Randy Cassingham's Blog

I found the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland quite interesting. Have a look:
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/falkirk/falkirkwheel/index.html

There's actually a video of it in operation somewhere.

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Dylan is referring to a different kind of boat elevator currently in use in Scotland. That page notes that "Boat lifts are nothing new, though the last built in the UK was in 1875." -rc

So, that's one gorgeous dam, but what about the other two? Aren't they just as pretty?

Sorry, forget it, I just couldn't pass it up. Sorta like that river running through Tennessee and North Carolina. It's called the French Broad River. Now I'm sure that it's a high honor to name a river after the French Broad, but don't you think they could have used her name?

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Maybe they never caught it.

We did pass through the smaller, older (and downstream of the Three Gorges Dam), Gezhouba Dam too, but I was busy doing something else and didn't see it. -rc

We went through the three gorges in 1996 when the dam construction was just underway but water had not yet started to rise, and we could cruise right past the dam without locks. The gorges were indeed spectacular, and there were marks on the canyon walls which indicated where the water would eventually rise to. It seemed very high.

The pollution then was not so bad. We visited China most recently in 2006 when the pollution was terrible. It was impossible to take good pictures anywhere. Fortunately I was able to rescue most of them using Photoshop to get rid of 90% of the haze.

Are you sure that someone wasn't viewing images of the metal found by the detector? Sometimes this person is off-site, and signals when an image is suspicious.

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Yes, I'm sure. It was a simple walk-through metal detector, not an x-ray machine. -rc

That bit about the security seems funny at first, but if someone were able to get enough explosives to blow up even part of the dam (not that it would be easy or even possible, but still), the resulting flooding could kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of people.

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Part of my point indeed. If they actually need security, then they should practice it correctly. -rc

The lock elevator seems similar to the lift lock at Peterborough, Ontario, Canada on the Trent-Severne River system.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/trentsevern/visit/lock21_e.asp

We did the same trip in Nov. 2005. We didn't have the same experience at the dam at all, however. Our bus drove right up to the visitors center, no security, we didn't see any guards anywhere. And though it was an overcast day, sprinkling rain at times, we got relatively good pictures of the dam.

Why would anyone think that the Chinese could get security right? Heck, they can't even figure out that lead is dangerous to humans.

Contrary to what the article states, according to the Wikipedia article that it refers to, the dam won't produce 40% of China's electricity needs, but only 3%, which seems a more realistic number, seeing China's enormous population and energy needs. I guess most of the rest will still come from air-polluting coal burning power plants.

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I distinctly remember the 40% figure, but perhaps it's 40% of the needs in the local province, not the country. Sorry for any confusion. -rc

I still remember when the Glen Canyon dam was built on the Colorado River upstream from the Grand Canyon. The Sierra Club has a beautiful book describing the lost scenery in the canyons.

For a while it is true that Lake Powell allowed my friends and others to boat to places that were pretty much inaccessable before. Win one lose one, I suppose.

But now the lake has become silted up and is receding dramatically. By the time it completely dries up,the blight on the land will be inexcusable.