Water from the Bohai Sea in north China may be channeled to the Xilin Gol league (prefecture) in Inner Mongolia to ease conditions in the drought-troubled region, officials said in Beijing.

A file photo of the Bohai Sea in north China

A feasibility study on the project distributed at a seminar Wednesday showed that the league planned to channel 365 million tons of water from the Bohai Sea every year.

Zhao Ping, an official from the energy department of the Xilin Gol league government, was quoted in the report as saying they planned to complete the seawater project within three years.

The complex, ambitious plan to channel water to the west was proposed more than 10 years ago. However, due to the huge cost and technical difficulties, many were not convinced the project would be viable.

"Things started to change in 2004," Zhang Baoyin, vice-president of China Marine Hi-Tech Industrialization Association, said Wednesday.

"The Xilin Gol league came up with a new plan that year, which contained some good ideas. The heat produced by coal could be used to desalinate the sea water," Zhang said.

The league occupies a fifth of Inner Mongolia's total area, and has China's biggest brown coal reserve of 139 billion tons.

The China International Engineering Consulting Corporation (CIECC) was entrusted with assessing the project in April. The corporation considered it to be "generally good" but could do with some improvements.

"The total investment of this project equals to half that of the Three Gorges Project," Zhu Liangdong, vice-president of CIECC, said.

The Three Gorges project is estimated to cost between 160 billion yuan (US$23 billion) and 200 billion yuan.

He said desalination technology today was not that complex, but the cost and required equipment for the project were still major problems.

(China Daily October 17, 2008)