Brazil plans to build 60 nuclear plants

Brazil News.Net
Saturday 13th September, 2008

Rio de Janeiro, Sep 13 (Xinhua) Brazil has plans to build up to 60 nuclear plants of 1,000 mw each over the next 50 years.

'The general idea is to build one plant per year,' Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said Friday during a visit to the country's third nuclear power plant, Angra 3 now under construction.

The ambitious civil nuclear plan, a priority for the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is yet to be approved by the country's national body for energy policy, he added.

The construction of Angra 3 started in 1984, but was halted for 21 years. The decision to resume the project and expand the nuclear programme was welcomed by Brazil's industrial sector as a way to prevent an energy crisis in future decades, but environmentalists warned of the problem of the residues storage.

Angra 1 and Angra 2, both located in the southeastern state of Rio De Janeiro, currently have a combined installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

Besides the three plants, four others, two in northeastern Brazil and two in the southeastern part, are due to start operation by 2020.

Brazil, which is presently the world's fifth largest oil producer, early this week announced it has 26 billion barrel of recoverable crude and said more off-shore oil fields are being discovered.

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