News

Brazil to build four new nuclear power plants through 2030

Jun 10, 2009 -- EFE
The Brazilian government plans to build four new 1,000-megawatt
> nuclear power plants through 2030, a top Mines and Energy Ministry
> official said.
>
> These facilities would be in addition to the two nuclear power
> stations - Angra I and II, with a combined 2,000-megawatt generating
> capacity - already in operation. Construction of a planned 1,350-
> megawatt plant in the town of Angra dos Reis, in Rio de Janeiro state,
> is to begin once an environmental permit has been granted.
>
> The first of the four new facilities are to be built before
> 2019 -
> five years after the projected completion date for Angra III - in an
> area between the northeastern cities of Salvador and Recife, the Mines
> and Energy Ministry's energy planning and development secretary,
> Altino Ventura Filho, said Tuesday.
>
> "The continuation of the nuclear program will be carried out
> (at) two
> locations ... one in the northeast and the other in the southeast and
> each could have several plants. What is being planned through 2030 are
> two facilities in each of them," Ventura told a parliamentary
> committee on climate change.
>
> Despite the push to develop nuclear energy, the secretary said
> that Brazil will try to maintain current levels of electricity
> production from renewable sources - which currently represent 46
> percent of the country's energy mix - through 2030.
>
> "Brazil's energy policy is to try to remain self-sufficient, with
> half (of the production) from renewable sources," the official was
> quoted as saying by government news agency Agencia Brasil.
>
> Hydro-electric power is Brazil's main source of electricity,
> accounting for almost 80 percent of the total, and is also being
> promoted by the government through the construction of several dams in
> the Amazon region. EFE
>
>