Diverting the Brahmaputra - start of the Water Wars?

End 2005: China Hydropower Engineering Consulting Group began analysing hydro potential on sectors of the Yalung Tsangpo.

February 2006: Detailed planning for the "Tsangpo Project" approved by State Council with the full support of Hu Jintao. Chief planner is Professor Chen Chuanyu.

End June 2006: Studies concluded on the potential of the lower reaches of the Yalung Tsangpo.

August 2006: Li Guoying, director, Yellow River Water Conservancy Committee:

… the (Yalung) project was essential because the Yellow River's current flow is being exhausted by development demands in western China … The route isn't especially long, but it's technologically challenging, and it's a matter of resolving the engineering and environmental questions. This project will be launched once the economic and social development of the NW reaches a certain level and the potential of water saving measures is exhausted. The Western Route is a firm plan and will go ahead ... CCP’s leaders and nearly all engineers, claim the W Route will fulfil promises to use rising economic and technological might to lift the less developed west.

Hydro projects now in the planning stages include the Tsangpo Project as one of eight in Nyingchi.

October 2006: Beijing denied any support or approval for the "Tsangpo Project" but referred to Tibet as "an inexhaustible source of water". Construction was already scheduled to commence 2010 as part of the 100B Yuan Tibet capital works program.

Discussion and on ground work has been ratcheted up since early 2003 with reports of intensive activity in the main gorge that Beijing claims to be mineral exploration. Google Earth viewers will find this area blanked out by China.

October, 2007: General Zhao Nanqi said, "Even if we do not begin this water diversion project, the next generation will. Sooner or later it will be done".

The project

The aim is to divert 200B m3 (roughly 33 per cent) of the Brahmaputra's flow into China each year. That 33 per cent uses outdated 1990s data and flawed design philosophy used in the Three Gorges Dam and as then ignores local and international expert advice. Initial proposals include the Soviet practice of PNEs (peaceful nuclear explosions) to blast the tunnels.

At twice the capacity of Three Gorge's the 40GW pumped storage facility will be the world's largest hydroelectric facility. The dam at Shoumatan Point will back up water that will plunge 2,000m through 15km of tunnels near Dagmo and discharge through 26 of the world's biggest turbines into a tributary rejoining the riverbed and reservoir of the storage dam north of Medog. The waters flow will be cut from 200km to 21km.

Pumped storage systems will return water from the storage dam to the holding dam at specific rates. After diverting the original 33 per cent, the volume of returned water determines residual river flow from the holding dam. Authorities refuse to confirm any residual flow rate.