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Deformation of a concrete structure always occurs ... but that's deformation measured by engineers with tools ... not deformation visible from satellites. If the deformation in the satellite images is real ... the dam is doomed.
those satellite images are definitely distorted not the actual dam. if they were true we are talking about shifts of 50-100 feet and major cracks would emerge
09:12 - Don't you bother to fact check? The photo of the supposed "deformation" in the dam is a well documented and proven fake. Even two seconds checking current and past birds eye photos on Google Earth shows it's not moved or changed shape at all.
Yea, bird's eye view of the alleged "deformation" is just a typical optical distortion that usually happens in satellite imagery. It's true that every mega dam have inherent risk of collapse due to many causes, but to believe that the three gorges dam is extremely deformed like that, is just plain stupid.
It astonishes me most that of all the negatives of the three gorges dam, the one forgotten most frequently is the loss of temples, artifacts, and ancient Chinese heritage that occurred when the reservoir filled. They lost so much culture in those old sites.
9:10 has two SAT photos ( taken 3-400 miles above the target). The one on the left has optical correction to correct for atmospheric distortion and/or lens distortion; the one on the right is pre-filtered. Also, the dam is concrete poured. If it’s going to fail, or if the ground is shifting underneath, it not going to fail like a wavering line, instead we should see a an arc forming with deepest part in the middle.
I don't know about SAT filtering but concrete absolutely warps over time, term is called creep. If not accounted for in design or too dramatic difference of stress applied to (or quality of) concrete then could absolutely warp as early indicator of impending catastrophic failure.
If you look at the thumbnail of both photos, the cars on dam are in exactly the same place. They are in fact the same photo but the one on the right is manipulated.
ccp requires google to obfuscate the country, so the entire map is randomly skewed a bit, as well as the street maps, so if you look at any random village, it's pretty wonky. There are landmarks and hight visibility areas that the CCP wave this protection, and I'm assuming google just geofenced the dam from the algorithm. even then I wouldn't be surprised if the street map had the road a quarter mile upsteam at a different angle than the dam
I am surprised you did not mention the ongoing problem of the high sediment load in the Yangtze river. If not well-managed, it will make the dam inoperable.
Makes sense; how many millions of tons does the water in that artificial lake weigh? it is pressing down on land that has never had that much pressure put upon it. Something has to give.
@@donpablo59 Come on, man! Fault lines are the best places to put a nuclear reactor. After all, are YOU a geologist? If not then let the smart people do the thinking. /s/
@richardthomas: your comment is confusing. People are talking about the dam, the topic of this video, and you start about a nuclear power plant? And since when are geologists specialists in NPP placement?
@@johnstreet797 When? It's strong enough to hold way more water capacity (the smaller Itaipu sometimes had more power output, and you don't cry about that dam for still not collapsing). You're too scared to try getting rid of it yourself in a suicide attack either.
@@earlwheelock7844 They do. At least the ones in change of maintenance. But the CCP will shut them up cause nothing is wrong in the country with concrete as strong as wet paper towels.
Back when it was being constructed I heard a lot of negative feedback from several friends of mine that are mechanical engineers specializing in hydro-electric power. They felt that the flat face of the dam was not an ideal form since great volumes of water tend to look for the weakest points and a flat surface tends to encourage that process. Two of them that were encouraged to visit the site during construction were quite amazed by the entire process and skill-sets of their engineering counterparts on the dam. However the dam construction engineers also advised them that there was quite a challenge with regard to quality of concrete components, forms and pours with many reported defects going unreported due to senior officials either being paid-off or, in one case, one of the quality engineers was also the owner of once of the concrete materials suppliers; an obvious conflict. There was a slow-down at one point to improve the concrete process but that quite-quickly disappeared when Beijing became concerned that the CCP's image was suffering from the slow-downs in the dam's completion.
Let us give credit to China. Their Railways, Roads, Buildings, Trains, Dams and now computer Chips are in another level. The ease of delivering Projects mean that China is now at the top of the world. They have overtaken Americans, Europeans and Japanese. We need to learn and also live with this fact.
@@joemakossa3799roflol, the only thing they do better is pump out cheaper stuff faster, “Made in China” printed on something only means it is cheap and likely to fail. Now what they do much better than the US is produce significantly more smog, and denser than the US too! The air quality in Beijing is so bad, that lung cancer not due to smoking is the number one cause of death under 70 years old. 🎉🎉😂 bravo China !!! 记住天安门广场
@@Tushar-ye7no out of the entire world, the number of people qualified to evaluate project of this scale is quite small. Most lay person are just repeating brain washed propaganda.
@@fearthehoneybadger vast majority of engineers don't know a damn thing about dam of this size. People are mostly stupid. Stupid people are mostly arrogant
If the USA built it, everyone would call it the 8th wonder of the world. The boy who cried CCP. No one will listen on the occasion their criticism is valid. But Westerners don't care about outcomes. Only self glazing.
You weren't clear exactly what you meant by 45%, so I assume you're talking about Capacity Factor (the GWh actually produced divided by the theoretical maximum GWh that could be generated if all generators were able to operate at full capacity for the entire period, e.g. a month or a year). A 45% Capacity Factor isn't that unusual for hydro plants. If you design for more than that, you'll miss out on the generation obtainable at times of seasonal high flows. However, if you design for lower than that (install more capacity) the periods of high flow to run all the installed plant will be too short to make economic use of the investment you made in capacity. The figures you quote look like they've got the sizing of the Three Gorges power plant round about right.
You did a very good video. One point maybe you missed. The mud in river is a huge problem. It’s accumulates year after year. The river is very muddy and I don’t know it will last until the reservoir is full of mud. This is a common problem of dams with muddy rivers.
@@Barefoot433 they got rid of all the people who didn't want to build this dam.. ua-cam.com/video/xJn35MTKCNY/v-deo.html it's going to fall not sure how long but it will
@@zarthemad8386 What an uninformed and foolish statement. Have you ever been to China and seen the incredible infrastructure they have built and continue to build ? In many ways they put the western world to shame. What possible benefit could they have from shoddy materials/workmanship in the short, medium and long term ? This may have been the case in many instances in the past but not in today's major projects. Don't let the politics and western media narrative influence your opinions. Just for the record I am a white Australian and have travelled extensively in China.
An article a few months ago said that the extra water put into the local weather patterns by the massive water surface area of this dam is responsible for higher than pre-dam rainfall.
the Itaipu Dam is the 3rd largest dam in the world producing almost as much power as the three gorges dam, unlike the three gorges it produces with overflow year round, whereas three Gorges produces according to seasons, which makes it inconsistent and the Itaipu more reliable to its users
"The dam is a potential safety hazard. Should the unimaginable ever to happen, at least 400,000,000 lives could be in danger." Reasoning from the CCP: "This nation has a population in excess of 1,400,000,000 people. We fail to see any problem here."
Brazil is rich in water resources, that's a fact. But the Itaipu Dam generates about the same amount of electricity as the Three Gorges Dam, but obviously not as much as the Three Gorges (as data in wikipedia). The bottom line is that the Three Gorges generates less than 2% of China's total electricity consumption. So it's not something that needs to be evaluated in terms of reliability at all. Most importantly, the Three Gorges Dam serves to intercept floodwaters.
@@JustPeasant and the population is a lie independent experts have reasonably calculated that they have 800 million, but they can't track the villages who didn't comply with the 1child policy so it COULD be as high as 1.2 billion. I agree that dam is way too long
@@jamiebennett6354 Well, those are the official numbers they've (CCP) provided. I've always known that Chinese authorities 🇨🇳 are big, fat liars. Alas, I didn't had the time to count the population myself😅
I remember my wife and I taking a small boat trip on the Yangste in the very early years of construction. It was very memorable, amazing and sad to know what was happening. I Line that would be flooded to was marked on the gorges sides. We took side tributaries with crystal clear water and marvelled at the numerous communities that existed on the banks. A privilege to have seen it. Later I took an escorted tour of the near completed dam wall. Good Times.
To me, the most amazing part of this video was where you "slipped a commercial" in and pulled a fast one on us - simply brilliant! Sorry I didn't stay around for the 2nd half. But thanks. You RoCk.
The satellite images are warped because they belong to a western satellite company that do not have access to ground data to rectify them. The articles mentioned on 9:20 are magazines and newspapers not peer reviewed publications. This are not serious claims
The James Bay dam in Canada produces over 15,000 megawatts. Yeah less than 3 Gorges, but then it was also built in 1971. Looking at the aerial view of 3 Gorges, why didn’t they build it with an arced shape to better hold back all that water?
@@neerajwa I would think that any amount of arch would be better than none. I’m not an engineer but i do know a convex surface is stronger than a straight surface, everything else being equal. Might be more expensive, but not as expensive as that dam failing.
The design of the dam was chosen by CCP officials from several provided from various engineering firms, most of which were foreign. They decided to build the straight dam because it represented the conquest and mastery of nature by the CCP, and would be the most impressive of the five final designs. They chose to build the dam in the manner that most complemented their propaganda goals, in preference to superior, but less defiant designs.
