China's environment ministry has refused approval for a hydropower dam on an ecologically vulnerable river already damaged by construction, a rare setback for the country's extensive dam-building program.
While the 1,000-megawatt Xiaonanhai project appears scrapped, experts said China's overall plan for dams was on course given pressure to cut smog from coal-fired power plants.
Hydropower capacity is due to rise another 60 gigawatts (GW) in five years as new projects get approved.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a document sent to the Three Gorges Project Corporation that the firm could not plan or build the project on the Jinsha river, the upstream section of the Yangtze, in the southwest.
Environmentalists said the blocking of a project once championed by the disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai reflected a tougher stance on protecting rivers.
Final approval for big hydropower plants goes to the State Council, the cabinet, and hydropower advocates questioned the legal basis of the ministry document, an environmental impact assessment of the 10-gigawatt (GW) Wudongde plant, also on the Jinsha river.
China's dam program slowed after completion of the Three Gorges Project, the world's biggest hydropower plant, about a decade ago, with leaders concerned about human, financial and environmental costs.
But with an ambitious nuclear-power program delayed, a greater reliance on hydropower is seen as a good way to cut smog.
An aim to raise total hydropower capacity to 290 GW by the end of 2015 was met a year early, and according to a "strategic energy action plan" last year, capacity will be raised to 350 GW by 2020.
PHOTO: Ships sail on the Yangtze River near Badong, 100km (62 miles) from the Three Gorges dam in Hubei province, August 7, 2012.
CREDIT: REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA.