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A company helping to build China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, has agreed to halt work while it carries out environmental impact assessments on parts of the scheme.
The China Three Gorges Project Corporation has stopped construction of the Three Gorges Underground Power Plant and the Three Gorges Project Electrical Power Supply Plant while the reports are carried out. The company had been served with a government environmental order to stop the work and compile impact reports.
Twenty seven other large-scale projects connected to the dam-building have also been halted after the intervention of the government environment agency, which ordered them to be stopped on the grounds that impact assessments had not been submitted.
For a time the Three Gorges company did not comply with the orders, saying that the work on the $5billion (£2.7bn) dam in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the other two projects complied with the law.
The environment agency's orders have come as the government tries to cool China's booming economy. They have been seen as a test of an environmental protection law introduced in 2003.
In the south-western province of Yunnan the Xiluodu Dam is expected to be the first of four huge hydroelectric projects on the Jinsha, the Yangtze's western and main tributary of the Yangtze. The dams will raise China's hydroelectric capacity by 38.5 million kilowatts and are aimed at stopping the flow of silt from clogging up the Three Gorges Dam downstream. The Xiluodu Dam alone is expected to have a capacity of 12.6 million kilowatts.
This work has provoked further environmental controversy as it will flood some of the world's most spectacular canyons and gorges and 34,000 people will have to be relocated.
The regulator, known as the state environmental protection administration (Sepa), is considered one of China's weakest agencies. As energy demand has surpassed supply, many provinces have tried to alleviate shortages by building new plants with or without mandatory approval.
During the first 11 months of 2004, Sepa received 200 applications for power plants. It said, however, that if all 200 were to operate, China's already huge coal consumption would double, and sulphur dioxide emissions, a main pollutant in the cities, would soar. China already has seven of the world's most heavily polluted cities and has become a target for environmentalists worried about the contribution of gases from coal to global warming. Meanwhile, the country's coal producers have scrambled to keep pace with the growing demand and some big suppliers have doubled production.
The China Three Gorges Project Corporation has stopped construction of the Three Gorges Underground Power Plant and the Three Gorges Project Electrical Power Supply Plant while the reports are carried out. The company had been served with a government environmental order to stop the work and compile impact reports.
Twenty seven other large-scale projects connected to the dam-building have also been halted after the intervention of the government environment agency, which ordered them to be stopped on the grounds that impact assessments had not been submitted.
For a time the Three Gorges company did not comply with the orders, saying that the work on the $5billion (£2.7bn) dam in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the other two projects complied with the law.
The environment agency's orders have come as the government tries to cool China's booming economy. They have been seen as a test of an environmental protection law introduced in 2003.
In the south-western province of Yunnan the Xiluodu Dam is expected to be the first of four huge hydroelectric projects on the Jinsha, the Yangtze's western and main tributary of the Yangtze. The dams will raise China's hydroelectric capacity by 38.5 million kilowatts and are aimed at stopping the flow of silt from clogging up the Three Gorges Dam downstream. The Xiluodu Dam alone is expected to have a capacity of 12.6 million kilowatts.
This work has provoked further environmental controversy as it will flood some of the world's most spectacular canyons and gorges and 34,000 people will have to be relocated.
The regulator, known as the state environmental protection administration (Sepa), is considered one of China's weakest agencies. As energy demand has surpassed supply, many provinces have tried to alleviate shortages by building new plants with or without mandatory approval.
During the first 11 months of 2004, Sepa received 200 applications for power plants. It said, however, that if all 200 were to operate, China's already huge coal consumption would double, and sulphur dioxide emissions, a main pollutant in the cities, would soar. China already has seven of the world's most heavily polluted cities and has become a target for environmentalists worried about the contribution of gases from coal to global warming. Meanwhile, the country's coal producers have scrambled to keep pace with the growing demand and some big suppliers have doubled production.
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