China's hydropower expansion plans defy lessons of Three Gorges Dam

A decade after China began filling the Three Gorges Dam, concerns about the project's environmental and human cost endure even as the country prepares a huge hydropower expansion.

More than 1.2 million people were displaced as the water in the dam, which started accumulating 10 years ago on Saturday, submerged scores of towns and communities, and thousands of poorly compensated migrants remain mired in poverty.

But the nation's growing thirst for energy means the Three Gorges, which generates roughly as much electricity as a dozen commercial nuclear reactors, is a model for 50 large dams to be built in the country, according to the current five-year plan.

Those barrages will crank out more than the hydropower capacity of the US, putting China - already the world's largest hydropower consumer - on the way to providing 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

China's state-run media has praised the Three Gorges Dam for generating more than 88.2 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity last year - more than France's entire yearly output of renewable energy, and exceeding the project's original goal.

The huge reservoir has also been hailed for lessening the floods that have plagued the Yangtze River, claiming thousands of lives as recently as 1998.