. It is really part of the Sangamon River. Most American "lakes" are reservoirs, in the West and the TVA area anyway. I think dredging is rarely done though sorely needed! 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

OK doubters, Three Gorges Dam has its own problems but there are a lot more related problems that are quite severe. It keeps raining heavily, the dam has flaws, and 40 million people are in the path of flooding below it. 

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0727/China-s-Three-Gorges-project-A-huge-dam-with-big-troubles?cmpid=mkt:ggl:dsa-np&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3Nv3BRC8ARIsAPh8hgKAgLxTtFDA6gyrnvvRjVMlxIYu5c0HiyU-t-EhNScAUcIOeJ5B6h4aArMaEALw_wcB

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Well, I sure hope I'm not proven wrong, but I think the dam is going to withstand this and many other so-called "threats", and contribute to the development of China.  My only reason to pause is that I also know the types of decisions Beijing is capable of when dealing with the also so-called "good of the majority".  Here is a good video done in 2008, which should be of interest if anyone really gives a sh*t about the topic.

Note: I would draw your attention to the fact that it is called the 3 Gorges Dam, and that they are called gorges for a reason.  Complaining re-settlers talk of lost land and income, but by and large the sides of the gorges are steep and very difficult to cultivate, then or now.  Nobody likes to move, but most of the re-settled made out with better digs and jobs than before the dam project, or that dam project!

 

 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

3 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Well, I sure hope I'm not proven wrong, but I think the dam is going to withstand this and many other so-called "threats", and contribute to the development of China.  My only reason to pause is that I also know the types of decisions Beijing is capable of when dealing with the also so-called "good of the majority".  Here is a good video done in 2008, which should be of interest if anyone really gives a sh*t about the topic.

Note: I would draw your attention to the fact that it is called the 3 Gorges Dam, and that they are called gorges for a reason.  Complaining re-settlers talk of lost land and income, but by and large the sides of the gorges are steep and very difficult to cultivate, then or now.  Nobody likes to move, but most of the re-settled made out with better digs and jobs than before the dam project, or that dam project!

 

 

One can only hope for the Chinese citizens that dam is beyond reapproach..

600 kilometers long?

https://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/three-gorges-dam

Slows the rotation of the earth?????

https://www.kinetica.co.uk/2014/03/27/chinese-dam-slows-down-earths-rotation/

 

 

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Well, I sure hope I'm not proven wrong, but I think the dam is going to withstand this and many other so-called "threats", and contribute to the development of China.  My only reason to pause is that I also know the types of decisions Beijing is capable of when dealing with the also so-called "good of the majority".  Here is a good video done in 2008, which should be of interest if anyone really gives a sh*t about the topic.

Note: I would draw your attention to the fact that it is called the 3 Gorges Dam, and that they are called gorges for a reason.  Complaining re-settlers talk of lost land and income, but by and large the sides of the gorges are steep and very difficult to cultivate, then or now.  Nobody likes to move, but most of the re-settled made out with better digs and jobs than before the dam project, or that dam project!

 

 

Interesting video and interesting comments over the 11 years since it was uploaded (with a lot of New comments lately). One thing that stood out to me in the comments was someone saying they poured the concrete in place right on the sand in sections? Could that be right? I'd have thought they'd sink caissons at least, then pour into the whole thing. You seem like you were involved, do you know anything about that part? 

The Google Maps satellite image is clearly messed up. I'd like to see an airplane image for comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some artifact from the algorithm they used, but then again, that would show on roads and bridges elsewhere. If the dam is designed to move in sections that's probably better than catastrophic failure all at once. 

I hired a contractor to redo my driveway on my old house in 1990. I told him how I wanted it done, he said, "that's old fashioned, we don't do pours that way anymore". 

I said, "You will for me, if you want the job". Basically I made him do the driveway in squares, each its own pour. That was 30 years ago and there's not one crack in the 75 foot long driveway. The guy's son runs the company now and they still bring perspective customers by to show the perfect job. The guy who bought my house who coincidentally works for the local utility on their dams can't believe it. He says, "All concrete cracks". I said, "That's right, the secret is getting it to crack right where you want". 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

14 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I said, "You will for me, if you want the job". Basically I made him do the driveway in squares, each its own pour. That was 30 years ago and there's not one crack in the 75 foot long driveway. The guy's son runs the company now and they still bring perspective customers by to show the perfect job. The guy who bought my house who coincidentally works for the local utility on their dams can't believe it. He says, "All concrete cracks". I said, "That's right, the secret is getting it to crack right where you want". 