The arch shape is just one of the designs of a dam where the forces of water upstream are transmitted to the abutments. Due to the great compressive strength of Concrete, "Very Little" volume of Concrete is used. However the straight shape is called a Gravity Dam which means that massive quantities of Concrete are used such that the water behind the dam can't push it downstream. The Gravity dams could be more expensive than Arch Dams but again, this will depend on very many factors regarding the site conditions.
@@michaelfoye1135 if true, I learned something new today about the vanity of the self declared "people's republic" ... It is incomprehensible that any administration would choose using such criteria. CCP is a dinosaur
I wonder if they counted in the possibility of a landslide causing a huge dislocation of huge masses of water. Such a landslide caused a dam to break in Italy. We can only hope nothing ever happens.
Guess what, the three gorge dam is located in earthquake zone with high recurring strikes. So, they have to consider the possibility of huge landslides, haven’t they?
The dam in Italy was build despite it being well known that the risks were great. That dam was about building pride in a country that had been humiliated during the war. They built it anyway, a landslide happened and hundreds died horribly. The chief of project committed suicide. Curiously, The dam itself did not fail. It's still there, to this day.
There's a lot of negative people out there that will always say things, seems like they don't want to move forward, world is changing, might as well go with the flow because it helps us to innovate.
@@dirremoireexcactly and it has been debuncked alot of times. But clickbaiters stll use it to this day and millions believe it despite the facts it is fakenews.
Definitely impressive, but let's remember that it's china we're talking about... Corruption, cracking and sub-par construction is the norm rather than the exception. I do really hope for them that this won't reveal as a tofu-dreg megaproject like most of their more recent ones
My wife and I have seen the dam and had the opportunity to cruise the Yangtze after the dam was in place. It is too bad that there have been bad outcomes after the dam was in place. It has saved many more lives and helped many more people since it was built. Hopefully, it will never fail tragically, that would truly be awful.
It did in fact slow down the rotation of the Earth. But the affect is somewhere around .06 microseconds, or less. Basically it’s an irrelevant number and fact that people use to try adding scale to this project.
@ One cubic meter of water weighs about one ton. One ton of weight is the same as a small car. The three gorges dam’s construction led to the creation of a large reservoir of water and the backup of upstream water. This totals about 1,100 cubic kilometers of water. One thousand meters = 1 kilometer. 1,100 x 1000 = 1,100,000 cubic meters of water. Over a million tons. All that buildup of water led to increased weight in a new place on the surface of the earth, which led to a shift in the planet’s center of mass, which led to a decrease in the planet’s rotation. The days are now .06 microseconds slower now.
I agree that in case of failure the curved dam will probably completely disintegrate while a flat one will only partially give way. However on a project this size, I would use the same amount of concrete as a flat dam would require but make it curved anyway. The safety factor would be greatly increased. Any failure would be catastrophic.
You know they built that dam over 3 major fault lines. One having at least a 6.0 a few years before construction. To me it has always been a major disaster waiting to happen.
Nuclear power stations are ALL build on top of fault lines, in every country. If you ask a physicist or geologist why this is, they will say it;s just a coincidence. But if you ask them "off the record", they will say it's because they "work more efficiently" in fault zones, and then they will threaten you if you quote them on this...
How are you ? I have made a video on Bhasha Dam in Pakistan, watch it and How is the video? Comment on it. Honest civil technical construction ❤ Thanks
Google Maps satellite view does produce distortions and can make a straight structure appear to be warped. The satellite view of my neighbourhood shows some buildings to have slightly curved walls, fences, and property boundaries from above, when they are actually straight.
Ahuh, I knew the "distorted" satellite image problem will be mentioned again and again here. My undergrad major is remote sensing and satellite. My university were involved in this three gorges dam monitoring project for years. The quality and accuracy of google map satellite images are not reliable for scientific research. They have a team of scientists monitoring the shape change all year round to prevent this. Including the analysis of upstream water amount. It's ridiculous to quote something like this if you are serious about this problem...
@@fredrik3685 "What are the odds that China has better architects than the people commenting this video" That's an excellent question. I doubt China has any architect who can dig a pool in my backyard.
All the criticisms make no sense to. This river was always called "China's sorrow" due to the catastrophic millions and millions of deaths that have always happened because of flooding.
Pls make a video about the severe pollution of Ohio derailment happened five months ago in the US. FYI, none of the major mainstream media reported this major incident.
@@yl128pang3That was a problem caused by Washington and was heavily reported. China's massive countrywide pollution problem, however, is rarely reported on in U.S. media.
@@matthewmosier8439 , West enjoyed Low Inflation and Clean Air for the last 3 decades after China joined WTO and were flooded with Western factories. China got the Bad Name of world largest carbon emissions country, but the REALITY is that most of the goods were exported to the West! Plastic waste too, West shipped TOXIC Plastic waste to China until China stop it few years ago. Now, West ship them to India, Vietnam, Indonesia... to make West Clean and to Poison Others!!
@@123pietasty321 My point was that an incident in Ohio was not a similar comparison to the destruction of C hina's countryside, it's tofu dregs, etc. President Trump visited Ohio and I watch Conservative media so I knew quite a bit about it
Once the dam bursts open, 800 million voices will suddenly cry out in terror holding onto their last few grim seconds of life in this world, followed by a deafening, horrific silence.
@@davidclaudy4822 You're right, I was just looking past the sarcasm, as I have to deal with tons of these conspiracy theorist types that love to make something more than what it is... It's just upsetting. I skimmed over it with spite, I will admit.
From a military standpoint, this dam represents a vulnerability for China. In the event of its rupture due to conflict or external pressures, the resulting damage could potentially surpass the devastation caused by a nuclear warhead. Moreover, this situation has the potential to significantly impact China's economy. While there are undeniable advantages to the dam's presence, it also poses a dual-edged dilemma. In the unfortunate scenario of a war, the implications for the dam's integrity and consequences are uncertain.
You must allow for risks. When a child is born, there is an immediate risk that it might die. However if not born, then there is no child, and there is no risk. Aeroplanes, Cars, Trains, Buses, Shuttles, Bicycles, Tuktuk, Motorcycles are very risky contraptions, but we can't live without them. Let us use them until our luck runs out.
@@joemakossa3799 While your analogy of risks in daily life is interesting, the situation with the dam involves putting a large number of people at risk. The potential impact of a dam failure on China's population and environment is far greater than individual accidents. Therefore, careful consideration and risk management are crucial in such cases.
@@LilSlav4123Your point is the best I've read in this comments section. That vulnerability is a major one. The C C P likely doesn't care about civilian loss of life (see the disasterous choices of just the last week of flooding, there) but the loss of electrical power, farmland, and people would be devastating
Yes, it is a vulnerability and a major one. That's why we have stationed the most advanced air-to-air defenses in the region. The government has made it abundantly clear multiple times that anyone who dares to attack this dam would bring a nuclear warhead to their state.
There's also the interesting situation from last year where they apparently had to stop the flow almost completely during the droughts so that the reservoir would still have at least some water in it, or something like that, which basically dried the whole river downstream.
Sounds as legit as your clickbait video thumbnail with a photoshopped satellite image of the dam being crooked. And you're also dumb enough to think Asia's longest river dried up.
You are right. Even the ancient Egyptians pulled that off with an artificial lake they built. That hasn't stopped mankind building 1000s of dams all over the world.
Also: no mention of silt. All dams accumulate silt. Dredging helps somewhat, but can't allay the problem. There's a large dam in Sudan, on the Blue Nile, which has silted up, .....and there are others.
They never anchored the base of the dam into bedrock, it is only being held in place by weight of the structure itself but that structure isn't set on bed rock.
When water is stored in the dam’s reservoir, it moves a large mass to a higher altitude. This increases the moment of inertia, thereby slowing the rotation of the Earth, similar to how a figure skater slows their spin by extending their arms.
Actually, it does. GPS system is prime example. .06 microseconds will through off the GPS by unacceptable amounts as it relies on radio waves. They are so precise, theory of relativity is needed to sync the clocks on the satellites. It's very very minor, but after one year, GPS would be off by 12 feet, and each year after 12 feet more. 11 meters for my non USA readers.@@Ivan_The_Random_Guy
9:26 leave it to the CCP to dismiss genuine concerns at risk of their image being ruined in the eyes of their people, when in the long run they'd have a better reputation if they addressed these problems
When you pointed out how catastrophic a failure would be I immediately thought about a war scenario which is increasingly becoming likely. I cant see any way this dam could be protected from a conventional warhead missile strike.
Yes but you have to think that a lot of our things in the modern world aren't built with war in mind. For example, the same thing can be said for any common nuclear power plant.
@@Leonhart_93 NO, the same thing cant be said for nuke plant. It is not holding back an enormous force water. A reactor is not a bomb as much as HBO wants you to believe that with their Chernobyl story
@@silentvoiceinthedark5665It's not a bomb and Chernobyl was never a bomb story as you claim, which shows your ignorance. The danger is the immense potential of radioactivity. Even today Chernobyl is uninhabitable. Although the modern power plants are not as dangerous.
I remember hearing how the Hoover (aka Boulder) Dam had massive Refrigeration units that would cool the Concrete pours to ensure that they wouldn't crack. In ALL of the videos I've seen of the 3G dam being built, I Never saw such units being used! In fact I remember where one (western) reporter doing a special on the dam asking about cracks, and then you didn't see him for the rest of the video, even though he did most of the onscreen work prior to that point! (Embarrassing the PRC has consequences!)
