The Power of a Lake

For Tibetans, Yamdrok Yurntso is a 'La-tso'(repository of spiritual power) mystically linked with the fortunes of their land and nation. 'Yumtso' or 'turquoise lake' is the term for fresh-water lakes whose unusual mineral composition often lends them a brilliant colour..For the Chinese authorities, Tibet is a wilderness with no intrinsic value except for the industrial 'resources' that can be extracted from it. The sacred lake is now a reservoir to be drained for generation of power..Says a May 1993 Xinhua news agency feature, "Despite the cold and lack of oxygen at high altitudes, and despite a shortage of construction equipment and inefficient logistical support, the detachment's officers and men pitched tents, slept on the ground and exhibited a spirit of working in unity and dedicating oneself selflessly". The dedicated empire-builders that Xinhua refers to are from an engineering division of the Peoples' Armed Police, which is a principal contender for large civil projects in China, and no doubt considered a particularly appropriate contractor in Tibet..The plan, which several independent hydropower experts describe as unrealistically ambitious, is to bore a nine kilometre long tunnel through the northern mountain wall and to make the lake water tumble into turbines almost 1000 metres below in the main Tsangpo valley. During "off-peak hours", Tsangpo river water will be pumped back up this massive incline to replenish the lake..This 'pump-storage' scheme, even if it were to work (it has never been attempted under such challenging conditions before), would have enormous environmental impact on the lake, and it is likely to be entirely drained in time. A contingency plan to build a further tunnel to Puma Yumtso (about 30 km south of Yamdrok) and use that lake as a reserve tank has not been taken seriously by international experts..The Yamdrok project is a core component of the overall development plan for central Tibet in the 1990s. Official sources speak of the creation of an "industrial corridor" in the central Tsangpo and Lhasa valleys, consisting mainly of primary processing facilities which, together with improved highways and, communications, will make Tibet's raw materials (especially minerals and ores) more accessible to the mainland economy. Resource extraction, especially mining, will become more profitable. The U$ 100 million-plus investment in Yamdrok was undoubtedly made with a view to industrial application..The settler population will also increase; the hundreds of thousands of people displaced from the Three Gorges, for example, will have to be re settled in Tibet. All of this needs power—the power from the Yarridrok Yumtso..The scheme, the, officials claim, will enormously benefit Tibetan villagers. Another Xinhua feature on the project (June 1992) stated that "Tibetans will never have to cook on yak dung again" once the "Yanfu turbines" come on stream ("Yanfu" is how the Chinese say "Yamdrok"). But all this does not sound plausible, as the electricity in newly built public houses in Lhasa and other cities are insufficient even for a one hot-plate per family apartment..Yarndrok is for the moment the only large-scale hydro project in central Tibet. Other major installations are being built to harness Tibet's great rivers as they fall off the plateau s eastern rim: one across the Mekong at Manwan in Yunnan province, one completed (at Longyangxia) and another being built in Gansu (at Lijixia). It is not known whether plans to build a 40,000 MW power station on the Tsangpo gorge in south-eastern Tibet, referred to in official statements from the 1980s, are to be revived..A number of small hydro-electric power stations, in fact, have been built in Tibet with the genuine intention of providing towns and villages across the country with reliable electric supply. However, according to a 1991 survey by Chinese economists Wang Xiaoqiang and Bai Nanfeng, at least 40 percent of them were not running ..The late Panchen Lama was opposed to the Yamdrok project. Partly In response to his and general Tibetan dismay, work on the project stopped in 1986. When work recommenced in 1991, two years after the lama died, it was understood as a signal that Tibetan misgivings about economic development would no longer be entertained. A year later, the Party launched a campaign against cadres who it said were "dragging their feet" instead of enthusiastically embracing development..More recently, some senior Tibetan officials are said to have voiced criticism of the project ("on purely technical grounds") through the channels open to them, but, as with Three Gorges, no real debate has been permitted. And as in the case of Three Gorges, Yamdrok Yumtso too has been forced through in the face of opposition, and will enjoy foreign cooperation. The Austrian Elin/Voith consortium (Himal May/June 1994) has already supplied Yamdrok's turbines..Grey is a pseudonym for a writer who regularly visits Tibet.