If I’m in India I’d have only one question for China.

By Charlie Rayne

It’s important to understand how dams work. Their construction is also a weapon in the toolbox of a ruling-Government in any Nation to attempt and gather a populist movement around its establishment; usually, with tremendous success. Voting majorities seemingly love the idea of Work, or making someone else do more of it. (On a tangent, we have an obnoxious amount of dams built across every river a populace hits upon, and yet, it barely meets our demands, let alone exceed them. That’s to say, our spectacular efforts to generate power can barely scrape together what we need. What we have there, then, is an Energy problem.) China poured 22 miles of concrete to dam the Yangtze River. That is obscene. The men & women who built it are to be paraded as National-heroes; given opportunities to lead into the future. Their next attempt though is one of sheer scale.

Does your mind carry a visual of how the Himalayas are positioned on a Map?

Right along the back of these mountains, in China, flows the Tsangpo River. It traces a path along the back and as it reaches its farthest point the river makes a dramatic U-Turn, drops 2000M, and flows out through the front of the ranges into India. The Tsangpo turns into the legendary Brahmaputra to then enter the Indian peninsula.

That type of elevation can spin turbines around a magnetic coil enough that China estimates it can capably supply 40% of its capacity requirements. Needless to say, China is interested. India is anxious. If I was the Indian-contingent responsible for assessing this, I wouldn’t get too worked up. In fact, there’s only one question I have for China.

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