I think it's due to the mass of water, now situated higher - further from the axis of rotation. This causes the moment of inertia to increase, so due to the conservation of (rotational kinetic) energy, the Earth indeed slows down a little. It also does when I lift the coffee mug, but I guess not by as much.
I hope he mentions the issue of the infrastructure being corrupt, there’s a policy in which hurts the locals, the officials are compensated when a dam breaks “naturally” during flooring times, they can discharge the water to save the locals but they don’t.
Thank you Megabuilds for doing the piece on the 3 gorges dam. As a Chinese, I lament the loss of the gorges. Considering the beauty of the gorges were written in poems from hundreds of years ago. The cost of progress!
A couple of years ago it appeared like that on Google Maps due to image distortion (which is seen occasionally on Google Maps when Google's algorithm doesn't align together satellite images properly), then people who don't understand technology on social media passed it around at the time thinking it was "real". Since then Google went in and straightened out the image so it looks fine now. This is sort of explained at 9:30 in the video
It could be Clickbait but at the same time maps of a China are wacky. Also I think if it were to collapse it will be from retaliation from Taiwan when they go to “ reclaim Taiwan”
Wonder if this is uncorrected parallax error caused by the lens of a camera! I ran into this problem and was forced to use a parallax shift lens to correct the error of my cameras lens. The longer the distance the greater the parallax error unless corrected mechanically or optically. I used a Zukio Olympus Shift Lens to correct parallax errors.
I remember when the image surfaced and how many people put their 2 cents in about it's imminent collapse. Funny part was a look on Google Earth over the last year showed it was the image distorted not the dam.
I don't think you need to mention this which is so obviously. People who believe this either with their brain dead or just lives under heavy anti china propaganda for so long that they cannot process logical thinking anymore.
here is my 2 cents...it's gonna fail. I hope someone remembers your comment, and holds YOU to task for disregarding such a deadly scenario. Same way with everyone saying it's AMAZING...yeah, it's going to be AMAZING the # of deaths this will cause. Where will the nay-sayers be when it happens? We need to hold these folks accountable...people who trust comments like this, put themselves in imminent danger. I hope they DON"T listen to people like YOU...sayin' there's nothing wrong. Maybe it's a bad image, but what you don't see is what you need to be very worried about.
I have to agree with the ccp bots on this one. From the historical imagery on google earth, it's obvious that rise in water level and some image stitching problems is causing the distortion from the top view. I would much rather believe in the engineers who are doing routine inspection, than the youtube comment section experts.
I live right by the awesome Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State. Way more inpresive being that is was built in late 30s and very early 40s. Was largest concrete structure on earth for many decades and we built it with quaity the chinese can only dream of. I bet the Grand Coulee will be working far after that thing falls apart like most China/CCP infrastructure
Lol, yankee dreams while Chinese achieves. comparing 2 different scales. Also, China/CCP infrastructure is cost effective and reliable. The bug in your yankee asses is that a shift on higher manufacturing to China will kill you and expose the US for the 10th world country it really is.
With all the Tofu buildings and road infastructure being built in China, one has to wonder how well built this dam is and will it be able to withstand the insistant pressure of the vast volume of water it holds indefinately. One little crack and a half a billion people are endangered.
You seem to define all Chinese construction as Tofu. But realize that it is not an inherent to China, as it is a common problem in quality control. Given China's much greater population, more mistakes are bound to happen statistically, which builds into the Tofu reputation. One would be right to speculate but given the immense scrutiny surrounding its construction and the awareness of fatal consequences, this dam is a last thing China would want to cheap out on.
@@sayple109 "...this dam is a last thing China would want to cheap out on." And yet, it appears they did. Then again, China merely has to touch something and it's by definition, cheap.
Contractors and inspectors taking and recieving graft for passing substandard work happens way, way too often in China. One has to wonder if this culture of substandard construction was present during the construction of this mega project. Time will tell.@@sayple109
In 2002 we went from Wuhan to Chongqin before the dam was completed. Signs marking 175 meters were on the hillsides(the final height of the water). Below the signs were temples, farms, villages, and on the riverside were ship builders and fishers. We spent some time in the “relocation towns “. We saw young and old stripped of their way of life (harsh as it was) and given a uniform and a paltry pension. But generally the Chinese don’t worry about today because there is always tomorrow. Cut trees down now and in 50 years the next generation won’t know that the trees weren’t there.
You didn’t mention the silt needed for Shanghai soil. Shanghai land is already very volatile because it’s marshland - especially Pudong. With the massive building development and lack of silt from way upstream fortifying the soil, Shanghai is facing a lot of dangers with all their building structures over weak soil.
Also that silt is backed up by the dam, and if it simply collects there and is not managed somehow, that will change/raise the river bottom, and eventually will clog the dam and make water go over it. The dam is tall so probably that will take a good while, but it's a problem to solve nevertheless. You can already see this type of problems on the Yellow river.
from all ive heard already, i don't think bejing is worried. they rather have a symbol of their regime. however lets be honest, china will probably use the three gorges dams destruction via nature as a excuse to war with taiwan, south korea, japan and the united states just because their giant bathtub is destroyed and many edited deep fakes are suddenly made to "show" the us and japan both launched cruise missiles at the dam.
@@InformedKiwi - such huge projects, it will be naive if the Chinese can’t manufactured their own turbines towards the last phase of the project. In fact the have build factories nearby towns just to manufacture turbines & parts dedicated for the 3 Gorges.
@@tukek88 dont pay attention to him. he is a CCP shill who is gloryfying everything the CCP does and claims that the dam will never break in a thousand years.
0:33 - The picture on the right is a poorly geo-registered/altitude-adjusted photomosaic. There is not that much change in the face of the dam - if there were, it would already have fallen down... please don't use this photo analysis again...
You're right, it was a very severe drought. About the information share here about that dam deformation, I just looked into Google earth the images dating 2022 and the dam looks quite straight.
From a flood control standpoint, it seems that the dam isn't big enough since China has experiences both major flooding and low water levels below the dam just in the past few years.
The flood happen upstream 280km before 3 gorges Dam. the Dam itself managed to control the flow downstream also, The dam itself only control Yangtze. aside from case in 2020 - most flood you see in news is not at Yangtze. Usual flooded region was North east - North west - which is Yellow river - the river has flooded more than any river in history that its have nickname "sorrow of China" it also cant be simply tamed by Dam. as the Name suggest, Yellow river is Yellow because it carry a lot of sediments. in fact 17% sediement discharged into ocean - come from this river alone. so, the river bed is always raised by sediments - making it prone to overflow one funny thing was, that at some point in 1990. the river has so much Silt during draught. that one Hydrology expert say "it has more soil than water, technicaly its not a river" :v
@@thehumus8688 Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the news cannot or will not take the time to thoroughly explain the network of rivers in the watershed and the effects of all the various dams on flooding. Last year, it was heavily reported that the water levels at the Three Gorges Dam were close to capacity which would render the dam ineffective for flood control. This report failed to mention the water levels at the dam prior to the typhoon and subsequent flooding, but one would infer that if flooding in Beijing was being mitigated by the dam, that it was holding back on the release of water and either it was able to do so because the water level of the reservoir was not too high OR perhaps reservoir water was allowed to flow out of other dams to travel down other rivers. But, in any case, the system of rivers and dams is obviously not capable of fully controlling flooding.
I had no idea it was breaking already cause if it was built straight and now is not that means it is breaking cause concrete does not bend it cracks and breaks so it is in the process of breaking plain and simple this is the warning sign it's happening before it finally breaks completely and fails catastrophically so they have to fix it now while there still is time to fix it
My Father-in-Law was one of the designing Engineers, and he was a great Engineer. I'm sure the plans were well made and sufficient to do their job. However. As China has no real construction standards for materials, there is a good chance that corners were cut by contractors and that there are some substandard materials used somewhere in the damn. I hope they are not important parts of the damn. I have lived in China as an ex-pat for over 10 years and the construction standards are abysmal. I really hope the damn is an exception. If it were to collapse, it would take out the infamous Wuhan (implications are horrendous), parts of Shanghai, and possibly up to 4 million people with their villages and towns.
You have made me laugh... China as a country that produce and export most of the construction material in the world, that you think it has no construction standards?
@@yauwh2000 I don't think it. I know it. Go find out about the bridge collapses in Beijing from the recent floods. Building falling down or over, roads collapsing into sink holes, entire cities flooding because of poor flood control and drainage planning, Railroad derailing. Are you blind? Grow up and face reality. I live in China. I see it everyday. It isn't the materials that are at fault. It's the irresponsible way they are used in China. I've been here for over 10 years and I am a ASQC Certified Quality Assurance Auditor, and an Engineer. You are a paper tiger and you use a straw man argument. How does it feel to take money to lie to your own people and others as a government propaganda tool? The only other possibility is you don't know anything but what the government propaganda tells you to believe. That's even worse. THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT THAT TELLS THE TRUTH. Not mine, not yours. They all lie for their own benefit. Grow up and face the facts. You apparently don't know the difference between construction standards and material standards. Get educated, sir.
