Wow so China already has five of the top ten largest and they are adding a new number 1.

You know what else is a huge problem for ecosystems, burning fossil fuels.

I'm pretty sure I read like a week ago that China destroyed a bunch of dams for environmental reasons. If I can find a link, I'll update this.

The benefits far outweight the cons, if we only looked at cons, we might aswell don't build anything at all.

China is aware of this problem and they recently deconstructed 3 (I think it was 3) dams for that reason. The fact that they are aware and taking action on this awareness leads me to believe that their review process for when to build a dam is a bit more robust than what we've been doing in the West (and what the West has been imposing on its subordinates).

I know about some disadvantages of dams but I'm not sure if - in many regions - we have much of an alternative to buffer water over different seasons. We used to have huge glaciers in the mountains which retained snow in winter and released water in summer. But as more and more glaciers disappear, we have to come up with artificial measures to store water for agriculture, drinking water etc.

If we then can harvest electricity on top, that's a nice byproduct from my perspective.

They also change the rotation speed of the entire Earth.