{"title":"The Water Origins of Brazil’s Nuclear Energy Infrastructure","authors":"Jennifer Eaglin","doi":"10.3197/096734023x16869924234840","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Today, Brazil relies on nuclear energy for three per cent of its energy needs while hydroelectricity accounts for over sixty per cent. However, Brazilian officials sought to aggressively incorporate nuclear energy into the country’s energy infrastructure at any cost in the second half of the twentieth century. This article examines the connections between hydroelectric and nuclear energy development between 1960 and 1985. I argue that water resources, both shortages and excess capacity, were critical to Brazil’s nuclear energy pursuits. While scholarly attention has often focused on Brazil’s diplomatic negotiations and exploitation of the country’s uranium deposits, this article shows how droughts played a pivotal role in legitimising Brazil’s nuclear aspirations in the face of extensive hydroelectric capacity. In the process, both Brazil’s nuclear power plant and enrichment plant relied heavily on Brazilian water resources, fundamentally linking these two separate electricity sources in Brazil’s diversified energy grid to this day.","PeriodicalId":45574,"journal":{"name":"Environment and History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environment and History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3197/096734023x16869924234840","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Today, Brazil relies on nuclear energy for three per cent of its energy needs while hydroelectricity accounts for over sixty per cent. However, Brazilian officials sought to aggressively incorporate nuclear energy into the country’s energy infrastructure at any cost in the second half of the twentieth century. This article examines the connections between hydroelectric and nuclear energy development between 1960 and 1985. I argue that water resources, both shortages and excess capacity, were critical to Brazil’s nuclear energy pursuits. While scholarly attention has often focused on Brazil’s diplomatic negotiations and exploitation of the country’s uranium deposits, this article shows how droughts played a pivotal role in legitimising Brazil’s nuclear aspirations in the face of extensive hydroelectric capacity. In the process, both Brazil’s nuclear power plant and enrichment plant relied heavily on Brazilian water resources, fundamentally linking these two separate electricity sources in Brazil’s diversified energy grid to this day.
期刊介绍:
Environment and History is an interdisciplinary journal which aims to bring scholars in the humanities and biological sciences closer together, with the deliberate intention of constructing long and well-founded perspectives on present day environmental problems. Articles appearing in Environment and History are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, British Humanities Index, CAB Abstracts, Environment Abstracts, Environmental Policy Abstracts, Forestry Abstracts, Geo Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, History Journals Guide, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Landscape Research Extra, Referativnyi Zhurnal, Rural Sociology Abstracts, Social Sciences in Forestry and World Agricultural Economics.