World's Largest Dam - Three Gorges Dam

LOCATION : Sandouping, Hubei, China. Over The YANGTZE River TYPE OF DAM : Gravity Dam CONSTRUCTION PERIOD : 1994 to 2003 ESTIMATION : US$ 27.6 billion LENGTH : 2335m ( 7661ft ) WIDTH ( Crest ) : 40m ( 131ft ) WIDTH ( Base ) : 115m ( 377ft ) The TOP of the Dam is 185m (607ft ) above the sea level TOTAL CAPACITY : 39.3cu.km The project used 27.2 million cu.m of CONCRETE A 463000 tonnes of STEELS is used ( Enough to build 63 EIFFEL TOWERS )

POWER GENERATION

The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest capacit hydroelectric power station with 34 generators : 32 main generators, each with a capacity of 700 MW, and two plant power generators, each with capacity of 50 MW, making a total capacity of 22,500 MW.

FLOOD

This capacity will reduce the frequency of major downstream flooding from once every ten years to once every 100 years. The dam is expected to minimize the effect of even a "super" flood.

NAVIGATION

The installation of ship locks is intended to increase river shipping from ten million to 100 million tonnes annually, as a result transportation costs will be cut between 30 and 37%. Ships with much deeper draft will be able to navigate 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) upstream from Shangha all the way to Chongqing. It is expected that shipping to Chongqing will increase fivefold.There are two series of ship locks Each of them is made up of five stages, with transit time at around four hours. Maximum vessel size is 10,000 tons. That is 30 m longer than those on the St Lawrence Seaway, but half as deep. Before the dam was constructed, the maximum freight capacity at the Three Gorges site was 18.0 million tonnes per year.

From 2004 to 2007, a total of 198 million tonnes of freight passed through the locks. The freight capacity of the river increased six times and the cost of shipping was reduced by 25%. The total capacity of the ship locks is expected to reach 100 million tonnes per year.