Did some calcs and the cost of pumping that amount of water (the entire Brahmaputra system) up to the Tibetan plateau (18,000 ft) would be $2.3 trillion/year
Considering there are several other workarounds, like going around Tibet instead of across, or carving a river into the plateau which is only 5000ft elevated or something, this cost could be brought down to $600 billion/year.
The Bengal dam itself would cost $500 billion at most, judging from the North Sea dam estimates.
The cost of the infrastructure (aka artificial river) for transporting the water, based on the costs and water volume capacity of the Suez Canal (but scaled up to the Brahmaputra's size), would be $6 trillion.
So basically China would spend $6.5 trillion on this project, over a span of let's say 6 years to get the entire thing built. And then once built, It would take 6 years at $600B/yr of pumping water (or 12 years at $300B/yr, with India using the other half of the freshwater)
Would China be willing to sacrifice $1 trillion/year for 18 years to acquire a Germany?
this is necessarily back-of-the-envelope on both our parts but 1 trillion a year in energy cost alone appears to be more than the entire united states uses in a year :what-the-hell:
which is why i haven't emphasized money, this stuff is beyond legal fictions you're butting up against engineering and technological limits. i can't even get a ballpark on how many fusion plants you'd need to make this happen because the technology isn't close to that state.
and lets talk 'path of least resistance', going around is probably impossible. criss-crossing that many watersheds without messing them up (having to pipe/tunnel this enormous amount of water)would get absurd & you can't even avoid having to elevate up onto the Iranian plateau, and then up thru the Fergana valley---add to this the fact most of the regions you have to pass on the roundtrip are just as arid & would want that water just as much so why bother going so far?
the idea of burrowing through and avoiding lifting any more than you have to has been assumed in all my estimates. and it's still in the realm of magic engineering.
but speaking of exploiting a sudden surplus in freshwater from a project on the indian side of the himalayas, sending it to arid regions in India is infinitely more possible and less trouble. I'd modify the plan to (the still extremely ambitious target) Thar Desert, or completely fabricating some new intense agricultural operations on the river & lake and nearby. If you're worried for how China should benefit from that, they can get shipped produce from it
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-pumping-costs-d_1527.html
Did some calcs and the cost of pumping that amount of water (the entire Brahmaputra system) up to the Tibetan plateau (18,000 ft) would be $2.3 trillion/year
Considering there are several other workarounds, like going around Tibet instead of across, or carving a river into the plateau which is only 5000ft elevated or something, this cost could be brought down to $600 billion/year.
The Bengal dam itself would cost $500 billion at most, judging from the North Sea dam estimates.
The cost of the infrastructure (aka artificial river) for transporting the water, based on the costs and water volume capacity of the Suez Canal (but scaled up to the Brahmaputra's size), would be $6 trillion.
So basically China would spend $6.5 trillion on this project, over a span of let's say 6 years to get the entire thing built. And then once built, It would take 6 years at $600B/yr of pumping water (or 12 years at $300B/yr, with India using the other half of the freshwater)
Would China be willing to sacrifice $1 trillion/year for 18 years to acquire a Germany?
this is necessarily back-of-the-envelope on both our parts but 1 trillion a year in energy cost alone appears to be more than the entire united states uses in a year :what-the-hell:
which is why i haven't emphasized money, this stuff is beyond legal fictions you're butting up against engineering and technological limits. i can't even get a ballpark on how many fusion plants you'd need to make this happen because the technology isn't close to that state.
and lets talk 'path of least resistance', going around is probably impossible. criss-crossing that many watersheds without messing them up (having to pipe/tunnel this enormous amount of water)would get absurd & you can't even avoid having to elevate up onto the Iranian plateau, and then up thru the Fergana valley---add to this the fact most of the regions you have to pass on the roundtrip are just as arid & would want that water just as much so why bother going so far?
the idea of burrowing through and avoiding lifting any more than you have to has been assumed in all my estimates. and it's still in the realm of magic engineering.
but speaking of exploiting a sudden surplus in freshwater from a project on the indian side of the himalayas, sending it to arid regions in India is infinitely more possible and less trouble. I'd modify the plan to (the still extremely ambitious target) Thar Desert, or completely fabricating some new intense agricultural operations on the river & lake and nearby. If you're worried for how China should benefit from that, they can get shipped produce from it