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China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation (CYRTGPDC) has been given the green light to restart a new underground power workshop whose construction postponed earlier this year out of environmental concern.


Having undergone an environmental impact appraisal of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), CYRTGPDC signed contracts for prospecting, designing and building the new underground power workshop for housing six generators, each with an installed capacity of 700,000 kw, which will be built in the mountain on the southern bank of the Yangtze, China's longest river.

SEPA in early January ordered a halt to the construction of 30 large projects across the country, including the new underground power workshop affiliated to the Three Gorges Project, which failed to pass the environmental impact assessment by SEPA.

Pan Dazhong, a CYRTGPDC official in charge of construction matters, pledged to go ahead with the new underground power workshop "in strict compliance with requirements of SEPA".

By now, a vast majority of the postponed projects have resumed construction after essential adjustments were made, sources from SEPA noted.

The new underground power workshop with the Three Gorges Project will cost more than 6 billion yuan (some 720 million US dollars) and will be completed in 2009. By then, 90 percent of the water in the Three Gorges Reservoir will be used for generating hydro-electricity.

Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project is being built in three phases on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Pre-stage preparation and construction of the first-phase project were carried out from 1993 to 1997. And the Yangtze was dammed up at the Three Gorges area for the first time on November 8, 1997.

Based on an original plan, the gigantic Three Gorges Project, with an estimated cost of 180 billion yuan (approximately 21.7 billion US dollars), will have 26 generators with a combined generating capacity of 18.2 million kw. The project will be able to generate 84.7 billion kW/hours of electric power annually when it is finished in 2009.

But, a revised plan also calls for inclusion of a new underground power plant with six new 700,000-kw generators.

So far, 14 of the generators have already been installed on the northern bank of the Yangtze River.

The remaining 18 generating units of the Three Gorges Project, also one of the major water control works to tame the mighty Yangtze, will all be erected on the river's southern bank.