The "West-to-East Electricity Transmission," the "West-to-East
Gas Transmission," and the "South-to-North Water Diversion" are the
government's three key strategic projects, aimed at realigning
overall economic development and achieving rational distribution of
national resources across China. The "West-to-East Electricity
Transmission" project is in full swing, involving hydropower and
coal resources in western China and the construction of new power
transmission channels to deliver electricity to the east. The
southern power grid line, transmitting three million kw from
Guizhou to Guangdong, was completed in September 2004. The
"West-to-East Gas Transmission" project includes a 4,000-km trunk
pipeline running through 10 provinces, autonomous regions or
municipalities, conveying natural gas to cities in northern and
eastern China. This was finished in October 2004 and has a design
capacity of 12 billion cu m per year. Construction of the
"South-to-North Water Diversion" project was officially launched on
27th December 2002 and completion of Phase I is scheduled for 2010;
this will relieve serious water shortfall in northern China and
realize a rational distribution of the water resources of the
Yangtze, Yellow, Huaihe, and Haihe river valleys.
In 2003, after a decade of hard work, another key national project
--the Three Gorges Dam --began to impound water, opened its
permanent locks to navigation and sent power to the grid from its
first generating units. It is designed to install 26 sets of
generators, each with a generating capacity of 700,000 kw. When
fully operational, the annual output of the Three Gorges Power
Plant will reach 84.7 billion kw, produced from 26 sets of
generators, each set able to meet the needs of a 1,000,000
population city.??
Another key national project, the 1,142 km-long Qinghai-Tibet
Railway, the highest railway in the world, will be completed in
2006.
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