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A bird's-eye view of the Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Project
The Three Gorges Project is the
world's largest-ever hydro-electric project. Located at Sandouping, Yichang,
Hubei Province, this enormous undertaking began in 1993 and is scheduled to be
completed in 2009, a span of 17 years. The dam will be built in accordance with
the scheme of "development in one cascade, construction at one stroke,
impoundment at stages and resettlement in succession." The project is
composed of a concrete gravity dam, two power plants, and navigation facilities.
When completed, the project will be beneficial to flood control, power
generation, navigation, aquaculture, tourism, ecological protection,
environmental purification, development-oriented resettlement, water transfer
from the South to the North, water supply, and irrigation, which makes it a
unique super power station worldwide.
In addition, when the project is completed, Yangtze
cruisers will be voyaging through what will be the largest national park in the
world. The park will include 11 new lakes, 37 canyons and an underwater museum.
Although the navigable stretch of the river in the area will be closed until
next June, cruise ships will be able to continue with the Dam at journey's end.
Passengers will have the opportunity to disembark and explore the gorges more
intimately on smaller ships. The final lap of the journey to Yichang will be
completed by bus.
Full cruise service on the Yangtze will resume in June
2003. Despite higher water levels, the voyage will remain as spectacular as ever.
The new water level will also allow boats to travel smaller, scenic waterways
not available before.
The Dam
The concrete gravity dam will
be 2,309 metres long and 185 metres high. The spillway section is located in the
middle of the river course. On both sides of this section, there will be
arranged the intake-dam and non-overflow dam sections. The total storage
capacity 39.3 billion m3. The maximum discharge capacity of the
Project can reach 116.000 m3/s, which is the maximum possible flood.
The Powerhouses
The designed two powerhouses to
be located on both sides of the spillway have 26 units of generators (14 sets on
the left, 12 on the right) of 700,000Kw each with a total capacity of 18.2
million Kw and an annual output of nearly 84.7 billion Kwh. The designed one-way
shipping capacity of the navigation facilities is 50 million tons a year.
Navigation Facilities
The permanent navigation
facilities include a 5-flight shiplock and a shiplift. The shiplock is schemed
out as double-way and five-step locks. Each lock chamber is dimensioned at 280
X 42 X 5m (i.e. length X width X water depth) capable of passing 10,000 tons of
barge fleet.
The shiplift is designed as one a one-stage vertical
hoisting type. The ship container of the shiplift is 120 X 18 X 3.5m, capable of
carrying one 3,000 tons of passenger or cargo boat each time.
In addition, one temporary shiplock is schemed for use
during the construction period with an effective chamber size of 240 X 24 X 4m.
Page 2 - Project Schedule and Ship Navigation
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