The Largest Energy Project in the World: Chinese Dams Threaten Tibet's Yarlung-Tsangpo River

By Joel Connelly
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In remote corner of Tibet, in the world’s deepest and longest canyon on “the Everest of rivers,” China has set out to build the world’s largest hydroelectric power system. The power will be transmitted east to China’s population centers.

Five cascade power stations will be built in the great bend where the Yarlung-Tsangpo River carves a path between 25,531-feet Namjagbarwa and 23,930-feet Gyalaperi, two peaks at the east end of the Himalayas. The dams will generate 300 million megawatts of electricity a year, more than triple the 88-million MW output of Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

The river, at 699 miles, is Tibet’s longest. It rises near 22,000-foot Mt. Kalish, the “sacred mountain” of Tibet, beginning at 14,800 feet and dropping to 2,100 feet where it crosses the border into India and becomes the Brahmaputra River. It crosses an arid plateau and then plunges rapidly, including three massive waterfalls, into semi-tropical forests.

The project is a giant tradeoff. It will displace villages, as was the case when a total of 1.4 million people were uprooted when the reservoir behind Three Gorges filled. It is in an earthquake zone. Environmentalists and the Indian government worry that ecosystems will be disrupted, and streams diverted, a “weaponizing of waters.” India fought a losing war with China in 1962 at both ends of the Himalayas.

https://www.postalley.org/2025/07/29/the-largest-energy-project-in-the-world-chinese-dams-threaten-tibets-yarlung-tsangpo-river/