|
 According to Brazilian Energy Minister Edson Lobão, Brazil needs to increase its electricity generation capacity by 50% over the next 10 years. He described the task as an "enormous challenge" for the country.
"Adding 51,000 megawatts to the country's current power capacity, (or) an average of more than 5,000 megawatts per year, that would be an enormous challenge," said Lobão.
Nevertheless, he said that target may have to be revised depending on the impact of the global financial crisis in Brazil, since the country's electricity needs have been calculated on the basis of estimated economic growth of 4.9% annually, a forecast made prior to the financial meltdown.
The Brazilian Central Bank estimates that because of the crisis, the country will grow at a rate of around 3%, although the International Monetary Fund and other organizations are forecasting growth of between 1.8 and 2% in 2009 and 3.5% in 2010.
Lobão said that in addition to boosting output the country must shift to different methods of generating electricity; he said the goal is a reduction of at least 10 percentage points in the amount produced by hydroelectric plants, which today accounts for 85% of the country's electricity consumption.
He said the plans call for more wind energy plants and the construction of four new nuclear plants, in addition to the two currently in operation at Angra dos Reis, a coastal city 150 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.
Construction of the four nuclear power plants is to be put out to tender in the middle of this year, according to Lobão, who said those plans could change depending on Brazil's economic performance.
Lobão added that the government hopes to encourage consumers to replace 10 million old, inefficient refrigerators with others that are more modern and energy-efficient and less contaminating.
Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fact-sheet_ne&w.htm