Three Gorges Dam Development and Reform Commission of China, 366 grams of coal would produce 1 kWh of electricity during 2006. At full power, Three Gorges reduces coal consumption by 31 million tonnes per year, avoiding 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, millions of tonnes of dust, one million tonnes of sulfur dioxide, 370,000 tonnes of nitric oxide, 10,000 tonnes of carbon monoxide, and a significant amount of mercury. Hydropower saves the energy needed to mine, wash, and transport the coal from northern China. From 2003 to 2007, power production equaled that of 84 million tonnes of standard coal, reducing carbon dioxide
Three Gorges Dam the land in the area is experiencing erosion, depositing about 40 million tons of sediment into the Yangtze annually. Because the flow is slower above the dam, much of this sediment will now settle there instead of flowing downstream, and there will be less sediment downstream. The absence of silt downstream has three effects: Erosion in the reservoir, induced by rising water, causes frequent major landslides that have led to noticeable disturbance in the reservoir surface, including two incidents in May 2009 when somewhere between of material plunged into the flooded Wuxia Gorge of the Wu River. Also, in the