China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation (CYRTGPDC) has been given the go-ahead to restart an underground power station whose construction was postponed earlier this year due to environmental concerns.
In January, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) ordered a halt to 30 large projects across the country that failed to pass its environmental impact assessment.
But, having passed a new SEPA appraisal, CYRTGPDC has now signed contracts for prospecting, designing and building the power station. It will house six generators, each with an installed capacity of 700,000kW, to be built in the mountain on the southern bank of the Yangtze.
The project will cost more than US$720M and is scheduled for completion in 2009, by which time 90% of the water in the Three Gorges reservoir will be used for generating hydroelectricity.
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