As someone who has worked with their stuff, yes they have 0 standards. The dam specifically had many countries point out flaws and offer free help.@@yauwh2000
A retired engineer on this project, who understands the crynese way of doing things, said this was the largest carcass in history and vultures from everywhere came to feast on it.
Thanks for watching :) It's the same effect of sitting on a chair and spinning. When you stretch out your arms, you turn slower than when you have your arms on your chest.
Ive seen this scenario since 2021 when the area was getting biblical ammounts of rain. Still I hope it doesnt fail. A damn in china failed about 100 years ago and 70,000 people died - maybe more I might be misremembering the full details, maybe. I think it was possibly several dams failed from one collapse up river, but either way there is barely a memorial of it and it was reported the same that the disaster was never properly acknowledged by the authorities. So nothing is too big to fail.
In 1938, the Chinese government at that time blew up the embankment of the Yellow River in order to stop the advance of Japanese aggression, directly causing 90,000 civilian deaths and 300,000 civilian deaths indirectly. Now this government is in Taiwan.
It would be chaos water would probably take hours to get to some cities further downriver and lose volume over the journey but still with literally hundreds of milions trying to get to higher ground chaod would be unimaginable alone
60 dam failed during a typhoon. those were very old dam that was not design to deal with flooding. this is not the case with modern dam that has overflow.
I hope they built it well… It’s failure would be utterly devastating!!!! I think the biggest risk factor is the use of substandard materials. It is truly impressive!!!
A few days ago, one of the tower crane, assembled with trembling hands from substandard materials fell on the street...therefore, we can never be sure of anything, even in a "blooming garden"
Thanks to Brilliant for sponsoring this video! Go to brilliant.org/topluxury/ to get a 30-day free trial + the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual subscription.
first
It bull shit it slow down earth .
Tofu building dam
Deformation of a concrete structure always occurs ... but that's deformation measured by engineers with tools ... not deformation visible from satellites. If the deformation in the satellite images is real ... the dam is doomed.
those satellite images are definitely distorted not the actual dam. if they were true we are talking about shifts of 50-100 feet and major cracks would emerge
09:12 - Don't you bother to fact check? The photo of the supposed "deformation" in the dam is a well documented and proven fake. Even two seconds checking current and past birds eye photos on Google Earth shows it's not moved or changed shape at all.
How else would he get anyone to watch? Lol clickbait at its finest
Yea, bird's eye view of the alleged "deformation" is just a typical optical distortion that usually happens in satellite imagery. It's true that every mega dam have inherent risk of collapse due to many causes, but to believe that the three gorges dam is extremely deformed like that, is just plain stupid.
10 cent army
Image could be "twisted" or distorted in Google Maps as well as real life. People believe what they want to believe.🤗 You wish, whatever😜
Shut up keyboard warrior.
Dam this is impressive.
😂😂😂
😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂 😹 sure!
ಅಣೆಕಟ್ಟು
I knew there would be another dam pun.
Dam right it is
🐉
"Slight bend", general rule of thumb: if you can see it from space, it isn't slight.
Another general rule of thumb for you: always go to the primary source yourself.
It's not bent. The bend in the image is a product of how the image was produced.
Your comment made you stupid.
I always thought it looked weak and chesp compared to other dams.
@@chubeviewerPeople have been saying that year after year. It still hasn't broken.
It astonishes me most that of all the negatives of the three gorges dam, the one forgotten most frequently is the loss of temples, artifacts, and ancient Chinese heritage that occurred when the reservoir filled.
They lost so much culture in those old sites.
Communists dont care about anything that isnt their ideology
...and the river dolphin.
Over here we let radicals destroy them because they are offended
The government wanted the culture to die anyways. They’ve been doing this for decades
Oh well, they'll be right
9:10 has two SAT photos ( taken 3-400 miles above the target). The one on the left has optical correction to correct for atmospheric distortion and/or lens distortion; the one on the right is pre-filtered. Also, the dam is concrete poured. If it’s going to fail, or if the ground is shifting underneath, it not going to fail like a wavering line, instead we should see a an arc forming with deepest part in the middle.
I don't know about SAT filtering but concrete absolutely warps over time, term is called creep. If not accounted for in design or too dramatic difference of stress applied to (or quality of) concrete then could absolutely warp as early indicator of impending catastrophic failure.
If you look at the thumbnail of both photos, the cars on dam are in exactly the same place. They are in fact the same photo but the one on the right is manipulated.
@@stevenreyngold7121Or perhaps the one on the left is the edited one.
@@halemath Well, I just opened up google map, punched in ‘ 3 gorges dam’, select ‘satellite view’, and blow it up the resolution. There is no bent.
ccp requires google to obfuscate the country, so the entire map is randomly skewed a bit, as well as the street maps, so if you look at any random village, it's pretty wonky. There are landmarks and hight visibility areas that the CCP wave this protection, and I'm assuming google just geofenced the dam from the algorithm. even then I wouldn't be surprised if the street map had the road a quarter mile upsteam at a different angle than the dam
I am surprised you did not mention the ongoing problem of the high sediment load in the Yangtze river. If not well-managed, it will make the dam inoperable.
That and the dam doesn't need to collapse in order to catastrophically fail. The land around it is being strained by the reservoir.
Click bait thumbnail --------------------------------------------------- mis-leading and not true
Chinese bot@@7000fps
the dam is built to flush the sediment out the bottom and thats public knowledge so how come you dont know?
@@bjorn1583you kinda sound like you don’t wanna talk about the sediment that has already been accumulating
Not a single mention of the fault line that runs in that area, which has shown increased seismic activity since its construction.
Built on a fault line. Who’s does this ?
Makes sense; how many millions of tons does the water in that artificial lake weigh? it is pressing down on land that has never had that much pressure put upon it. Something has to give.
@@donpablo59 Come on, man! Fault lines are the best places to put a nuclear reactor. After all, are YOU a geologist? If not then let the smart people do the thinking.
/s/
@richardthomas: your comment is confusing. People are talking about the dam, the topic of this video, and you start about a nuclear power plant? And since when are geologists specialists in NPP placement?
@@mr-boo whooooosh!
the problem with a project on this scale is that if it fails the consequences will be massive aswell ...
when, not if
AND DO YOU THINK THE CHINES DONT KNOW THIS???????????!!!!!!
@@johnstreet797 When? It's strong enough to hold way more water capacity (the smaller Itaipu sometimes had more power output, and you don't cry about that dam for still not collapsing). You're too scared to try getting rid of it yourself in a suicide attack either.
@@earlwheelock7844 They do. At least the ones in change of maintenance. But the CCP will shut them up cause nothing is wrong in the country with concrete as strong as wet paper towels.
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
Back when it was being constructed I heard a lot of negative feedback from several friends of mine that are mechanical engineers specializing in hydro-electric power. They felt that the flat face of the dam was not an ideal form since great volumes of water tend to look for the weakest points and a flat surface tends to encourage that process. Two of them that were encouraged to visit the site during construction were quite amazed by the entire process and skill-sets of their engineering counterparts on the dam. However the dam construction engineers also advised them that there was quite a challenge with regard to quality of concrete components, forms and pours with many reported defects going unreported due to senior officials either being paid-off or, in one case, one of the quality engineers was also the owner of once of the concrete materials suppliers; an obvious conflict. There was a slow-down at one point to improve the concrete process but that quite-quickly disappeared when Beijing became concerned that the CCP's image was suffering from the slow-downs in the dam's completion.
Let us give credit to China. Their Railways, Roads, Buildings, Trains, Dams and now computer Chips are in another level. The ease of delivering Projects mean that China is now at the top of the world. They have overtaken Americans, Europeans and Japanese. We need to learn and also live with this fact.
@@joemakossa3799roflol, the only thing they do better is pump out cheaper stuff faster, “Made in China” printed on something only means it is cheap and likely to fail. Now what they do much better than the US is produce significantly more smog, and denser than the US too! The air quality in Beijing is so bad, that lung cancer not due to smoking is the number one cause of death under 70 years old. 🎉🎉😂 bravo China !!! 记住天安门广场
@@joemakossa3799Wouldn’t be a CCP shill would you? What a stupid set of statements! 😂🤣😂🤣
@@joemakossa3799 For all the positives there are also a lot of negatives which are ignored.
@@joemakossa3799 Ok clownbot 🤡
So many people here are suddenly dam experts.
Some are. Engineers view these videos.
I think more appropriate word is common sense
@@Tushar-ye7no out of the entire world, the number of people qualified to evaluate project of this scale is quite small. Most lay person are just repeating brain washed propaganda.
@@fearthehoneybadger vast majority of engineers don't know a damn thing about dam of this size. People are mostly stupid. Stupid people are mostly arrogant
If the USA built it, everyone would call it the 8th wonder of the world.
The boy who cried CCP. No one will listen on the occasion their criticism is valid. But Westerners don't care about outcomes. Only self glazing.
