Report: China Starts Dam Generator

BEIJING – The first turbine generator on the right bank of China’s massive Three Gorges Dam, the world’s biggest hydropower project, has started operations, state media reported Monday.

The 700,000-kilowatt turbine – one of 15 now in operation – started sending electricity to the national power grid Monday morning after a 72-hour trial operation, the Xinhua News Agency said.

It is the first of 12 turbines that will be on the right bank of the $22.5 billion dam on the Yangtze River. The 14 turbines on the left bank began operation in September 2005.

The dam’s 1.5-mile-wide concrete wall was finished last year. Construction started in 1993 despite complaints about high costs, environmental concerns and the forced relocation of 1.4 million residents from areas flooded by the dam’s reservoir.

The government has promoted the dam as a way to control devastating flooding on the Yangtze and as a clean power source, as China tries to cut its heavy reliance on coal.

Environmentalists worry that vast stretches of land, left exposed when the reservoir level falls each summer, will fill with pollution and breed diseases such as malaria.

China is investing heavily in hydropower and trying to encourage the use of other renewable energy sources.