Ironically, the primary purpose of the Three Gorges Dam is flood control, not power production, although that is of course an important secondary function of the facility. The question "what if the dam fails?" is an incomplete hypothetical. Any engineering project, from a bridge to a skyscraper to a power plant, has some small risk of failure. The probabilistic question that should be asked is: "what is the risk if the dam isn't there?" For that, we don't have to look for hypothetical counterfactuals. Before the Three Gorges Dam was built, major flooding events along the Yangtze occurred in 1998, 1954, 1935, and 1931, to name just the 20th century ones. Hundreds of thousands drowned across these events, plus several million deaths more attributed to subsequent disease and starvation. If there is rainfall downstream at the same time as snowmelt or rainfall upstream, the combined water ingress can cause rivers and lakes to burst their banks, flooding communities and croplands. The reservoir functions as a huge sponge, absorbing upstream water to shield bodies of water downstream. It can also release water at strategic times later, for example to stabilize water supply during droughts. Since the dam's construction, there have been two major flood seasons on the Yangtze, in 2010 and 2020, and neither produced mortality anywhere close to the past. So the 3GD is not just NOT a "really terrible" idea; it is probably among the most life-saving hydraulic engineering projects ever undertaken...AND it produces power. Many hydroelectric facilities worldwide share this design logic, including Egypt's Aswan Dam, built to control the flooding of the Nile River, and India's Hirakud Dam, built to control the flooding of the Mahanadi River. To a lesser extent, the USA's Hoover Dam and TVA dam projects as well. All were conceived as water management projects first and power projects second.

Spotted a guy taking his pet(?) robot dog out for a walk in the mall. Typical weekend crowds at Cloud Nine Mall in Zhongshan Park. Many people gathered on the 1F to watch robot boxing and on the 3F for the release of the new Pokemon card set...