3. The Itaipu Dam
Location: Paraguay and Brazil
Total Expense: $19.6 Billion
Year Completed: 1984
After spending over $19 billion and about eighteen years from the time of its inception, the Itaipu Dam was completed and became known as the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. It maintained that distinction until 2006, when it was forced to give it up due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China.
Maila Facchini/Shutterstock / Itaipu Dam
The government of Brazil and Paraguay provided funding for the construction of a channel that would divert water, requiring the displacement of almost fifty million tons of soil and rock. The channel was 1.3 miles in length and was 490 feet broad.
The dam provides more than three-quarters of Paraguay’s energy demands. It is nearly as tall as a sixty-five-story building and runs along the Paraguay-Brazil border. The American Society of Civil Engineers named the Itaipu Dam one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World in 1994.
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