I've seen single pours with concrete cutter marks for presumably that purpose.

They also did something like that on an asphalt road by my condo as well.  Brand new asphalt and they cuts slits in it, vacuum cleaned the dust, and then filled them with tar - some pothole prevention theory I'm sure.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

This video is quite intense

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

5 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Well, I sure hope I'm not proven wrong, but I think the dam is going to withstand this and many other so-called "threats", and contribute to the development of China.  My only reason to pause is that I also know the types of decisions Beijing is capable of when dealing with the also so-called "good of the majority".  Here is a good video done in 2008, which should be of interest if anyone really gives a sh*t about the topic.

Note: I would draw your attention to the fact that it is called the 3 Gorges Dam, and that they are called gorges for a reason.  Complaining re-settlers talk of lost land and income, but by and large the sides of the gorges are steep and very difficult to cultivate, then or now.  Nobody likes to move, but most of the re-settled made out with better digs and jobs than before the dam project, or that dam project!

 

 

Your comment is diametrically opposed to all the other stories I have read. They state that they were paid a fraction of what their land was worth and are now much worse off. They say their crops are much smaller than they had been. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Here is the best scientific analysis of the Three Gorges Dam and related flooding problems IMHO. It basically states that the dam cannot stop the severe flooding and that claims to that were untrue. That the best science was suppressed by the government and scientists in charge. The flood we are seeing is NOT the Big One that might occur in the future. 

https://journal.probeinternational.org/2016/07/22/why-is-the-flood-control-capacity-of-the-three-gorges-dam-project-being-questioned-again/#:~:text=The Three Gorges Dam project can only control,Xiang%2C Zishui%2C Yuanshui%2C Lishui%2C Han and Gan rivers.

Maps from other sources.

Edited June 29, 2020 by ronwagn
reference

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 6/29/2020 at 4:20 AM, Ward Smith said:

One thing that stood out to me in the comments was someone saying they poured the concrete in place right on the sand in sections? Could that be right? I'd have thought they'd sink caissons at least, then pour into the whole thing. You seem like you were involved, do you know anything about that part? 

No, I wouldn't know that level of detail.  On a project of that size I would speculate a couple of things:  1) that it could have been done at times and the foreign managers didn't see it (Why would the Chinese managers want to sabotage the job like that?  I don't see it.), or 2) the person who thought they saw "something" like that happening didn't know what it was they were actually seeing.  A non-trained eye could see an in-the-ground mixing or temporary storage pit of concrete and think it was somehow part of the foundation.  You know the type: dig a bowl shaped hole and make a concrete shell, and then mix further concrete in it or hold concrete from one of the pumps for use on one of the specific side projects.  Again, I just don't see it, certainly not on any scale.  I mean, the "job site" was absolutely massive.  They used small mountains for concrete raw materials supply with massive 24/7 cement processing plants right on each side of the gorges.  It was incredible.

I was on a repeated guided tour by the CEO as he would take me around each time I was there for a few days.  I supplied food to expat communities back in those days, so every time I made a big delivery I personally showed up with a couple of hundred beef and salmon steaks and the CEO hosted BBQs at his villa and over at one of the expat canteens.  You might say I was a rather popular figure around the job site and I could ride along with any of the guys when they were going somewhere interesting, or doing something interesting like blasting tunnels or placing turbines.  

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 6/29/2020 at 4:53 AM, Ward Smith said:

This video is quite intense

 

Life out in those mountains, which seem to go on forever in every direction, is treacherous on a normal day.  Landslides and flooding have always been a devastating part of life out there.  I honestly don't know why anyone would "want" to live out there.  But people have what they were dealt and you know how that goes.  Either stay on your little piece of the earth and deal with it, or move somewhere else and try to get a job and pay rent.  You know what most of them "choose".  Urban sprawl occurs at rates never seen before in human history, and a lot of it just happens as opposed to happening with proper planning.  Not my feelings, but imagine the folks in charge having the view of "well, it might cost a million or more lives, but we have to provide for 1.3 - 1.4 BILLION lives."  Citizens of China are in many cases secondary to government planning.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 6/29/2020 at 6:32 AM, ronwagn said:

Your comment is diametrically opposed to all the other stories I have read. They state that they were paid a fraction of what their land was worth and are now much worse off. They say their crops are much smaller than they had been. 

Honestly, Ron, what do you think hill people forced to move off their mountainside are going to say?  And I will stand by my comments that most of them ended up better off.  I have read a lot of articles on it and watched many videos available since the era of YouTube and I have never seen numbers of any size put to the people who feel the way you are being led to believe they do.  Having said that, even if 500,000 people feel that way, there are approximately 1,400,000,000 other people that have benefitted from the project.

