China's environment ministry blocks hydro project

9 Apr2:44 PM

[BEIJING] China's environment ministry has refused approval for a hydropower dam on an ecologically vulnerable river already damaged by construction, a rare setback for the country's extensive dam-building programme.

While the 1,000-megawatt Xiaonanhai project appears scrapped, experts said China's overall plan for dams was on course given pressure to cut smog from coal-fired power plants.

Hydropower capacity is due to rise another 60 gigawatts (GW) in five years as new projects get approved.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a document sent to the Three Gorges Project Corporation and seen by Reuters that the firm could not plan or build the project on the Jinsha river, the upstream section of the Yangtze, in the southwest.

"In the last 10 years, two investigations have been carried out into construction in precious and unique national protection zones for fish in the lower reaches of the Jinsha river, and the structure and function of the zones have already been heavily impacted," the ministry said in the document. "Your company as well as other units cannot plan or build the Xiaonanhai hydropower plant," it said.

Officials at the Three Gorges Project Corporation were not available for comment and phone calls went unanswered.

Environmentalists said the blocking of a project once championed by the disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai reflected a tougher stance on protecting rivers. "We welcome the decision, particularly the recognition that Xiaonanhai dam would have pushed the Yangtze fish reserve past the ecological red line," said Grace Mang of the International Rivers group.

Final approval for big hydropower plants goes to the State Council, the cabinet, and hydropower advocates questioned the legal basis of the ministry document, an environmental impact assessment of the 10-gigawatt (GW) Wudongde plant, also on the Jinsha river.

"The State Council last year approved an overall development plan for the whole of the Yangtze river basin, and that plan cannot be guaranteed without building Xiaonanhai and other projects," said Zhang Boting, vice-secretary general of the China Hydropower Society.

"If this company doesn't build, then another might have to, because this is a state planning requirement," he said.

China's dam programme slowed after completion of the Three Gorges Project, the world's biggest hydropower plant, about a decade ago, with leaders concerned about human, financial and environmental costs.

But with an ambitious nuclear-power programme delayed, a greater reliance on hydropower is seen as a good way to cut smog.

An aim to raise total hydropower capacity to 290 GW by the end of 2015 was met a year early, and according to a "strategic energy action plan" last year, capacity will be raised to 350 GW by 2020.

"Emissions-cutting pressures are huge, coal consumption remains really high and if we are to meet this important global responsibility we must have hydropower," said Mr Zhang.

REUTERS

    

China eyeing Tibet-Nepal railway: report

      

A railway between China and Nepal that could include a tunnel under Mount Everest is under consideration, Chinese state media said on Thursday, as Beijing builds links with a country India regards as firmly within its sphere of influence. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

9 Apr2:58 PM

[BEIJING] A railway between China and Nepal that could include a tunnel under Mount Everest is under consideration, Chinese state media said on Thursday, as Beijing builds links with a country India regards as firmly within its sphere of influence.

The Qinghai-Tibet railway already links the rest of China with the Tibetan capital Lhasa and beyond, and an extension running as far as the international border is already being planned "at Nepal's request", the China Daily newspaper reported, quoting an expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

This is expected to be completed by 2020, it cited a Tibetan official as saying.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visited Kathmandu in December and, according to Nepalese reports, said the line could eventually be extended to the Nepalese capital and further, potentially providing a crucial link between China and the huge markets of India.

Such a plan could see a tunnel being built under Mount Everest, the China Daily said.

"The line will probably have to go through Qomolangma so that workers may have to dig some very long tunnels," expert Wang Mengshu told the newspaper, referring to Everest by its Tibetan name.

He said that, due to the challenging Himalayan terrain with its "remarkable" changes in elevation, trains on any line to Kathmandu would probably have a maximum speed of 120 kilometres per hour.

The proposal underscores China's influence in the impoverished Himalayan nation, where Beijing has for years been building roads and investing billions of dollars in hydropower and telecommunications.

Chinese tourism to Nepal, which is home to eight of the world's 14 peaks over 8,000m, is also climbing.

Beijing's increasing role has raised alarms in New Delhi that China, already closely allied to Pakistan, is forging closer economic ties with Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal in a deliberate strategy to encircle India.

In an apparent counter-move, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged late last year that South Asia's largest economy would fund a series of regional investments and free up its markets to its neighbours' exporters.

But India has struggled to compete with China's financial muscle.

Chinese plans to expand the rail network in Tibet have also come under criticism from rights groups including the International Campaign for Tibet, which has warned of the project's "dangerous implications for regional security and the fragile ecosystem of the world's highest and largest plateau".

"The Chinese government's claim that rail expansion on the plateau simply benefits tourism and lifts Tibetans out of poverty does not hold up to scrutiny and cannot be taken at face value," ICT president Matteo Mecacci said in a statement last year.

AFP