China Begins Construction Of World’s Largest Hydropower Dam

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Last Updated on: 21st July 2025, 11:57 pm

Hydro power is good for the planet because it makes emissions free electricity. Lots of nations rely heavily on hydro to provide low carbon electricity for their industrial base. Sweden’s Northvolt chose a production site for a battery factory in the northern part of the country primarily because it had access to a plentiful supply of cheap hydro power. Norway uses hydro to power much of its economy so it can sell its abundant fossil fuel resources to others. Some of that hydro power is used to make emissions free hydrogen for commercial applications.

Quebec has so much hydro power available, it supplies large amounts of it to neighbors in New England. The Grand Coulee Dam in the state of Washington is the largest supplier of hydro electricity in the country.

Now China has begun construction of the world’s biggest hydro power mega dam, which Chinese premier Li Qiang calls the “project of the century.” It is being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet and has been in the planning stages since it was first announced in 2020 as part China’s 14th five year plan. The Yarlung Tsangpo dam will harness the power of the water in the river as it drops 2 km (1.2 miles) over 50 km (30 mi).

The site of the dam is in a canyon where the river makes a nearly 180 degree bend. The plan calls for diverting the river into tunnels blasted through the rock near that U turn. The tunnels will exit below that bend, where turbines will harness the power of the falling water.

Tibet Hydro Project Stirs Protests

Not everyone is happy about the new dam. The river flows through parts of India and Bangladesh, where officials and local groups are concerned about how the dam will affect the flow of water through their countries. Not only can a dam produce electricity, it can also stop or slow the flow of water or even divert it altogether.

The Yarlung Tsangpo becomes the Brahmaputra river as it flows south into India’s Arunachal Pradesh and Assam states and finally into Bangladesh as the Jamuna river. Damming it could affect millions of people downstream. “China can always weaponize this water in terms of blocking it or diverting it,” Neeraj Singh Manhas, special adviser for South Asia at the Parley Policy Initiative, told the BBC in January.

The Indian government formally registered its concerns with Beijing over the project in December. During bilateral meetings between the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers in January, Chinese officials said their country does not seek “water hegemony.” A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said China never pursues “benefits for itself at the expense of its neighbors. China will continue to maintain current exchange channels with downstream nations and step up cooperation on disaster prevention and mitigation.”

Environmental groups in Tibet are also unhappy with the planned dam, as they worry about how many Indigenous people will be displaced by the project. Other hydro power projects in Tibet have led to protests, which are rare in areas ruled by an authoritarian government like China’s. Those protest have resulted in brutal crackdowns from authorities.

The Guardian reports that last year hundreds of people were arrested while protesting against the Kamtok dam on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river. The protesters said that dam threatened to displace thousands of residents and submerge ancient Buddhist monasteries. Before the Three Gorges Dam was completed in 2006, an estimated 1.5 million people were said to have been displaced from their homes.

Environmentalists have also expressed concern about wildlife in the region, as well as the significant tectonic shifting, severe landslides and extreme geography where the dam is expected to go. The Chinese government rejects the criticism, and says the project will stimulate jobs in the region, increase domestic energy supplies and spur on development in the renewables sector. “Special emphasis must be placed on ecological conservation to prevent environmental damage,” Li said.

Hydro Is Not Necessarily Carbon Free

It doesn’t take a genius to see that while electricity from hydro electric power plants is free of emissions, the dam that makes that hydro power possible will use massive amounts of energy to create the tunnels through the mountains and large quantities of concrete for the structures where the turbines will be installed.  Globally, cement production creates more carbon emissions than air travel or ocean shipping.

The Guardian reports the new dam will consist of five cascade hydro power stations that, combined, will produce an estimated 300 million MWhs of electricity annually. The project is projected to cost 1.2 trillion yuan ($167 billion). In comparison, the Three Gorges dam in China cost 254.2 billion yuan ($35 billion) and generates 88.2 million MWh of electricity every year. The Three Gorges dam was a big deal when it was built in 2006 but it pales in comparison to this latest endeavor,

China emits more carbon dioxide each year than any other country (the US emits the most carbon dioxide per capita), but is also the leader in renewable energy among all nations. It manufactures more solar panels and wind turbines than any country and also produces more electric cars, trucks and buses than any other nation. It has a national goal to carbon neutral by 2060.

Other countries say they will reach their goal sooner but actually are doing next to nothing to achieve those targets, while China is consistently reaching its goals ahead of schedule. Today it has tens of thousands of hydro power projects spread across its territory — far more than any other nation.

Hydro And Climate

While hydro power has much to recommend it, there is a fraught relation between it and the Earth’s climate. Hydro is 100 percent reliant on an abundant flow of water — something that is not guaranteed as the world gets hotter and drier. In 2024, US hydro power production fell considerably because many rivers has less flowing water than normal, although that trend is expected to correct itself this year, according to the US Energy Information Agency.

There is a connection — though not an obvious one — between hydro power and climate altering technologies known as geoengineering. Both appear to be politically benign on the surface but carry the potential to be used as a way to disadvantage neighboring states in times of crisis.

China and India have had a fraught relationship for decades involving disputes along their more than 2000 mile long border. China is currently the world’s most populous nation, but India may soon usurp that title, if it has not done so already. Any significant reduction in the amount of water flowing in the Brahmaputra river could lead quickly to an international incident. India, you may recall, has nuclear weapons. China is not officially a nuclear power, but is anyone willing to bet on that?

The only truly reliable power source on Earth is energy from the sun. China seems to realize this more than other countries as it races to build the largest fleet of solar power installations in the world. That way, if the Yarlung Tsangpo river becomes a quiet stream instead of a raging river in the future, it will still have an abundant supply of renewable energy available.

From every perspective, China is doing more to rid itself of the scourge of fossil fuels than any other nation — something the US should be aware of if it still has intentions of being a leading nation on the world stage.