Construction starts on power station on China's Yellow River - Yahoo! News: "BEIJING (AFP) - China has begun work on a 1.79 billion dollar hydroelectric project which will become the biggest dam on the Yellow River, state media reported.
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Work began on the Laxiwa Hydroelectric Station in the remote northwestern province of Qinghai, Xinhua news agency reported Sunday.

The 250 meter-high (825 foot) dam, the highest on the Yellow River, is expected to have 4,200 megawatts of installed generation capacity and will be able to produce 10.22 billion kilowatt hours annually, the report said.

It is situated between the Longyang and Qingtong Gorges in the upper reaches.

The first generating units are scheduled to go into operation in 2008 and the dam will be completed in 2010, it said.

Despite growing opposition from environmentalists, China appears eager to speed up construction of dams in an effort to tap into huge hydroelectric energy potential.

The lower reaches of the Yellow River have repeatedly dried up in recent years due to huge population pressures along the watercourse and an increasingly feeble ecosystem in its headwaters.

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