Impacts of the Three Gorges Dam on the world’s energy use

Environmentalists and human rights advocates are voicing loudly their protests. To create area for the mammoth project, more than one million people living on the banks of the Yangtze River will have to be resettled. The 350-mile-long reservoir will immerse villages, ancient temples, burial grounds, and the magnificent canyons that tourists from all over the world come to see. Environmentalists also dispute that the dam will endanger many animal species, for example the Yangtze River dolphin. The reservoir will also entrap millions of tons of raw pollutants spewing from China's largest built-up city, Chongqing.

The Three Gorges Dam will produce one-ninth of China's power upon completion. Regrettably, the dam may be remembered not for its hydroelectric power, but for its radical social and environmental impact. As quoted by Dr. John Byrne, director of the University of Delaware's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy. "In terms of an American scale, this dam is somewhat akin to the electrical load between Philadelphia and Washington D.C. being served from a single power plant." The energy produced is shockingly tremendous.

It is still yet to be seen if the energy produced by the Three Gorge Dam is able to be efficiently utilized into China’s energy grid. If it proves itself to be successful, many other countries in the world will follow and construct dams in their own backyards. This will lead to the rapid construction of new dams and inevitable, leads to a question- how much should humankind control nature.