Scenery from the Great Bend on the Tsangpo River, where it turns towards India to become Brahmaputra.

The Guardian caused quite a stir with its report on China's plans to construct the biggest hydropower project in the world in the Tibetan region on the Tsangpo River (known as Brahmaputra later on on its flow path through India and further). Chinese scientists and engineers have made assessments and estimations which resulted in the possibility of some 38 Gw of hydropower potential that could be harnessed for electricity production. This would require building a huge dam in the Tibetan part of the river flow. sounds pretty straight forward, except for the issue with significant disruption of downward river flow in India and Bangladesh which both use the river for water supply and power generation. Chinese academicians have however stated that the project would cause very little if any river flow problems for the two countries.

Even though expert circles in China are and have been lobbying for the construction of the huge dam, according to Ma Jiali (Institute of Contemporary International Relations), there are no plans for actual construction and development of the project, as reported on Economic Times. Only assessments and measurements have been made in order to get a clear picture of the potential that could be harnessed. Furthermore, China has been given assurances to India that a project on the Tsangpo River would not affect the flow of the river in India.

This is not the first time this project has been pushed to the Chinese government, but official Beijing has always refused these proposals, aware of the sensitivity of the issue in regard to relations with India.

Nevertheless, the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra river dam project, if ever developed, would result in a thus far unprecendented amount of generated electricity on a single hydropower complex. The 38 GW of electricity would make a very large contribution to the region's growing demand for electricity.

So far the only thing that is certain, is that studies and exploration is going on in the Tibetan area of the Tsangpo River flow. Whether the project will actually be developed or not remains to be seen, but India and China are rumored to be in talks over collaboration (information sharing) about the hydropower potential in this area of Tibet. It won't be a great surprise if the two nations do reach some sort of agreement that would result in the Tsangpo dams actually getting built.