4KS+Pros+and+Cons

4KS Pros and Cons
This page will be used to gather information for your project. As you read through material on the Internet and in books, you will record the facts for both pro and con on this page. You will also add the resource for your information through an Internet link or the title of your print resource.

Pros: ~The dam can store the rain and the Yangtze river itself. ~The dam can prevent floods that killed millions of people. ~Navigation will be easier for boats in the gorges. ~China is now even more famous than before because of the dam. ~The dam can store electricity for the local peoples home. ~When the dam is finished you can live peacefully without thinking of a flood. ~The Three gorges dam will have as much electricity as the Itaipu Dam project. ~When the dam is finished, the kids can play near the Yangtze river without being scared about floods. ~Local people's houses won't be washed away. ~They don't need to think about the flood anymore. ~It should be easier to transportate. ~The Yangtze river can provide electricity, navigation, and could control floods are positive.

The Three Gorges Dam has many uses. Flood control, navigation, hydroelectricity are the main three uses. Flood control, to control floods, navigation, to trading, hydroelectricity, to make electricity from water. As engineers, we clearly see that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages in building this mega dam.

Since the beginning of the Han Dynasty 2,300 years ago, there have been 214 major floods recorded, averaging 1 flood every ten years. Within this past century, there have been five major floods that were recorded to have claimed hundreds of millions of lives, millions of acres of farmland, destroyed thousands of homes, and billions of dollars of damage. In 1998, a flood of such catastrophic level in the Three Gorges area caused 4,000 casualties, left 14 million people homeless, and created $24 billion in economic loss.By building the dam we can contol catastrophic floods that can destroy many bridges and homes.

The Three Gorges dam will enable better navigation to boost Yangtze River trade, which accounts for 80% of China’s inland shipping. The Three Gorges area of the Yangtze is notorious for dangerous shipping conditions. The elevated water levels of the reservoir upstream from the dam will enable larger ships to travel further inland on the Yangtze. In order to facilitate transportation, the dam will have a 5 tier ship lock system to enable ships to pass through the dam. A ship elevator is to be installed by the project’s completion in 2009 that will be capable of lifting passenger or cargo ships of 3,000 tons. This new transportation system is said to cut transport costs by one third and increase shipping on the Yangtze from 3 million tons to 50 million tons per year.

By the time of its completion in 2009, the Three Gorges Dam will produce enough electricity to supply 3% of China’s total energy needs. The demand for energy is increasing so rapidly in China that the initial estimate in 1993 for energy production capacity was 10% of China's total energy needs. With a total of 26 turbines, each generating 700 megawatts, the dam will have a total generating capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts. The dam will generate as much energy as 18 coal power plants and will have 20 times as much power capacity as the Hoover Dam in the US. The rate of energy production, equivalent to burning 11,000 barrels of oil per hour, is enough to supply Beijing with power for one year.

Engineers mostly need to think about flood control, navigation and hydroelectricity before or while building the dam. If they don't think about those three main uses, they would do some damage to the dam and maybe destroy the whole dam and send a really bad flood all the way to the city Shanghai. They have to think about flood control, so we can stop any flood that comes. Hydroelectricity to let the Chinese Citizens have light. Navigation, so they could cross the dam for trading.



[|http://sun.menloschool.org/~sportman/ethics/project/topics/zider/pro.html]

Cons: ~Many people died while building the dam. ~It will cause a huge flood, flood if the dam breaks ~The Chinese citizens don't want the dam to be built because they don't want to leave their ancestor. ~The local people don't want it to be built because they don't want their homes to be destroyed like the town called Feng Du. ~A lot of cities will be destroyed by the river or the engineers will take it down. ~If anything happens, the dam would fall apart and it will loose a huge amount of money. ~If a Earthquake hits over 7.0 a lot of people will die. ~If the dam fails we would loose some workers too. ~It has less than 40% succeeding. ~Many animals like the Baiji dolphin became extinct. ~If the dam breaks everyone that lives near the Yangtze River will die even the people in Shanghai. ~If the dam fails, it will waste 180 billion RMB which is $26 dollars in USA.



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