You weren't clear exactly what you meant by 45%, so I assume you're talking about Capacity Factor (the GWh actually produced divided by the theoretical maximum GWh that could be generated if all generators were able to operate at full capacity for the entire period, e.g. a month or a year). A 45% Capacity Factor isn't that unusual for hydro plants. If you design for more than that, you'll miss out on the generation obtainable at times of seasonal high flows. However, if you design for lower than that (install more capacity) the periods of high flow to run all the installed plant will be too short to make economic use of the investment you made in capacity. The figures you quote look like they've got the sizing of the Three Gorges power plant round about right.
Waste of time. 10 seconds to explain it's just an image issue.
It's a bad map image. Click bait.
You did a very good video. One point maybe you missed. The mud in river is a huge problem. It’s accumulates year after year. The river is very muddy and I don’t know it will last until the reservoir is full of mud. This is a common problem of dams with muddy rivers.
No doubt. They must have considered the sediment load before construction. I'm curious how they plan to deal with siltation..
@@TB-zw7dt Why would the government of shortcuts consider the sediment?
@@Barefoot433 they got rid of all the people who didn't want to build this dam.. ua-cam.com/video/xJn35MTKCNY/v-deo.html
it's going to fall not sure how long but it will
@@TB-zw7dt .... its China... no way in hell they did that accurately
@@zarthemad8386 What an uninformed and foolish statement. Have you ever been to China and seen the incredible infrastructure they have built and continue to build ? In many ways they put the western world to shame. What possible benefit could they have from shoddy materials/workmanship in the short, medium and long term ? This may have been the case in many instances in the past but not in today's major projects. Don't let the politics and western media narrative influence your opinions. Just for the record I am a white Australian and have travelled extensively in China.
An article a few months ago said that the extra water put into the local weather patterns by the massive water surface area of this dam is responsible for higher than pre-dam rainfall.
Sounds plausible to me, although I would say "contributes to" instead of "responsible for."
Thanks for that. Gonna look it up. Sounds plausible to me too. I'm not going to rag on your word choice though. Cheers!
@@flagmichael🇨🇳
Interesting.
Now flooding from a typhoon.
Time to reset the 100 year likely hood of flooding.
Oh, there was already flooding?
I have seen theories of it causing flooding in some areas and droughts in others.
the Itaipu Dam is the 3rd largest dam in the world producing almost as much power as the three gorges dam, unlike the three gorges it produces with overflow year round, whereas three Gorges produces according to seasons, which makes it inconsistent and the Itaipu more reliable to its users
Yes it was mentioned in the video
"The dam is a potential safety hazard. Should the unimaginable ever to happen, at least 400,000,000 lives could be in danger."
Reasoning from the CCP: "This nation has a population in excess of 1,400,000,000 people. We fail to see any problem here."
Brazil is rich in water resources, that's a fact. But the Itaipu Dam generates about the same amount of electricity as the Three Gorges Dam, but obviously not as much as the Three Gorges (as data in wikipedia). The bottom line is that the Three Gorges generates less than 2% of China's total electricity consumption. So it's not something that needs to be evaluated in terms of reliability at all. Most importantly, the Three Gorges Dam serves to intercept floodwaters.
@@JustPeasant and the population is a lie independent experts have reasonably calculated that they have 800 million, but they can't track the villages who didn't comply with the 1child policy so it COULD be as high as 1.2 billion. I agree that dam is way too long
@@jamiebennett6354 Well, those are the official numbers they've (CCP) provided. I've always known that Chinese authorities 🇨🇳 are big, fat liars. Alas, I didn't had the time to count the population myself😅
I remember my wife and I taking a small boat trip on the Yangste in the very early years of construction. It was very memorable, amazing and sad to know what was happening. I Line that would be flooded to was marked on the gorges sides. We took side tributaries with crystal clear water and marvelled at the numerous communities that existed on the banks. A privilege to have seen it. Later I took an escorted tour of the near completed dam wall. Good Times.
Sounds like you had fun with our enemies.
... till ya hit the extremely adverse and unchecked pollution
- spit oil, sewer oil, and gutter oil. Urk-kk!
Did u have authentication spit oil?
9:32 to be fair, that does seem to be the case, nearby streets and buildings showed similar distortions
If this dam breaks, it would be the worst disaster China, or the world has ever seen.
It wouldn't be...
@@Monika-ft5bwit would though, they have predicted millions would die due to the flooding it would cause
No it wouldn't. What China is doing to the oceans and environment is. They dump trillions of tons of garbage into the oceans every year
Whoever believes this chunk of concrete changes the earth's spin is seriously delusional. It is big, but not even close to big enough
You can get on your knees and pray every day that this happens soon, hope you can live long enought SB!
To me, the most amazing part of this video was where you "slipped a commercial" in and pulled a fast one on us - simply brilliant! Sorry I didn't stay around for the 2nd half. But thanks. You RoCk.
The satellite images are warped because they belong to a western satellite company that do not have access to ground data to rectify them.
The articles mentioned on 9:20 are magazines and newspapers not peer reviewed publications. This are not serious claims
The James Bay dam in Canada produces over 15,000 megawatts. Yeah less than 3 Gorges, but then it was also built in 1971.
Looking at the aerial view of 3 Gorges, why didn’t they build it with an arced shape to better hold back all that water?
@@neerajwa I would think that any amount of arch would be better than none. I’m not an engineer but i do know a convex surface is stronger than a straight surface, everything else being equal. Might be more expensive, but not as expensive as that dam failing.
@@huejanus5505 true. maybe the terrain didn't allow arches. It was probably an engineering decision, not a financial one
The design of the dam was chosen by CCP officials from several provided from various engineering firms, most of which were foreign. They decided to build the straight dam because it represented the conquest and mastery of nature by the CCP, and would be the most impressive of the five final designs. They chose to build the dam in the manner that most complemented their propaganda goals, in preference to superior, but less defiant designs.
The arch shape is just one of the designs of a dam where the forces of water upstream are transmitted to the abutments. Due to the great compressive strength of Concrete, "Very Little" volume of Concrete is used. However the straight shape is called a Gravity Dam which means that massive quantities of Concrete are used such that the water behind the dam can't push it downstream. The Gravity dams could be more expensive than Arch Dams but again, this will depend on very many factors regarding the site conditions.
@@michaelfoye1135 if true, I learned something new today about the vanity of the self declared "people's republic" ... It is incomprehensible that any administration would choose using such criteria. CCP is a dinosaur
Nature always wins
This is such a click bait. If it bends like that, the stucture would have collapsed already. this dude need a braid
he forgot cement could not be bent as steel
Bigger sweatshops and bigger nets for people jumping. Truly amazing
I wonder if they counted in the possibility of a landslide causing a huge dislocation of huge masses of water. Such a landslide caused a dam to break in Italy. We can only hope nothing ever happens.
Nope the dam in Italy did not break. The water sloped over the top of it. The dam is still there.
Guess what, the three gorge dam is located in earthquake zone with high recurring strikes. So, they have to consider the possibility of huge landslides, haven’t they?
@@igibon8 You need to watch more engineering disaster video's if you really think they "have to". People make mistakes and miscalculations.
Clean electric energy to 4-5 million is a worthy goal but at a risk to 400 million people (and vast infrastructure) if collapse were to occur?
The dam in Italy was build despite it being well known that the risks were great. That dam was about building pride in a country that had been humiliated during the war. They built it anyway, a landslide happened and hundreds died horribly. The chief of project committed suicide.
Curiously, The dam itself did not fail. It's still there, to this day.
Well.....they've had more than one flood in a decade... So there goes the once in a century.
There's a lot of negative people out there that will always say things, seems like they don't want to move forward, world is changing, might as well go with the flow because it helps us to innovate.
Excellent video. Thanks.
If the dam top alignment is actually changing then the dam is in very serious trouble!
It's not changing that photo's been kicking around for 4 years. I supposed deflection is artifact from how Google Earth stitches photos together
@@dirremoireexcactly and it has been debuncked alot of times. But clickbaiters stll use it to this day and millions believe it despite the facts it is fakenews.
you can check on google earth by yourself. it looks perfectly aligned. this video is all bullshit and misinformation.
@@dirremoire Jul 9, 2019 - BEIJING has admitted the Three Gorges Dam has become “distorted” and is in an “elastic state”
@@dirremoireDo you believe that ??
Definitely impressive, but let's remember that it's china we're talking about... Corruption, cracking and sub-par construction is the norm rather than the exception. I do really hope for them that this won't reveal as a tofu-dreg megaproject like most of their more recent ones
My wife and I have seen the dam and had the opportunity to cruise the Yangtze after the dam was in place. It is too bad that there have been bad outcomes after the dam was in place. It has saved many more lives and helped many more people since it was built. Hopefully, it will never fail tragically, that would truly be awful.
it is gravity dam, nothing to worry about. even it breaks in several parts, it will just increase the water flow a little.
The ecosystem of that river must be in shambles.
It was before the dam. There was often flooding that kills many people
But the ecosystem of that lake is now wonderful!
As long as this goes well forever, this is a good idea.
Glad we don't apply that philosophy to all decisions, less we would have just stayed in our caves.
When you say it slows down the Earths rotation I just think "what kind of smooth brain believes this?".
It did in fact slow down the rotation of the Earth.
But the affect is somewhere around .06 microseconds, or less. Basically it’s an irrelevant number and fact that people use to try adding scale to this project.
@@techypriest7523 Prove it.
