Message-ID: <19971008010336272.AAA175@line77.persocom.com.br> Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 01:03:37 +0000 From: Joaquim Moura <mailto:joaquim.moura@PERSOCOM.COM.BR> Subject: Hints about atomic power in Brazil To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Unfortunately, I am not very able to help you in relation to this topic, but I can give you some starting hints:First: do you know that the Western worst nuclear accident has occurred in Brazil, some years ago, when a group of poor people, from a poor neighborhood in Goiania, found a nuclear capsule with Cesio something, and as they didn't know anything about atomic radiation, they opened the capsule, tried to sold the luminous sand that they found inside it, and a young girl had even tried to taste a bit of it. Of course many of them are dead now, including the poor young girl, and many families are still suffering a lot. The government has already forgotten its responsibilities, so the original owner of the radioactive capsule (a x-ray clinic). The streets where those poor people lived had their grounds removed by huge machines, and all those tons of earth have filled hundreds of containers that nobody knows how to store safely...
Another interesting issue: We have just one commercial nuclear plant producing electric power in Brazil. It is located in Angra dos Reis, 100 miles from Rio de Janeiro city. This plant is maybe 25 years old, Westinghouse technology, and presents problems very often, and during all these years it spent more time out of order than running and producing energy. I suppose that in some years more it will be definitely turned off.
Another: During the military dictatorship, when our president was General Ernesto Geisel, he signed, in 1977, a deal with the German industry and government, to buy seven nuclear plants in few years ahead (the Brazil-Germany Agreement). The deal was made without any discussion with the Brazilian scientific community, and would finance a lot of research and create a lot of jobs in Germany, and Brazil would receive very expensive black-boxes. Indeed, this deal never succeeded fully, but the two first plants are being built since then, very slowly, because their costs are far beyond our Government's current investment capacity. As maybe you know, our Govern is privatizing all their companies, including the Brazilian power production huge sector. But, the nuclear plants will not be included among the facilities be sold, because they are so expensive and problematic that nobody would buy them. According the Agreement, Brazil has also bought from Germany other very expensive but already obsolete installations than power plants: metallurgic heavy plants, nuclear fuel processing unit, etc. They are all closed now, or producing other products than their original ones. In some harbors, there are also tons of expensive and sensitive equipment still inside the boxes where they came from Germany many years ago, already obsolete and/or eroded by time and weather. The Brazil=Germany Agreement was signed without the accordance of the United States, which preferred a Brazil-United States Agreement, but General Geisel (whose parents were Germans), chose to work with Germans, a preference that would give him much more freedom to develop our secret counterpart - the Brazilian atomic bomb.
Yes, there was also, during the late 70s and early 80s, a military plan to develop the Brazilian nuclear weapons. This project involved the military technological capacity and was discontinuated later, mainly because the national finance crisis that aroused, mainly because the denouncement from civilian scientists, pacifists, ecologists, NGOs and congress people (mainly from the left wing parties).
I will suggest you to visit the site (also in English) of FERNANDO GABEIRA - a representative of RIO DE JANEIRO, working in the FEDERAL CONGRESS in BRASILIA. He was elected by the GREEN PARTY (Partido Verde), and he has a lot of information about this issue. I am sure that he - or someone in his office - will help you.
At 12:17 5/10/97 -0500, you wrote: >Hello -
>
>I am very pleased to have found your internet site. i am a graduate
>student at Washington University in St. Louis. MO USA. I am studying
>International Affairs. I am currently taking a class that is called
>"International Environmental and Resource Management." For that class I
>have decided to investigate the environmental effects that have been
>caused by nuclear power and arms production in Argentina and Brazil.
>
>I realize that both countries are no longer building nuclear weapons,
>but I want to find out what the effects to the environemtn have been in
>the past. I have not been able to find any information.
>
>WOpuld you happen to know where I could find such information? I would
>greatly appreciate any information that you could send to me via e-mail.
>
>Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
>
>
>Hola!
>
>Soy un estudiante de maestria en los EEUU. Soy estudiante de Asuntos
>Internacionales y este semestre estoy haciendo unas investigaciones de
>los afectos al medio ambiental por causa de la energia nuclear.
>
>Ya he empezado mis busquedas por medio de la biblioteca y la internet,
>pero no he encontrado muchas cosas sobre los efectos por causa de la
>energia nuclear. Sabe Ud. si han hecho estudios de este tipo en la
>Argentina o en la Brasil?
>
>Es que estoy haciendo las investigaciones de la punta de vista de que la
>Argentina y la Brasil firmaron el pacto de no proliferacion y quiero
>saber los efectos al medio ambiental.
>
>Tal vez nadie ha hecho un estudio del medio ambiental por este aspecto,
>pero me imagino que hay problemas. Por ejemplo, que hacen con el residuo
>nuclear?
>
>Si Ud. sabe algo de estas cosas, se lo agradezco mucho alguna
>informacion. Muchas gracias y que tenga buen dia.
>
>Robert Blake
>527 Clara Ave. #15
>St. Louis, MO 63112
>USA
>
>phone (314) 367-7830
>Fax (314) 367-7850
>e-mail: mailto:rjblakej@artsci.wustl.edu
>
_____________________________________________________________ Joaquim MouraCompanheiros das Americas / Partners of the Americas Comite Brasilia - Washington D.C. / Committee Comissao de Desenvolvimento da Juventude e da Cidadania / Youth and Citizenship Development Commission ** todas as opinioes controversas sao apenas pessoais ** ** all the controversial opinions are just personal **
WWW site: http://www.partners-bsbdc.org