1水利水电专业毕业论文 水利水电工程专业毕业设计外文翻译附录 外文原文及翻译Three Gorges Dam, ChinaPublished:Edited: August 10, 2010Lead Author: Cutler ClevelandThree Gorges Dam, China (304418On April 3, 1992, the National Peoples Congress of China approved the construction of the worlds largest and most controversial hydroelectric facility at Three Gorges. The reservoir began filling on June 1, 2003, and construction is scheduled to be finished by May 2006. Full power generation will be reached in 2009. There are 26 power generating units planned, each with generating capacity of 700 megawatts (MW), which should produce an average of 84.7B kilowatt-2hours per year (kWh/yr) from 2008 from a total generating capacity of 18,200 gigawatts (GW). Three Gorges would then surpass the 14,000MW Itaip dam located on the Paran River at the Brazil/Paraguay border. The latest government figures have put a price tag of US$25 billion on the project, although other estimates put the actual cost much higher.The reservoir is 630km long and an average of 1.3km wide, while the dam wall is 185m high and almost as deep, stretching 2.3km across the valley. About 27 million cubic meters of concrete have gone into the structure since work began; thats more than eight times as much as has been poured into the Hoover dam on the Colorado River and twice the amount of concrete in the Itaip dam. The Three Gorges project August 10, 2010has been engineered to store over 5 trillion gallons of water and to withstand an earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale.There about 50,000 other dams on the Yangtze River, mostly along tributaries of the main river, that were built in the past 50 years to create freshwater reservoirs. The freshwater storage capacity has skyrocketed from 0.06 cubic 3kilometers in 1950 to 180 cubic kilometers in 2002. When the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam is full, it will add up to 40 cubic kilometers to that total.Benefits from the Three Gorges ProjectTo Chinas leaders, the Three Gorges dam will provide a foundation for the nations future economic prosperity. The power will also help meet Chinas rapidly growing energy demand. Just as important, the transmission lines that are being developed to transport electricity from the project to the rest of the country will help to create a national grid, with the Three Gorges at its heartTransportation of people and goods will be greatly enhanced. The reservoir will allow 10,000-ton freighters to enter the nations interior, which currently limits access to boats under 1,500 tons. Vessels will be able to navigate from Shanghai up to Chongqing, around 2000km from the sea. It could become an even more important transport artery if sufficient facilities are put in place to integrate cargo transport on the river with major rail and road intersections. The government and companies involved in the development of the Three Gorges dam are also keen to promote the project by developing it as a tourist attraction. Tour boats 4now offer trips on the reservoirs in order to allow foreign and domestic tourists to appreciate what are being advertised as lofty gorges projecting peaceful lakes.The dam is also intended to provide major flood control benefits. Historically, the population in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River suffered tremendous losses from flooding both in human lives and property. For example, the massive flooding of the Yangtze River in 1931 caused more than 3 million deaths from flooding and starvation.The government also notes that the dams power generation potential of 84.7BkWh/yr is the energy equivalent of burning 50 million tons of coal or 25 million tons of crude oil. Thus, the switch to cleaner hydroelectric power would have the effect of cutting 100 million tons of carbon dioxide, up to two million tons of sulfur dioxide, ten thousand tons of carbon monoxide, 370,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, and 150,000 tons of particulates annually from the atmosphere.Social and Environmental ConcernsCritics of the Three Gorges project argue that the projects costs may outweigh the benefits, the latter of which 5have allegedly been exaggerated by the government. The Three Gorges Dam project has become a symbol of national unity and strength for the ruling communist party. As a result, critics charge that many of the controversies surrounding the project are glossed over or ignored. In an address to the engineers of the dam, then Premier Li Peng, himself a power engineer by training, said the scale of the project was proof to the world of Chinas newfound strength. Foreign perception of the project has suffered from the reputation of its principal proponent in Beijing, Li Peng. Li, whom some historians hold responsible for the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, championed the idea of the dam to guarantee Chinas energy supply amid the internal political repression and international isolation that followed Tiananmen. Li was the driving force behind the approval of