World's Largest Power Station "Three Gorges Dam"

The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW). In 2012, the amount of electricity the dam generated was similar to the amount generated by the Itaipu Dam.

Except for a ship lift, the dam project was completed and fully functional as of July 4, 2012, when the last of the main turbines in the underground plant began production. Each main turbine has a capacity of 700 MW. The dam body was completed in 2006. Coupling the dam's 32 main turbines with two smaller generators (50 MW each) to power the plant itself, the total electric generating capacity of the dam is 22,500 MW.

As well as producing electricity, the dam is intended to increase the Yangtze River's shipping capacity and reduce the potential for floods downstream by providing flood storage space. The Chinese government regards the project as a historic engineering, social and economic success, with the design of state-of-the-art large turbines, and a move toward limiting greenhouse gas emissions. However, the dam flooded archaeological and cultural sites and displaced some 1.3 million people, and is causing significant ecological changes, including an increased risk of landslides. The dam has been a controversial topic both domestically and abroad.

The service life of the dam depends largely on the materials that were used to build it. After completion, minor maintenance work might be done at some parts of the dam to make it more durable. However, this will not affect the general service life of the dam.

Before building the dam, engineers gave full consideration to the choice of the site of the dam and the site's geological conditions. The construction process also went on smoothly. All this will help greatly to prolong the dam's service life. The Three Gorges Dam is built on granite rocks and every square centimeter of such rock can sustain 1,000 kilograms of pressure on it. This means that the Three Gorges Dam is built on a very firm basis.

At the same time, it should be noted that no big earthquakes have ever occurred near the dam's area. According to experts' calculation, none of the earthquakes that may occur in the Three Gorges Area will be stronger than level-6 on the Richter Scale and the dam is designed to survive level-7 earthquakes on the Richter Scale. This can ensure that the dam can survive even the strongest earthquake that might possibly occur in the area.

The 600 km long reservoir flooded some 1,300 archaeological sites and altered the appearance of the Three Gorges as the water level rose over 300 ft. Cultural and historical relics are being moved to higher ground as they are discovered, but the flooding inevitably covered undiscovered relics. Some sites could not be moved because of their location, size, or design. For example, the hanging coffins site high in the Shennong Gorge is part of the cliffs.
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