1000km of tunnel x 1 Billion RMB (142M USD) per KM
= 1000 Trillion RMB (142 Billion USD)
That is not going to result in low cost water.
Imagine what you could do with that money instead.
Source
Only " Tibet Water to Xinjiang Project" can save China from severe economic&social unrest
- Thread starter tidalwave
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1000km of tunnel x 1 Billion RMB (142M USD) per KM
= 1000 Trillion RMB (142 Billion USD)
That is not going to result in low cost water.
Imagine what you could do with that money instead.
Source
Well, the government willing to spend that money on it.
And it's one time deal, no operating cost
That article mentions the project will be able to produce hydroelectric power as well. Plugging the numbers mentioned in the article into excel (15 billion tonnes of water per year and 4000m drop), I get a potential for up to 18 GW of capacity. For comparison, the Three Gorges Dam is 22.5 GW at a contruction cost of 31 B usd.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Perhaps better to import potash to keep the reserve inside the China ... also potash price is not expensive, around $200 ... so 1 millions tonnes is only $200M ... not much
From Wiki
you can see that potassium is not that rare and China has the reserve of 360 M tonnes (and growing), with current production of ~6M Tonnes, enough for ~60 years
antiterror13
Brigadier
also if the cost of $143B is consumed mostly within China, it would be benefits to the people and countries, economy, factories, wages, advancement in technology, etc, etc
18GW capacity, let say the utilization is 50%, so in a year it would produce
18,000 x 365 x 24 x 0.5 = ~79 millions MW hours, if the bulk price of electricity let say $20 per MW hour (which is only $2 cents per KWh ), the total revenue only from generation would be ~$1.6B
Also from 18 billions tonnes a year or 18 billion M3 ... if let say charge $10 cents per M3 (very cheap)... it would generate $1.8B
So total $3.4B ..... operating cost let say $400M a year ... so nett $3B a year ... or roughly 2% return a year
So, it is not impossible .... mind you the $143B investment is not in 1 year ... more likely minimum 10 years ... so only $14B a year
I think it is feasible, considering future income and the huge impact to the security and economy benefit to China
My only concern is whether the water would be still available in 50-100 years to come
antiterror13
Brigadier
The "plan" was to divert some water from Yarlung Tsangpo river
The river has Discharge Average rate of 16,240 m3/s or in a year total discharge is 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 x 16,240 m3 = 512 billions m3
so the diversion is only 18/512 = 3.5% of the river discharge .... quite small and won't be noticeable
The river has Discharge Average rate of 16,240 m3/s or in a year total discharge is 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 x 16,240 m3 = 512 billions m3
so the diversion is only 18/512 = 3.5% of the river discharge .... quite small and won't be noticeable
If they receiving 18 billion m3 per year, and the investment cost is 145 billion $, then the investment cost of project is around 8 $ / m3
Long term cost with interest and maintenance would be around 1$/m3.
It is on par/bit more than the desalination cost of seawater.
It is close to the cost of drink water at the point of user ( delivered by pipe the the household. ( 2$/m3 in high income/urbanised areas)
Long term cost with interest and maintenance would be around 1$/m3.
It is on par/bit more than the desalination cost of seawater.
It is close to the cost of drink water at the point of user ( delivered by pipe the the household. ( 2$/m3 in high income/urbanised areas)
antiterror13
Brigadier
it is true $8/M3 . But thats an investment. Once the pipe built, there is very small operating cost as the water just flow without needing any energy (pump)
Also if you read my previous posts (#65), huge amount of energy/electricity also will be generated, about 79 Millions MW hours
If you know a bit of investment, you know what I meant .. otherwise just read more of the topic
2.4GWe with nuclear reactor cost 12 billion $, this amount of desalination capacity cost 20 billon.it is true $8/M3 . But thats an investment. Once the pipe built, there is very small operating cost as the water just flow without needing any energy (pump)
Also if you read my previous posts (#65), huge amount of energy/electricity also will be generated, about 79 Millions MW hours
If you know a bit of investment, you know what I meant .. otherwise just read more of the topic
So, to make this much electricity + water cost around 80 billion, scaled up from small investment project, possibly it will be closer to 60 billion.
This is the brute force, hard solution, there is more sufficient ,like water reservation , coal generation and so on.
So, to reach the same water/electricity generation target there are several ways, and by simple back on envelope calculation the channel is not the must effective.