Three Gorges: China's Own Dam Problem

Compared to coal, hydropower is clean. But China's grandest, half-century-old approach to meeting its energy demands "cleanly" is arguably as much a solution as it is a problem. And there is no better symbol of the necessity and danger of dams than China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest. (It is also, as the New York Times reminds us this week, the world's biggest power plant, biggest consumer of dirt, stone, concrete and steel and has led to the biggest displacement of people in history -- 1.13 million. When the co...