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Earlier this month, China officially started construction on a massive hydropower dam in tibetan Yaoum.
The dam, when completed, will be the biggest power plant on the planet.
It's three times bigger than the largest power plant in the world right now.
It's more than all of the power plants in Poland combined.
Dan Mortor covers the energy industry for Bloomberg from Beijing.
The amount of cement their estimating their need it would be enough to fill more than fifty Hoover dams, and the amount of steel.
It would be enough to build one hundred and sixteen Empire state buildings.
This mega project comes with a mega price stack one hundred and sixty seven billion dollars.
This would be one of the most expensive undertakings for infrastructure in human history,
more expensive than the International Space Station.
You're looking at decades long projects like building the US Interstate Highway system
before you get to comparable amounts of investment.
China says the dam will provide a major source of clean energy.
More importantly, it will boost the country's slowing economy.
But the project carries huge engineering and environmental risks
and could strain relations with two of its neighbors, India and Bangladesh.
The Indian government has been worried about if China was able to build a dam,
they would then be able to use sort of water access as a pain point if there was an eventual conflict between the countries.
And there's going to be all of this human activity in a place that's been remote for most of its history.