China turns on world's second-biggest hydropower dam

The Chinese government says it has turned on the first two generating units of the world's second-biggest hydroelectric dam

BEIJING -- The first two generating units of the world’s second-biggest hydroelectric dam were officially turned on Monday in southwestern China, the government announced. The Baihetan Dam on the Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze, is part of Chinese efforts to curb surging fossil fuel demand by building more hydropower capacity at a time when dams have fallen out of favor in other countries due to environmental complaints. The announcement comes ahead of the ruling Communist Party’s celebration this week of the official 100th anniversary of its 1921 founding. Plans call for the 289-meter-tall (954-foot-tall) Baihetan Dam to have 16 generating units with a capacity of 1 million kilowatts each. That will make it second in size after the Three Gorges Dam, opened in 2003 on the Yangtze, with 22.5 million kilowatts of generating capacity.