The largest hydroelectric dam in the world has been approved | Hacker News Reader

The largest hydroelectric dam in the world has been approved

newatlas.com

31 pointsthelastgallon68 comments

Even before clicking, I already knew it would be in China.

It has been a while since the US or other western countries have done a major public infrastructure project (compared to what have been done before). The US especially is lagging behind. How long has it been since the high speed rail system was proposed? China built a national network in less time than the US took to argue about how to build just one line between its two hub cities...

California is actively working on their high speed rail system. They're just doing it very slowly and at great expense.

Actively is a strong word for what California is doing with their high speed rail.

> California is actively working on their high speed rail system

It's billions short on just the useless Merced-Bakersfield segment [1].

Given "its sole source of ongoing funds, from the state’s cap-and-trade program, expires in 2030," and there is zero chance of new federal funding through 2026 (and realistically, through at least 2028), the chances that this gets killed in its entirety are quite high.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ca-high-speed-ra...

Taking orders of magnitude more time and money is very close to not doing it at all. China built a countrywide network in less time than California has spent so far on preparing to build this one line.

Mostly North American problem, not Western. Europe is still building gigantic bridges, rails, ports and etc. Not as fast as China, but it still happens.

US/Canada is stuck on financial engineering loop, instead of… engineering. Big things happen when it’s required, but it feels like there’s no public nor political appetite for it.

The UK is insanely fumbling their nuclear plant build.

And the Thames tunnel, for which just the planning is likely to cost more than the complete construction of the world's longest, deepest undersea tunnel, which you may assume is being built in China?

Not China. It's actually in Norway. Denmark is also building a giant tunnel, and Austria, Switzerland and Italy are active in the Alps.

USA-UK comparisons are always tempting because the UK is English speaking, but my feeling is that the UK is in such disarray that its not a good European reference point

If you look at it from a government project standpoint, there’s still the James Webb Telescope which is a monumental achievement IMO.

Outside of that, there’s plenty of private work having huge impacts like SpaceX and Starlink.

Much respect to SpaceX and NASA, and I understand their importance to long term impact. But that’s not exactly what we’re talking about. We have lost talent and expertise in making our countries better, and it takes billions of dollars to build a couple of km of subway lines. We refuse to make incremental upgrades and shoot for moonshots every time.

And that’s totally valid. Numerous groups have complained about over regulation causing this issue too.

We're still doing megaprojects [1]. They're focussed on air and roads, in transportation; aerospace (defence and civil); and sports.

> How long has it been since the high speed rail system was proposed? China built a national network in less time

China's population distribution (and lack of strong-form property ownership) makes intercity passenger rail a lot easier than in America. We absolutely should have it in the Northeast. But it's unclear it makes sense almost anywhere else, other than as a drive-on drive-off system. (The case for municipal rail is much stronger.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megaprojects#North_Ame...

Sports mega project? Heh, do tell more.

Quite literally a section in the Wikipedia article.

Aha, I’m just not sure a stadium has the same level of developmental or economic impact as a high-speed rail line, power generation, airports or road infrastructure. It’s also usually far less challenging: build new structure on old stadium’s parking lot, demolish old stadium and turn that into a parking lot, done. None of those new stadiums in the US even have the capacity of say Maracanã or Azteca, both built in the mid 20th century.

> not sure a stadium has the same level of developmental or economic impact as a high-speed rail line, power generation, airports or road infrastructure

They’re a total waste of money. But the point remains that America is adding power generation, roads and airport infrastructure at a fast clip. Given China has clearly overbuilt, it’s not clear how much of their non-power infrastructure is actually yielding.

Well that was not the point I was replying to :) but sure.

billion-dollar stadiums paid for by tax dollars for those poor billionaire sports team owners because their current stadium just doesn't work anymore :(. But think of all those jobs it will add to the economy from people selling beer and hotdogs.

It’s worrying when you get downvoted on HN for telling the truth [1]

[1] https://theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/05/buffalo-bills-new-...

The way things are going I fear the day will come you’ll get downvoted for saying the earth is round or that men walked on the moon.

That article mentions:

> With a median household income of under $28,000, a ticket to an NFL game is out of reach for many residents

I was curious about that, since I have no idea how much attending major league pro sports in the US costs.

According to this site [1] in 2023 the total cost (ticket, beer, hot dog, and parking) to attend a Buffalo Bills game was around $140.