@@techypriest7523 In fact you cant prove what you are saying.
@ One cubic meter of water weighs about one ton.
One ton of weight is the same as a small car.
The three gorges dam’s construction led to the creation of a large reservoir of water and the backup of upstream water.
This totals about 1,100 cubic kilometers of water. One thousand meters = 1 kilometer. 1,100 x 1000 = 1,100,000 cubic meters of water. Over a million tons.
All that buildup of water led to increased weight in a new place on the surface of the earth, which led to a shift in the planet’s center of mass, which led to a decrease in the planet’s rotation. The days are now .06 microseconds slower now.
@@techypriest7523 PROVE IT!
I agree that in case of failure the curved dam will probably completely disintegrate while a flat one will only partially give way. However on a project this size, I would use the same amount of concrete as a flat dam would require but make it curved anyway. The safety factor would be greatly increased. Any failure would be catastrophic.
You know they built that dam over 3 major fault lines. One having at least a 6.0 a few years before construction. To me it has always been a major disaster waiting to happen.
The weight of reservoirs weakens fault lines as well. You get billions of lbs of water weight that shouldn't be there naturally.
Another man made disaster waiting to happen...not if, but when.
Nuclear power stations are ALL build on top of fault lines, in every country.
If you ask a physicist or geologist why this is, they will say it;s just a coincidence.
But if you ask them "off the record", they will say it's because they "work more efficiently" in fault zones, and then they will threaten you if you quote them on this...
That's true for any dam.
Not to mention sub-standard concrete and famous chinese construction practices.
Super interesting and so well put together and narrated 🙂
CCP sh!t is usually like that. 🤣
@@taunteratwill1787 lol was that sarcasm, CPP would hang this guy for suggesting sub par concrete
How are you ? I have made a video on Bhasha Dam in Pakistan, watch it and How is the video? Comment on it. Honest civil technical construction ❤ Thanks
Google Maps satellite view does produce distortions and can make a straight structure appear to be warped. The satellite view of my neighbourhood shows some buildings to have slightly curved walls, fences, and property boundaries from above, when they are actually straight.
a fence is a bit smaller then a dam that is 2+km long.
When this blows it's gonna be Epic 💯
Ahuh, I knew the "distorted" satellite image problem will be mentioned again and again here. My undergrad major is remote sensing and satellite. My university were involved in this three gorges dam monitoring project for years. The quality and accuracy of google map satellite images are not reliable for scientific research. They have a team of scientists monitoring the shape change all year round to prevent this. Including the analysis of upstream water amount. It's ridiculous to quote something like this if you are serious about this problem...
👍
Let's make a video of the low quality pictures instead.
What are the odds that China has better architects than the people commenting this video?
@@fredrik3685 "What are the odds that China has better architects than the people commenting this video"
That's an excellent question. I doubt China has any architect who can dig a pool in my backyard.
All the criticisms make no sense to. This river was always called "China's sorrow" due to the catastrophic millions and millions of deaths that have always happened because of flooding.
Pls make a video about the severe pollution of Ohio derailment happened five months ago in the US. FYI, none of the major mainstream media reported this major incident.
what could you expect from US media ?
@@yl128pang3That was a problem caused by Washington and was heavily reported. China's massive countrywide pollution problem, however, is rarely reported on in U.S. media.
@@matthewmosier8439 , West enjoyed Low Inflation and Clean Air for the last 3 decades after China joined WTO and were flooded with Western factories.
China got the Bad Name of world largest carbon emissions country, but the REALITY is that most of the goods were exported to the West!
Plastic waste too, West shipped TOXIC Plastic waste to China until China stop it few years ago. Now, West ship them to India, Vietnam, Indonesia... to make West Clean and to Poison Others!!
@@matthewmosier8439 Ohio was absolutely not heavily reported... tell me, how are they fairing today? With all this coverage you should know....
@@123pietasty321 My point was that an incident in Ohio was not a similar comparison to the destruction of C hina's countryside, it's tofu dregs, etc.
President Trump visited Ohio and I watch Conservative media so I knew quite a bit about it
Once the dam bursts open, 800 million voices will suddenly cry out in terror holding onto their last few grim seconds of life in this world, followed by a deafening, horrific silence.
More like 14 million. Don't go overboard.
@@robvegart It is said in the video that 400 million people live in the path of the river.
There are too many people. Need to control the herd
@@robvegartI do believe he was referencing Star Wars and being ironic.
@@davidclaudy4822 You're right, I was just looking past the sarcasm, as I have to deal with tons of these conspiracy theorist types that love to make something more than what it is... It's just upsetting. I skimmed over it with spite, I will admit.
From a military standpoint, this dam represents a vulnerability for China. In the event of its rupture due to conflict or external pressures, the resulting damage could potentially surpass the devastation caused by a nuclear warhead. Moreover, this situation has the potential to significantly impact China's economy. While there are undeniable advantages to the dam's presence, it also poses a dual-edged dilemma. In the unfortunate scenario of a war, the implications for the dam's integrity and consequences are uncertain.
You must allow for risks. When a child is born, there is an immediate risk that it might die. However if not born, then there is no child, and there is no risk. Aeroplanes, Cars, Trains, Buses, Shuttles, Bicycles, Tuktuk, Motorcycles are very risky contraptions, but we can't live without them. Let us use them until our luck runs out.
@@joemakossa3799 While your analogy of risks in daily life is interesting, the situation with the dam involves putting a large number of people at risk. The potential impact of a dam failure on China's population and environment is far greater than individual accidents. Therefore, careful consideration and risk management are crucial in such cases.
The dam is within reach of Taiwanese missiles. If China wants to invade Taiwan, they'll have to drain the reservoir first.
@@LilSlav4123Your point is the best I've read in this comments section.
That vulnerability is a major one.
The C C P likely doesn't care about civilian loss of life (see the disasterous choices of just the last week of flooding, there) but the loss of electrical power, farmland, and people would be devastating
Yes, it is a vulnerability and a major one. That's why we have stationed the most advanced air-to-air defenses in the region. The government has made it abundantly clear multiple times that anyone who dares to attack this dam would bring a nuclear warhead to their state.
There's also the interesting situation from last year where they apparently had to stop the flow almost completely during the droughts so that the reservoir would still have at least some water in it, or something like that, which basically dried the whole river downstream.
Sounds as legit as your clickbait video thumbnail with a photoshopped satellite image of the dam being crooked. And you're also dumb enough to think Asia's longest river dried up.
Many years ago I had a book about the consequences of the huge amount of water in the dams pressing on the surface and giving earthquakes around.
That book was right.
You are right. Even the ancient Egyptians pulled that off with an artificial lake they built. That hasn't stopped mankind building 1000s of dams all over the world.
Sometimes commiinism doesn't work D:
@@vice.nor.virtue Communism never works. And get this, Democracy is only slightly better but, it's the best we got.
@@PhilJonesIII socialism is doing pretty good these days at least
i am doing a project and this really helped me understand the three gorges dam so thank you
You forgot to mention all the archaeology covered by the reservoir.
Also: no mention of silt. All dams accumulate silt. Dredging helps somewhat, but can't allay the problem. There's a large dam in Sudan, on the Blue Nile, which has silted up, .....and there are others.
@@brahmburgerslol, yeah. Taiwan forgot to remove the silt, thus causing false data during draught season. Hillarious.
They removed it.
Theres a temple thats removed, brick by brick, to higher elevation.
The main issue is that if the lateral deflection of the dam is getting beyond or has gotten beyond what is allowed
They never anchored the base of the dam into bedrock, it is only being held in place by weight of the structure itself but that structure isn't set on bed rock.
You do know the damn was designed and built by Western contractors. All China did was pay for it. PS, no dam ever built is 'anchored' to bedrock.
@@Enonymouse_ which is exactly why a gravity dam is safer than a dam that depends on support from surrounding structures.
@@Enonymouse_ Yep, it's just a big ol' gravity foundation. I wouldn't have done it.
@@xuansu9036 I think it's safe to say there may be both benefits and drawbacks
How does it affect the rotation of the earth as It was stated at 0:14 ?
When water is stored in the dam’s reservoir, it moves a large mass to a higher altitude. This increases the moment of inertia, thereby slowing the rotation of the Earth, similar to how a figure skater slows their spin by extending their arms.
It probably doesn't
It's not enough to make that big of a difference, but it is calculable
@@AllrightNORmaybe in milliseconds scale
Actually, it does. GPS system is prime example. .06 microseconds will through off the GPS by unacceptable amounts as it relies on radio waves. They are so precise, theory of relativity is needed to sync the clocks on the satellites. It's very very minor, but after one year, GPS would be off by 12 feet, and each year after 12 feet more. 11 meters for my non USA readers.@@Ivan_The_Random_Guy
honestly, the burning of the amazon does just about as much damage, and i don't hear as much people talking about that stuff💀this just my opinion
Who said that, no one complain?
I never said NO ONE was complaining, here in the US, I hear more about China than anything in the world when it comes to this stuff@@Kfcng60
9:26 leave it to the CCP to dismiss genuine concerns at risk of their image being ruined in the eyes of their people, when in the long run they'd have a better reputation if they addressed these problems
When you pointed out how catastrophic a failure would be I immediately thought about a war scenario which is increasingly becoming likely. I cant see any way this dam could be protected from a conventional warhead missile strike.