This is as good a place to mention the following as any.  The West is incredibly hypocritical when it comes to developing countries, China included.  It was okay for the United States and others to build vast numbers of dams, burn vast amounts of coal, pollute the hell out of land, sea and air; But the hypocrites and greenies (especially) howl at the moon over any developing country utilizing those same tools.  They would rather people of those developing countries live in the dark and in squalor than lose their side of the environmental argument.  I believe quite a number of Americans lost their lives building dams, bridges, tunnels and developing the USA as well, not to mention the dams and bridges that failed there, but nobody mentions that.  Hypocritical, if you ask me. 

[ezdoggydog + 5]

How bad can it be?  Roads are all open.  (Google Maps - 2020)

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

@Dan Warnick, cool story about food delivery. I'm guessing when you show up with streaks and lobster, the CEO is your new best friend. 

I keep looking for videos showing the dam being built. National Geographic did one with animations that was pretty good but not necessarily showed how it was actually built, just how it was engineered. I hope it holds together, my guess is it will, they'll just let out all the water they can to relieve pressure. 

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

Not wishing to be morbid, but the above video from Ward Smith - re-linked by Dan Warnick - tragically shows 3 people being swept away by the floods at the 10  minute to 10:30 mark. (2 holding umbrellas blue/pink).

This unfolding tragedy may yet be in the early stages with ~2 weeks of rain in the forecast.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, ezdoggydog said:

How bad can it be?  Roads are all open.  (Google Maps - 2020)

Here's what my Google Maps shows right now

 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

@Dan Warnick, cool story about food delivery. I'm guessing when you show up with streaks and lobster, the CEO is your new best friend. 

I keep looking for videos showing the dam being built. National Geographic did one with animations that was pretty good but not necessarily showed how it was actually built, just how it was engineered. I hope it holds together, my guess is it will, they'll just let out all the water they can to relieve pressure. 

Yep.  I had a lot of "best friends" there, but the CEO especially because he got to take credit for bringing me in (and I always stocked his freezer!).  These places were extremely remote, we're talking a 28 hour train ride followed by a 6 hour car ride just to get there from the nearest city.  I was the only vendor who even bothered to make the trip let alone bring steaks.  For that level of customer service I was allowed an extra markup, which was much appreciated since those shipments and travels were arduous, to say the least.

Filming was, as I recall, strictly forbidden without approval from Beijing.  I wasn't even allowed to take photos except during the BBQs.

I believe the dam will hold together; I certainly hope so.  What a disaster if it doesn't!  From all the video footage I've seen so far it doesn't even look like they've opened all the doors.  That leads me to believe in the great scope of things, the dam is handling the deluge alright.  Fingers crossed.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, Coffeeguyzz said:

Not wishing to be morbid, but the above video from Ward Smith - re-linked by Dan Warnick - tragically shows 3 people being swept away by the floods at the 10  minute to 10:30 mark. (2 holding umbrellas blue/pink).

This unfolding tragedy may yet be in the early stages with ~2 weeks of rain in the forecast.

No doubt!  Loss of life is tragic and these torrential rains and the flooding they bring are horrific on the ground.  But it is not a tragedy at the dam.  That footage is obviously taken inside cities and there is no way of knowing how far they are from the dam.  This I do remember: there were no major cities anywhere near the dam.  City streets, in fact any streets, around the dams and for 100s of miles are so steep that a normal man cannot walk more than a few blocks up or down and around.  All that water is coming down from the hills/mountains above those cities in the videos.  Watch any of them and look at the grade of the streets.  Add tons of rainfall and dangerous doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

Here's what my Google Maps shows right now

 

Did Google Maps start using live footage?  It might be possible to get live or even same day satellite images of the dam, but I doubt it on the public domain.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

7 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Did Google Maps start using live footage?  It might be possible to get live or even same day satellite images of the dam, but I doubt it on the public domain.

I really doubt it. @ezdoggydoghad an image that looked quite different from all the ones I'd seen before and I thought perhaps the algorithm was fixed. Now I don't know if it's even an algo problem. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

2 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I really doubt it. @ezdoggydoghad an image that looked quite different from all the ones I'd seen before and I thought perhaps the algorithm was fixed. Now I don't know if it's even an algo problem. 

