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The world’s largest ship elevator opens at China’s Three Gorges Dam

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There is a massive elevator for ships built into the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Yichang City, central China’s Hubei Province. The mostly silent CCTV+ footage above shows it in action.

A feat of engineering, it can transport 7 million pounds of ship + water 112.8 meters (370 feet) up or down in just 40 minutes. Costing $37 billion dollars to build, the elevator replaced five stages of locks that transported ships over three hours, but comes at a higher price:

The dam is the world’s biggest hydropower project, but its construction 13 years ago was controversial. It forced the displacement of over a million people and has apparently caused deadly landslides along the river.

Read more about the engineering at Treehugger, and for other dam videos on this site, check out Surprising Applications of the Magnus Effect and Ecosystem Engineers: How do beavers build dams?

via Quartz.

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