Construction work began yesterday on what will be China's second
largest hydropower station on the international Lancang-Mekong
River.
Situated in the middle reaches of the river in Dali Bai Ethnic
Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province in Southwest China,
Xiaowan Hydropower Station will have a total installed generating
capacity of 4.2 million kilowatts. It will be second only to the
Three Gorges project on the Yangtze River.
About 22.2 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion) will be spent on
construction, the largest investment of this kind in the province.
The project is scheduled to be completed in the year 2012.
The power station is a key part of China's west-east
power-transmission plan. It will not only be a milestone in the
western development strategy but also be a great incentive for the
economic-adjustment and poverty-alleviation efforts of Yunnan
Province, said Bai Enpei, secretary of the provincial committee of
the Communist Party of China.
Known as the "Oriental Danube," the Lancang-Mekong River originates
in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and runs 4,880 kilometers through
Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Viet Nam.
According to Kou Wei, general manager of the Lancang-Mekong River
Hydropower Development Co, the river has great potential for
large-scale hydropower generation.
The Xiaowan Hydropower Station is the second of eight planned
hydroelectric power stations on the Lancang-Mekong River and it
will be the largest water-conservancy project in Yunnan.
Due to complicated geological conditions, the project faces many
technical and construction problems and more than 30,000 people in
the dam area will need to be relocated, said Kou.
According to a memorandum signed between China and Thailand, power
stations on the Lancang-Mekong River will start providing
electricity to Thailand in 2013.
The Mekong River basin has 13.5 million hectares of cultivated
land, which is prone to flooding in summer and lacks irrigation in
winter.
When the Xiaowan Hydropower Station starts operating, the newly
formed 15 billion cubic-meter reservoir will reduce the amount of
water flowing downward by 17 per cent during the rainy season and
increase the flow by 40 per cent in the dry season, said He Daming,
director of the Asian International River Center affiliated to
Yunnan University.
The construction of a 292-metre-high dam will block 35 per cent of
the silt now released into the lower reaches of the river. This
will aid the development of agriculture and fishing in northern
Thailand and the Vientiane Plain and facilitate navigation on the
river.
China and Laos organized trial shipping runs on the river in 1990.
The river was opened up for commercial navigation simultaneously in
China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand last June.
(Xinhua News
Agency January 21, 2002)