The most expensive were the San Francisco 49ers at just over $200 and the Las Vegas Raiders at just under $200.

The least expensive was the Arizona Cardinals at about $110.

[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/nfl-ticket-cost-inflation-o...

Drive-on/off rail?

Roll on roll off (roro) in transport lingo. Essentially more-efficient (and safer) transport of the passengers and their private vehicles.

"Megaproject" seems to be used pretty loosely in this list.

In my mind, renovating some airport terminals or adding extra lanes to a highway over a 10 mile stretch is not an ambitious "megaproject", just a typical infrastructure project. Certainly most of this stuff would not be considered megaprojects in China.

Most of it is just boring old upkeep and maintenance.

I think the problem is that in the US they cost as much as a "real" megaproject in China cost.

> most of this stuff would not be considered megaprojects in China

They are and they would. Rebuilding JFK is more complex than building a hundred airfields due to the former’s air traffic load and complexity.

Just as a point of comparison, the Abraham Lincoln Bridge from the list of megaprojects measures 640 total meters [1]

According to this [2] China's largest 8,816 bridges span a total of 16.21 million linear meters, or an average of 1,838 meters per bridge. So this megaproject bridge in the US might possibly crack the list of the longest 10,000 bridges in China.

The Wikipedia list contains only 2 bridges from China. The smaller one is 32 km...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_Bridge

[2] http://en.people.cn/n3/2023/0801/c90000-20052420.html *People's Daily, but I think the point still stands.

China also still has huge rivers it can do this with. Where would we bulld a dam like this in North America? I suppose Northern Canada has undeveloped rivers but not this big.

We could I suppose displace tens of millions of people and dam the Mississippi and the Ohio and power a good chunk of the Midwest but we have human rights. I’d rather us build nuclear, wind, solar, and batteries.

> China also still has huge rivers it can do this with

We have more inland waterways than China. There just isn’t an economic case for dropping a huge dam here—our power growth is amply satisfied by cheaper solar and gas.

Considering transmission losses it might make more sense to dam many smaller rivers. And the Mississippi is an important freight route, a dam would complicate that.

Seeing Austin’s Project Connect on there makes this list suspect, to me. It was an approved item on the ballot several years ago, but it was challenged by the state government and last I read had been substantially pared down from its already modest goals. Even in the original plan, it was “just” a relatively small number of train lines around the city, with one stretch of subway through downtown, if I recall correctly.

They are still building but none of these are at the scale China is doing. Most US projects are less than 10B, majority are around 1-2B. Meanwhile this article shows the dam China is building is over 100B.

That is why I mentioned that nothing the west is doing is that exciting, relatively. Sure, they are still large projects, but not the exciting, innovative type of "large" like Saturn V or moon landing. Just rehash and even scaled down versions of what has been achieved before.

I guess military is the only place we still see serious cutting edge advancement in US engineering. Shame that the public won't be able to benefit directly from that unlike infrastructure projects. Almost like China is taking better care of its people than the US.

> nothing the west is doing is that exciting, relatively. Sure, they are still large projects, but not the exciting, innovative type of "large" like Saturn V or moon landing

Literally Starship.

> lack of strong-form property ownership

Come on, just search the keyword "nail house in China" on the Internet[1] [2].And the latest news: China's National Highway 206 was planned to pass by this house, the owner asked for an unreasonable amount of compensation, and then they screwed up. Location: Jinxi a county of Jiangxi province[3]

- [1] https://x.com/RetirementUnity/status/1795777230825513304 - [2] https://x.com/pretentiouswhat/status/1859909798399033850 - [3] https://www.163.com/v/video/VFJNM8L73.html

Not that it makes for better policies in respect for human rights on their part...But most Chinese leaders are engineers and scientists in case you did not notice. And I mean real Engineers not Musk type engineers....

British Columbia just finished Site C:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_C_dam

the profit motive informs a lot of this in the United States, and as capitalism enters its later stages one can be forgiven for expecting great works projects from the nation. the US is declining as a superpower and neither has the collective willpower nor vision to execute something like high speed rail. anti socialist propaganda prevents a lot of this as well but on the whole this is normal; nations rise and fall over time.

It bears remembering that Chinas communist party works in five year plans along thoughts (deng xiaopeng, xi jinping, mao zedong thought) to advance the primary state of socialism in the pursuit of communism. climate policy is actively factored into chinas GDP by the party. Since the 17th national congress china has clearly articulated plans for advanced manufacturing and green energy during plenary and study sessions that align with marxist leninist thinking. So while it may be tempting to attribute these massive green energy projects to chinese manufacturing power alone, its absolutely under the continued guidance of the communist partys mass line and central leadership committee and aligns with the governments objective of building a modern socialist society by the mid 21st century.