It's called "Photoshop" @Ward Smith  😜

[SUZNV + 1,197]

I approach this from 2 angles of view:

The two Chinese leaders that pushed hardest for the Dam are Li Pen and Jiang Zeming. The day the Dam finished, it didn't have a great ceremony and no leaders attended. This was unusual for Communist Leaders to not attend to the first ceremony of a very important events when it finished. Hu Jin Tao (who has irrigation degree) and Wen Jiabao (who has Geomechanics degree) are particularly trying to stay a way from it. Last year when Li Peng died, Hu Jin Tao and Wen Jiabao didn't attend. And Li Peng was believed the most important man who push for the dam. It seems Chinese leaders tried to detach from the Dam as much as they can.

Secondly the Dam is the ticking bomb after a while, maybe after 50 years, besides human error or miscalculation or concrete etc.... The reason is the accumulate mud will be more and more. The large part of south Vietnam was built by these mud/warp and the erosion becoming really bad now, where are these muds going to? Now CCP can do timing for low flooding season and remove the dam but later on at some points, the mud would be too much to remove the dam even in low flooding season, along with its weight pressure in the dam wall as well. How do they plan to deal with removing these mud after , lets say 50 years? And did they calculate the cost to do that?  Of course the Communist leaders would have though "I would have died long before then so I don't care" but future leaders will be praying "not in my term". I hope I will not heard any disaster about it in my life time. 

In Communism countries, engineers and scientists are hard to override political will and It is always not easy to say no to a big customer. The projects were to big for any engineering experience or any QA.  The O ring in Apollo explosion or Chernobyl were 2 big examples. The dam is not worth it, IMHO. Any big future disaster is always in theory only, just like the aftermath of an economics crisis or the US elections.

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by SUZNV

[nsdp + 449]

The Chinese  had two big advantages in that they got to go to school on several 500 year flood events at Wolf Creek Dam in the last 50 years.  That would give me confidence in Three Gorges. when the TVA and Corps of Engineers have rebuilt it for the third time in 2008 learning from the first two mistakes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Creek_Dam 

It is the number one dam risk in the US and has given every one in the world free classes on how not to build a dam on this geology.  While Three Gorges would be more spectacular, Wolf Creek is probably 100 times more likely including this week. The fact that Wolf Creek for all of its failings hasn't collapsed yet despite flooding on the Cumberland River is reassuring.  If it comes the flood of Gilgamesh , it won't matter how well the dam s built.

Edited July 2, 2020 by nsdp

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,191]

On 6/27/2020 at 8:37 PM, ronwagn said:

I would love to see a reference on the automatic silt control! Decatur just spent millions on dredging Lake Decatur which runs through the city. It is really part of the Sangamon River. Most American "lakes" are reservoirs, in the West and the TVA area anyway. I think dredging is rarely done though sorely needed! 

Uh, the "silt" control is the simple fact that the flood gates suck the water off the bottom BELOW the turbine inlets.  They do not actually "dredge" the lakebed, just the very narrow vicinity around the flood control openings.  Old style dams do not have this feature and on very silty rivers where either sediment load is high, or distance of lake to turbine inlet is low and therefore the sediment does not settle to the bottom, these inlets MUST be dredged semi regularly otherwise the turbines will be ingesting sediment destroying themselves.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/1/2020 at 4:35 AM, Dan Warnick said:

Yep.  I had a lot of "best friends" there, but the CEO especially because he got to take credit for bringing me in (and I always stocked his freezer!).  These places were extremely remote, we're talking a 28 hour train ride followed by a 6 hour car ride just to get there from the nearest city.  I was the only vendor who even bothered to make the trip let alone bring steaks.  For that level of customer service I was allowed an extra markup, which was much appreciated since those shipments and travels were arduous, to say the least.

Filming was, as I recall, strictly forbidden without approval from Beijing.  I wasn't even allowed to take photos except during the BBQs.

I believe the dam will hold together; I certainly hope so.  What a disaster if it doesn't!  From all the video footage I've seen so far it doesn't even look like they've opened all the doors.  That leads me to believe in the great scope of things, the dam is handling the deluge alright.  Fingers crossed.

Excuse the pun, but I couldn't give a Damn about the Dam! Sure, it would mean the little bastards would have to build another 200 coal-fired power stations instead of the 160 they have planned, but what's the difference? 1.4 billion pests on the planet versus 1.35 billion, again, who bloody cares? They certainly don't care about Americans or any other Westerner, why all the crocodile tears? If I were President of the USA, I would hit the bloody thing with a bunker-busting bomb to give it a nudge. That is what they have in store for the West, ICYMI?!?