The Himalayan and High Plains region of Tibet is one of the poorest and most rural parts of China, and one of the few places without a massively Han ethnic majority.  Partly because of the tumultuous history of the region, the Chinese government is expending substantial resources to bring some prosperity and modernity to the area, to sooth the sometimes-resentful local population, prevent unrest, and establish "an ever more harmonious society".

How substantial you ask?  How about almost US$1 TRILLION DOLLARS in the next decade! So perhaps there's more to it than just harmony.

With all those mountains and glaciers, Tibet has an enormous and as-yet unexploited potential for hydroelectricity production - which is lucky for the Tibetans since they place a high value on environmentally-friendly development.  Unexploited because there's hardly any basic infrastructure out there and it's been a significant technical challenge to efficiently transport that power from where it would be made in the West to where it's desperately needed, in the East.  Improving the national grid to deal with these issues has been one of China's top investment priorities.

With dozens of projecs to build modern ultra-high-voltage transmission lines - like this one in Kazakhstan - problem solved.  And in the process, every mountain hermit palace gets hooked up to the juice so they can listen to traditional throat-singing on their recharged iPods.

From ChinaDaily:

The State Grid Corp of China (SGCC), the nation's largest electricity transmission company, has signed an agreement with the Tibet Autonomous Region government to form a power company.

The Tibet Power Co Ltd will enjoy a series of preferential policies and serve as the main body for the central government's financial support for power construction in the region.

... The SGCC plans to invest over 200 billion yuan this year [that's $US 27 Billion this year alone -ed.] in a further effort to provide electricity to every rural household in the country during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

It invested 176 billion yuan to extend its grid in 2006, up 47 percent year-on-year.

The company last year began to build China's first ultra-high voltage transmission line, the country's first move to transmit power over a long distance using 1,000-kilovolt (kV) alternating current.

The line, which will stretch 653.8 kilometers and cross China's Yellow River and the Hanjiang River, will transmit power produced in Shanxi Province, China's largest coal production base ...