> It has been a while since the US or other western countries have done a major public infrastructure project (compared to what have been done before)

how you define "major" here?

Agreed that the US is lagging behind in general, but I’m not sure if that matters here. I was under the impression that US hydroelectric capacity was already pretty much maxed out. All the good sites already have a dam.

Of course it’s China, every river that could or should be dammed in the US already has been.

Keep in mind that China is a large energy importer, so producing more power inside the country is of strategic importance, especially if you are planning a future war which is very likely to include sanctions.

China imports a large amount of oil through the Straits of Malacca, which would be hard for China to defend against, especially with India's owned islands are so close.

Also note that this dam is on a rather large river that goes into India, giving China a strategic advantage.

Just because it makes sense in China does't mean it would make sense in the USA since the USA is an energy exporter, has generally lower population density, and is unlikely to invade or be invaded by any neighboring country.

They really avoided all but the briefest mention of the most important thing for any large project like this: the potential ecological effects, not to mention geopolitical since said ecological effects will be across the border in India.

> not to mention geopolitical since said ecological effects will be across the border in India

China is taking full advantage of India's military dependence on Russia. (India cannot afford, let alone win, a conflict with China right now.)

There are ecological effects for not doing it too, and in global scale this time. Hydroelectric energy is pretty clean, specially compared with burning oil/coal/gas to make an equivalent amount of energy. At least if the priority is to keep growing and not some massive worldwide degrowth agreement.

This is in a highly geologically active zone though.

Yeah, this article has bit more details https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmn127kmr4o

If I were an Indian resident living downstream this river, I'd relocate

China is the only country in the world with ambition right now. The west can't build anything anymore.

TikTok and Fox News and twitter and friends working as intended, sapping ambitions and attention spans and political wills.

DEI and environmental road blocks come from the other side of the isle.

*aisle unless I’m missing something and you’re talking about an actual island?

DEI is to blame for the lack of infrastructure projects in the USA? Please, do share how this could possibly be connected!

I guess that DEI add some % of paperwork and costs, but it hardly a main problem or cause.

Google: chips act and dei.

That's an assignment, not an explanation.

Its not technically DEI , but if you tried to build a dam in the US some tribe would object it because (of course) that was the site of a sacred burial ground, or it would (allegedly) impact some specific animal that is sacred to them. Then CNN would rail about how the eminent domain "disproportionately affects PoC" and how "far-right congressman Badman voted to cut govbux to the poor women and children affected by this horrible infrastructure project".

Of course the energy company would only do it with liberal corporate welfare, awarded only on the condition of guaranteed DEI positions or strong preference toward subcontractors that were "women-owned " or Black owned.

That's quite the tale of victimhood!

Tales -> outrage for "victims" -> clicks -> ad revenue. Welcome to the modern news industry.

"anything anymore" is blatant overestimate and mistating the problem. See from space telescopes to Poland catching up after Russian occupation.

We’ve flown a drone on Mars. When the west achieves something, the focus is on the thing achieved and not on glory for the Motherland as it is with China.

The west already had its industrial revolution, and it's getting a lot of mileage out of it's infrastructure. China on the other hand is building for the first time, as opposed to updating and maintaining old infra. It's a different problem and cost benefit analysis.

Interesting reading on the “snail darter” that “environmentalists” used to oppose a U.S. project:

TLDR: so-called environmentalists will use any excuse to oppose infrastructure projects

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/04/there-is-technically-no...

This will mess up the planet's rotation speed. These mega dams are very bad.

Yes big dam do redistribute mass and alter the Earth's rotation. But by my rough calculations the Three Gorges Dam should lengthen the day by roughly 0.05 to 0.06 microseconds. So around 1 second every 50,000 years. You are more likely to get late to work because your alarm run out of battery :-)

> You are more likely to get late to work because your alarm run out of battery :-)

Or because you spend precious sleep time on pointless comments online...

And yours is a recursive comment....We might get a stackoverflow on this simulation...

These dams have drawbacks, but the planets speed is so far down the list. The rivers ecosystem and the watershed would be much more impacted. Not that they can’t take those into account and try to minimize, but it is an inevitable side effect

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