Post by Gsseagle on Feb 14, 2008 20:49:41 GMT -5
Ever wonder why the prices of firearms and other steel based products have seemed to zoom in price the last couple of years? Acording to Rick Sapp, a Shooting Sports Retailer field editor, It is because of a dam being built in China. The dam is being built over the Yangtze River,which is the third longest river in the world. The dam is going to be called the Three Gorges Dam, and will be the biggest dam in the world. The dam is expected to produce 22.5 megawatts of electricity from 26 massive generators. It is 60 stories high, and a mile in width, at the top. The cost is estimated at 29 billion dollars. So why should you care? The answer is, the dam project has used 36.6 million cubic yards of concrete, and 463,000 metric tons of steel. Convert that into pounds and you get 1.021 BILLION pounds. The construction of the dam has cost half a years supply of steel from the whole world, or five years of the total US production! So anything you buy, that uses concrete or steel, home building foundations to firearms, has increased in price as a result of this dam project This is not taking in to concideration the dam is also requireing millions of tons of copper and aluminum. As Sapp says this is only the tip of the iceberg. More then 1.32 billion people live in this fast growing, rapidly industrializing country, a population four times the size of the U.S. He says the final element of the equation is that China's economy is growing so fast, that with in a few years, it will surpass that of the U.S., and the European Union. Who knows what lies ahead.