Yes but you have to think that a lot of our things in the modern world aren't built with war in mind. For example, the same thing can be said for any common nuclear power plant.
Nuclear plant in NY was built to withstand an attack.
@@Leonhart_93 NO, the same thing cant be said for nuke plant. It is not holding back an enormous force water. A reactor is not a bomb as much as HBO wants you to believe that with their Chernobyl story
@@silentvoiceinthedark5665It's not a bomb and Chernobyl was never a bomb story as you claim, which shows your ignorance. The danger is the immense potential of radioactivity. Even today Chernobyl is uninhabitable. Although the modern power plants are not as dangerous.
you don't have to protect it, it 115 meter wide, even if you nuke it, a nuke doesn't penatrate beyond 20m... they will just patch it up the next day.
It's not just a dam.... it's dam Gorges!
To claim that hydro electricity is “clean” is incorrect. The dams have an immense adverse effect on the ecology of the rivers that they inhabit.
So did the flooding that regularly occurred before the dam.
And an immense positive effect on the ecology of the lake that was created.
That is one impressive structure for all humanity to take pride in, not taking mean swipes
I remember hearing how the Hoover (aka Boulder) Dam had massive Refrigeration units that would cool the Concrete pours to ensure that they wouldn't crack.
In ALL of the videos I've seen of the 3G dam being built, I Never saw such units being used! In fact I remember where one (western) reporter doing a special on the dam asking about cracks, and then you didn't see him for the rest of the video, even though he did most of the onscreen work prior to that point! (Embarrassing the PRC has consequences!)
Time has passed. Do cars still use Ford Model T tech?
@@Jkl62200Yes. 4 tires, a drivers seat, a steering wheel. Looks like the same technology to me.
@@kryptokrypto702 duh.. 🙄. Finished high school ?
@@Jkl62200 Obviously you haven't if you have to ask if cars still use ford technology. Grow up.
@@kryptokrypto702 so.. model T uses wheels. According to you, how far back and how basic must we go in history ? Duh.
As big as that Dam is, I still find it hard to believe that it would have an effect on the speed of the Earths' rotation.
I think it's due to the mass of water, now situated higher - further from the axis of rotation. This causes the moment of inertia to increase, so due to the conservation of (rotational kinetic) energy, the Earth indeed slows down a little. It also does when I lift the coffee mug, but I guess not by as much.
It would be infinitesimally small. Something you could compute, but never measure.
The 2004 Andaman Sea earth quake also increased to rotaional speed of the Earth
I hope he mentions the issue of the infrastructure being corrupt, there’s a policy in which hurts the locals, the officials are compensated when a dam breaks “naturally” during flooring times, they can discharge the water to save the locals but they don’t.
fake news bro. don't read from those uncensored channel, they are CIA front operating in newyork, check their funding.
😂😂😂😂😂😂 jealous clown 🤡
Thank you Megabuilds for doing the piece on the 3 gorges dam. As a Chinese, I lament the loss of the gorges. Considering the beauty of the gorges were written in poems from hundreds of years ago. The cost of progress!
Just checked Google map, the dam is perfect! Why did you post the photo with the twisted dam? Where did you get it from? Must be ps.
its a clickbait
Anti China propaganda
A couple of years ago it appeared like that on Google Maps due to image distortion (which is seen occasionally on Google Maps when Google's algorithm doesn't align together satellite images properly), then people who don't understand technology on social media passed it around at the time thinking it was "real". Since then Google went in and straightened out the image so it looks fine now. This is sort of explained at 9:30 in the video
It could be Clickbait but at the same time maps of a China are wacky. Also I think if it were to collapse it will be from retaliation from Taiwan when they go to “ reclaim Taiwan”
And my house still has my barn, that burned a decade ago
Wonder if this is uncorrected parallax error caused by the lens of a camera! I ran into this problem and was forced to use a parallax shift lens to correct the error of my cameras lens. The longer the distance the greater the parallax error unless corrected mechanically or optically. I used a Zukio Olympus Shift Lens to correct parallax errors.
If you could see the deflection failure has already happened. It’s an illusion
This is amazing
Flammable cladding imo 11:17
I remember when the image surfaced and how many people put their 2
cents in about it's imminent collapse. Funny part was a look on Google
Earth over the last year showed it was the image distorted not the dam.
Not to mention the distorted minds of many naysayers.
you have no idea how ignorant you are.
I don't think you need to mention this which is so obviously. People who believe this either with their brain dead or just lives under heavy anti china propaganda for so long that they cannot process logical thinking anymore.
here is my 2 cents...it's gonna fail. I hope someone remembers your comment, and holds YOU to task for disregarding such a deadly scenario. Same way with everyone saying it's AMAZING...yeah, it's going to be AMAZING the # of deaths this will cause. Where will the nay-sayers be when it happens? We need to hold these folks accountable...people who trust comments like this, put themselves in imminent danger. I hope they DON"T listen to people like YOU...sayin' there's nothing wrong. Maybe it's a bad image, but what you don't see is what you need to be very worried about.
@@patriciareid437 People will soon forget you ever said anything about it.
This was from 3 years ago. This month Beijing had a Flood of the century. Bridges and roads being washed away with people in the vehicles.
Do u know how far from Beijing to Three Gorges Dam? It seems like make a joke that your room got flooded due to the rain from 1000km away
北京跟长江之间隔着一条黄河，中国第二长的江，北京是个少雨的城市，非常干旱，你已改听说过北京沙尘暴，干旱的表现，加上是古老 的城市，排水系统不是多好，下了一场北京前年一遇的雨，就淹了
I'd pay a dollar to see it break and im sure alot of other people would too.
I have to agree with the ccp bots on this one. From the historical imagery on google earth, it's obvious that rise in water level and some image stitching problems is causing the distortion from the top view. I would much rather believe in the engineers who are doing routine inspection, than the youtube comment section experts.
I live right by the awesome Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State. Way more inpresive being that is was built in late 30s and very early 40s. Was largest concrete structure on earth for many decades and we built it with quaity the chinese can only dream of. I bet the Grand Coulee will be working far after that thing falls apart like most China/CCP infrastructure
I won't take the opposite side of that bet ;)
In the face of the size of the Chinese dam, the dam in your hometown is just a children's work😂
Lol, yankee dreams while Chinese achieves. comparing 2 different scales. Also, China/CCP infrastructure is cost effective and reliable. The bug in your yankee asses is that a shift on higher manufacturing to China will kill you and expose the US for the 10th world country it really is.
It is quite simple my friends! What goes up must come down. It will happen. When is when nature decides....ONELOVE
There will never be anything wrong with the dam until it breaks, probably within the next 10-20 years.
Amazing!
Mother Nature always wins. The Dam will fail at some point.
I wonder what a few well placed bunker busters would do? I'd like to see that video.
Nothing. Even an atomic bomb would have minimal effect on any massive dam.
@@dirremoire well that's a wrong answer...smh
@@Innvertigo except he's right and you're...not very smart.
With all the Tofu buildings and road infastructure being built in China, one has to wonder how well built this dam is and will it be able to withstand the insistant pressure of the vast volume of water it holds indefinately. One little crack and a half a billion people are endangered.
You seem to define all Chinese construction as Tofu. But realize that it is not an inherent to China, as it is a common problem in quality control. Given China's much greater population, more mistakes are bound to happen statistically, which builds into the Tofu reputation.
One would be right to speculate but given the immense scrutiny surrounding its construction and the awareness of fatal consequences, this dam is a last thing China would want to cheap out on.
@@sayple109 "...this dam is a last thing China would want to cheap out on."
And yet, it appears they did. Then again, China merely has to touch something and it's by definition, cheap.
Contractors and inspectors taking and recieving graft for passing substandard work happens way, way too often in China. One has to wonder if this culture of substandard construction was present during the construction of this mega project. Time will tell.@@sayple109
you know nothing about gravity dam and assume sky is falling.
In 2002 we went from Wuhan to Chongqin before the dam was completed. Signs marking 175 meters were on the hillsides(the final height of the water). Below the signs were temples, farms, villages, and on the riverside were ship builders and fishers. We spent some time in the “relocation towns “. We saw young and old stripped of their way of life (harsh as it was) and given a uniform and a paltry pension. But generally the Chinese don’t worry about today because there is always tomorrow. Cut trees down now and in 50 years the next generation won’t know that the trees weren’t there.
You didn’t mention the silt needed for Shanghai soil. Shanghai land is already very volatile because it’s marshland - especially Pudong. With the massive building development and lack of silt from way upstream fortifying the soil, Shanghai is facing a lot of dangers with all their building structures over weak soil.
Also that silt is backed up by the dam, and if it simply collects there and is not managed somehow, that will change/raise the river bottom, and eventually will clog the dam and make water go over it. The dam is tall so probably that will take a good while, but it's a problem to solve nevertheless. You can already see this type of problems on the Yellow river.
很有趣，你会往你家房顶加淤泥吗
from all ive heard already, i don't think bejing is worried. they rather have a symbol of their regime. however lets be honest, china will probably use the three gorges dams destruction via nature as a excuse to war with taiwan, south korea, japan and the united states just because their giant bathtub is destroyed and many edited deep fakes are suddenly made to "show" the us and japan both launched cruise missiles at the dam.
The turbines of Three Gorges Damn were made by Alstom in my hometown of Taubaté. 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
Thanks for pointing that out, so we know the turbines are shlt in addition to construction of the actual dam.
@@mtmadigan82 - at least China don’t condemn and fine Alstom like US did when can’t compete.
Some of the turbines are also GE. Then the Chinese copied them so the last installs are Chinese made
@@InformedKiwi - such huge projects, it will be naive if the Chinese can’t manufactured their own turbines towards the last phase of the project. In fact the have build factories nearby towns just to manufacture turbines & parts dedicated for the 3 Gorges.
And now Alstom is the Leading Company in Hydrogen Fuel and Train running on H2 Technology.
It is only a matter of time before that dam collapses.
The earth will die too, and the sun will explode, it's just a matter of time
@@yudogcome5901 My brain just exploded.
@@tukek88 dont pay attention to him. he is a CCP shill who is gloryfying everything the CCP does and claims that the dam will never break in a thousand years.
Its a matter of time you die too or are alt f4'd :)
0:33 - The picture on the right is a poorly geo-registered/altitude-adjusted photomosaic. There is not that much change in the face of the dam - if there were, it would already have fallen down... please don't use this photo analysis again...
Any "cracks" in the dam will breed additional cracks.
Wasn't the Three Gorges Reservoir empty last summer during the drought? Anyone know if they did anything with that opportunity?
You're right, it was a very severe drought. About the information share here about that dam deformation, I just looked into Google earth the images dating 2022 and the dam looks quite straight.
I believe some of the employees took longer holidays because of it.
During severe drought, the water in the reservoir needs to be released to irrigate the farmland on both sides of the river.
From a flood control standpoint, it seems that the dam isn't big enough since China has experiences both major flooding and low water levels below the dam just in the past few years.
The flood happen upstream 280km before 3 gorges Dam. the Dam itself managed to control the flow downstream
also, The dam itself only control Yangtze. aside from case in 2020 - most flood you see in news is not at Yangtze.
Usual flooded region was North east - North west - which is Yellow river - the river has flooded more than any river in history that its have nickname "sorrow of China"
it also cant be simply tamed by Dam. as the Name suggest, Yellow river is Yellow because it carry a lot of sediments. in fact 17% sediement discharged into ocean - come from this river alone.
so, the river bed is always raised by sediments - making it prone to overflow
one funny thing was, that at some point in 1990. the river has so much Silt during draught. that one Hydrology expert say "it has more soil than water, technicaly its not a river" :v
@@thehumus8688 Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the news cannot or will not take the time to thoroughly explain the network of rivers in the watershed and the effects of all the various dams on flooding.
Last year, it was heavily reported that the water levels at the Three Gorges Dam were close to capacity which would render the dam ineffective for flood control. This report failed to mention the water levels at the dam prior to the typhoon and subsequent flooding, but one would infer that if flooding in Beijing was being mitigated by the dam, that it was holding back on the release of water and either it was able to do so because the water level of the reservoir was not too high OR perhaps reservoir water was allowed to flow out of other dams to travel down other rivers. But, in any case, the system of rivers and dams is obviously not capable of fully controlling flooding.
Yes that’s happened on the Yangtze for 1000 years
fear mongering as usual - was just there a few months ago. the dam is straight. awesome structure, everyone should visit at least once in their lives.
Despite the massive amount of water, it's holding back, the only thing that really matters is its height.
And volume.
Volume matter.
Height generate the electricity.
Volume indicate how long could u generate the said electricity.
Not entirely true, but close enough.
If Wuhan is down stream, its a shame they didnt give it a wash in 2019.
I had no idea 3 Georges had a boat lift. That's pretty awesome.
I had no idea it was breaking already cause if it was built straight and now is not that means it is breaking cause concrete does not bend it cracks and breaks so it is in the process of breaking plain and simple this is the warning sign it's happening before it finally breaks completely and fails catastrophically so they have to fix it now while there still is time to fix it
It also has a boat dropper too. 😂
Should have made a lift like that for salmon in damned rivers in United States.
It is straight now on google earth lol😂@@raven4k998
ua-cam.com/video/lMEloNvALiA/v-deo.html
In my fictional world, this dam never collapse
You should also highlight emerging researches that suggest such big dams could be contributing to earthquakes down stream
My Father-in-Law was one of the designing Engineers, and he was a great Engineer. I'm sure the plans were well made and sufficient to do their job.
However. As China has no real construction standards for materials, there is a good chance that corners were cut by contractors and that there are some substandard materials used somewhere in the damn. I hope they are not important parts of the damn.
I have lived in China as an ex-pat for over 10 years and the construction standards are abysmal. I really hope the damn is an exception.
If it were to collapse, it would take out the infamous Wuhan (implications are horrendous), parts of Shanghai, and possibly up to 4 million people with their villages and towns.
You have made me laugh... China as a country that produce and export most of the construction material in the world, that you think it has no construction standards?
@@yauwh2000 I don't think it. I know it. Go find out about the bridge collapses in Beijing from the recent floods. Building falling down or over, roads collapsing into sink holes, entire cities flooding because of poor flood control and drainage planning, Railroad derailing. Are you blind?
Grow up and face reality. I live in China. I see it everyday. It isn't the materials that are at fault. It's the irresponsible way they are used in China. I've been here for over 10 years and I am a ASQC Certified Quality Assurance Auditor, and an Engineer.
You are a paper tiger and you use a straw man argument.
How does it feel to take money to lie to your own people and others as a government propaganda tool?
The only other possibility is you don't know anything but what the government propaganda tells you to believe. That's even worse.
THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT THAT TELLS THE TRUTH. Not mine, not yours. They all lie for their own benefit. Grow up and face the facts.
You apparently don't know the difference between construction standards and material standards. Get educated, sir.
As someone who has worked with their stuff, yes they have 0 standards. The dam specifically had many countries point out flaws and offer free help.@@yauwh2000
A retired engineer on this project, who understands the crynese way of doing things, said this was the largest carcass in history and vultures from everywhere came to feast on it.
It's been 11 months since this video came out. Has the dam collapsed yet or has the satellite camera been upgraded?
You haven’t read or watched about the recent flood because of the dam did you.
@@jimmysundberg2376 You mean the dam the Minnesota Rapidan dam?
@@fredrik3685 No, I was talking about the Hoover Dam. Do I seriously need to spell out the Three Gorges Dam when we comment on a video about it.
@@jimmysundberg2376 lol what🤡
So amazing!
I am thinking how this dam has slowed the rotation of the world, this water also belongs to the world? but this projectis mind blowing🤯
Thanks for watching :) It's the same effect of sitting on a chair and spinning. When you stretch out your arms, you turn slower than when you have your arms on your chest.
@@MegaBuildsYT bro thnx for explaninig ☺
Oh so another reason causing climate change.
India and Vietnam have complained about the CCP'S appropriation of the water
@@toolegittoquit_001Heh, look into the Colorado River if you want to hear even louder complaints about misappropriation of water.
Ive seen this scenario since 2021 when the area was getting biblical ammounts of rain.
Still I hope it doesnt fail.
A damn in china failed about 100 years ago and 70,000 people died - maybe more I might be misremembering the full details, maybe.
I think it was possibly several dams failed from one collapse up river, but either way there is barely a memorial of it and it was reported the same that the disaster was never properly acknowledged by the authorities.
So nothing is too big to fail.
In 1938, the Chinese government at that time blew up the embankment of the Yellow River in order to stop the advance of Japanese aggression, directly causing 90,000 civilian deaths and 300,000 civilian deaths indirectly. Now this government is in Taiwan.
No the Chinese nationalist government intentionally blew it up to halt the advancing Japanese forces
It would be chaos water would probably take hours to get to some cities further downriver and lose volume over the journey but still with literally hundreds of milions trying to get to higher ground chaod would be unimaginable alone
It will fail. Just a matter of when.
60 dam failed during a typhoon. those were very old dam that was not design to deal with flooding. this is not the case with modern dam that has overflow.
dam. This is long and impressive
Skip to 5:52 pass the ad
I hope they built it well… It’s failure would be utterly devastating!!!! I think the biggest risk factor is the use of substandard materials. It is truly impressive!!!
you hope they build it well? Who are you kidding? It's made in China. Have you ever heard of tofu dreg construction?
@@Mrs.Karen_Walker Yupp. Chinese engineering is shit and that’s on a good day!!! Thanks for the reply!!!
I believe some engineers came out publicly about sub standard materials used in the foundation of the dam and were silenced by the CCP.
A few days ago, one of the tower crane, assembled with trembling hands from substandard materials fell on the street...therefore, we can never be sure of anything, even in a "blooming garden"
@@inarinukka7729 how does it feel to kiss the arses of communist criminals?
The most strategic target on earth, right behind the kremlin.
I'm sure Taiwan is aware
We went through this issue 3 years ago. The satellite photos are distorted, that’s why the dam looks weakened. It ain’t going to fail.
Of course, finally someone with a brain.