Thermoelectric Generation
Brazil’s massive hydropower reserves have always taken precedence over its low- calorific-value coal reserves. For that reason, compared with other developing nations, including India and China, coal only produces 1.81% of the nation’s power, through eight power plants with a combined capacity of 1,455 MW. According to the U.S. Commercial Service, that is bound to change. Since 2002, local coal production has increased 40%, and in the next four years, it will increase another 40% — specifically because of new power projects under way.
The federal Energy Research Office has planned for an expansion of coal power to 6,000 MW by 2015, bringing coal’s share to 5% of the total. Several interesting projects are in the pipeline. These include state-owned company Electrobras subsidiary CGTEE’s plans to expand its two 126-MW and 320-MW Candiota coal power plants — the largest ones operating in Brazil. The company is also building a 350-MW plant, readying it for completion in January 2010 (Figure 4), and has indicated it will likely build another. Meanwhile, Tractebel Energia started building a 340-MW plant in 2009 for start-up in 2012, near the Candiota coal plants complex. The projects are all located near larger coal mines in the south of the country.
4. Playing with fire. The 350-MW Brazil Candiota coal-fired power plant in Candiota City, Rio Grande de Su in southern Brazil was due for completion in December 2009. The US$428 million project took 36.5 months to construct and will be the largest coal-fired power plant in Brazil. The project is also a much-publicized collaboration between the Chinese and Brazilian governments. About 80% of the plant’s equipment was supplied by the Chinese company Citic International Contracting, and the project is being financed by the Chinese Development Bank. Courtesy: CITIC International Contracting
Natural gas has a slight lead on coal, with a 3.6% share of the country’s power portfolio. In 2000 the government launched a program to make natural gas a viable alternative for generating power alongside hydro plants, and this led to an increase in supply, both from within Brazil and imported from Bolivia. The government had foreseen supply issues, however, and only brought 73% of 49 selected projects online by 2006.
The country remains under a contractual obligation to buy a minimum of 20 million cubic meters of gas per day from Bolivia, even though natural gas plants have been shuttered owing to high water levels this past winter. Imports from Bolivia have fallen steadily, however, from a high of 31.5 million cubic meters per day at the end of 2008 to 21 million cubic meters per day at the beginning of August 2009.
In the meantime, new cogeneration gas plants continue to be built to power energy-intensive industries. An example is the 490-MW combined-cycle plant Alstom is building for a steel mill owned by Companhia Siderurgica do Atlântico. The plant uses blast furnace gas and heat scavenged from the iron-smelting and coke-making process to produce power for consumption and delivery to the local power grid.
Nuclear Power
Brazil’s two nuclear units — Angra-1, a 626-MW Westinghouse pressurized water reactor (PWR) built in 1986, and Angra-2, a 1,270-MW PWR completed in 2002 — generate about 2.8% of the country’s power. A third unit, Angra-3 (Figure 5), was designed to be a twin of Angra 2. But, though 70% of the equipment was on site — its storage costing the Brazilian government US$20 million annually — its construction was delayed first by environmental concerns and then by a search for a partner with US$1.8 billion to complete it. In December 2008, state-owned Electronuclear signed an industrial cooperation agreement with French state-owned nuclear giant AREVA that included the plant’s completion. Construction — a 66-month process — is now slated to be completed in 2014.
5. A nuclear new age? Construction resumed on the 1,345-MW Angra-3 reactor in 2009 after being suspended in 1986. Although Brazil has vast uranium resources and the capability to enrich its own fuel, critics say new nuclear power is not cost-effective. A recent study from the University of São Paolo shows, for example, that Angra-3’s energy costs soar to US$113/ MWh—much higher than that of the planned 6,450-MW hydropower complex on the Madeira River (US$46/MWh). New nuclear power would seem costly even compared with other sources such as natural gas (a 500-MW plant would cost US$79/MWh), coal (a 350-MW plant, US$134/ MWh), and bagasse (a 12-MW plant, US$74/MWh). Courtesy: FURNAS Centrals Eléctricas
The government’s plans go much further than Angra-3, however. In November 2006, the MME announced it would build four 1,000-MW nuclear power plants from 2015 onward, two in the Southeast and two in the Northeast. Then, in October 2008, Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy Edison Lobão claimed that the country had set as a priority a resumption of its nuclear program — and that it was considering calling for the construction of 50 to 60 nuclear plants over the next 50 years.
The minister was then reacting to a Bolivian political crisis, which had stalled natural gas imports and threatened power production. But, experts say, the idea that Brazil — like several developing countries, including China and India — would increase its nuclear power capacity to that extent is plausible. Brazil has the resources. As exploration in the 1970s and 1980s showed, it holds nearly 5% of the world’s uranium. Today, only one mine is operational: Industriás Nucleares do Brasil (INB) Lagoa Real/Caetite Unit, with 340 tU/yr capacity. All mined uranium is used domestically, after conversion and enrichment at Cameco in Canada.
But even that is slated to change, since a decision by the INB in January 2009 to allow the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission to start enriching uranium on an industrial scale at the Resende plant. Production of enriched uranium began in February, with some 12 metric tons of enriched uranium expected by January 2010.
The Resende plant uses ultracentrifugation enrichment technology, which was developed domestically by the Naval Technology Center São Paulo and the Institute of Energy and Nuclear Research. It plans to expand its two cascades of centrifuges to eight by 2012 — by which time the INB is expected to produce all the enriched uranium used in the Angra I reactor and 20% of that used in Angra 2.
Officials said that the domestic production of enriched uranium will save the country some $25 million a year, but the perks are certainly much higher: Brazil is one of only four countries — the U.S., Canada, and Russia are the others — that has both large deposits of uranium and the technology to process and enrich it.
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