Work began Sunday on the world's second tallest earth-filled dam on the Yalong River in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
A 295-meter embankment dam, which is on a tributary of China's longest river, the Yangtze, will support a 3,000 MW power station. Chen Yunhua, chair of Yalong River Hydro-Power Development Co. Ltd., said 43 million cubic meters of earth would be needed for the project.
Work on the 66.4 billion yuan (about 10 billion U.S. dollars) Lianghekou dam started in October last year. It is planned that when operational, in 2021, it will generate power equivalent to that yielded by burning 13.3 million tonnes of coal a year.
Chen said that the reservoir project would reduce the amount of silt collected at the Three Gorges Reservoir, the world's largest hydro-power plant.
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