At the same time, China's insatiable appetite for energy is mostly being met with a building spree of coal-fired power plants. Coal accounts for 67 percent of China's energy supply. Just last year, China added 102 gigawatts of generating capacity, as much as the entire capacity of France.
To ease its addiction to coal, China wants 15 percent of the country's energy consumption to come from renewable sources by 2020, compared with 7.5 percent today. To do that, it is developing solar, wind and biomass projects so rapidly that some experts say it could soon become a world leader in renewable energy. Even so, forecasts show these sources will amount to less than 4 percent of the energy supply by 2020.
Nuclear power is another popular alternative, and officials plan to double its capacity by 2020. Yet even such a huge expansion will only amount to 4 percent of the energy supply.
Hydropower, by contrast, already accounts for 6 percent of the power supply and has major growth potential. Chen Deming, one of the government's top economic planners, said hydropower was a critical non-carbon energy source and described the negative impacts of dams as “controllable.” He said officials would emphasize environmental protection and resettlement issues on future projects.
“We believe that large-scale hydropower plants contribute a lot to reduce energy consumption, air and environmental pollution,” Mr. Chen said at a September news conference. China, he added, planned to develop hydropower on “a considerable scale.”
Internationally, a debate has raged for years about large dams (those higher than 50 feet) because of their legacy of disruption. Many environmentalists contend that electricity generated by large dams should not be considered renewable because of the social and environmental damage that follow many projects. The United States has many large dams, but in recent years has started decommissioning some of them, particularly in the West, because of environmental concerns.
Tension about large dams is also rising in China. Environmentalists are pushing for tighter regulation and more public input before projects are approved. Resettlement remains a volatile issue. Two years ago, more than 100,000 people protested the Pubugou Dam project in Sichuan Province, until the riot police crushed the demonstration.
President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao appear less enamored of the big projects than their predecessors. Neither man attended last year's ceremony for the completion of the Three Gorges Dam. Mr. Wen has demanded environmental reviews for different proposed sites. Yet with the momentum of the surging economy, most projects continue moving forward.
The renewed debate about the Three Gorges project offers a view of the competing pressures on China. Equal parts vanity project and technological marvel, the Three Gorges was initially conceived for flood control, not for any efforts to promote clean energy.
Today, dams are big business in China, and profit-seeking is another major reason behind the hydropower push.
Few if any hydropower projects have been more controversial than the Three Gorges.Entire cities were inundated along with ancient temples and other landmarks. Today, many of the people resettled by the project are still struggling to survive. For years, despite the problems, Chinese officials rarely criticized the project or expressed concern.
And then, unexpectedly, the silence broke.