Brazil plans to build 50 more nuclear power plants

RIO DE JANEIRO (Xinhua) — Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao announced Friday Brazil plans to build 50 to 60 nuclear power plants in half a century, with each having capacity of 1,000 megawatts.

“The general idea is to build one plant per year,” he said during a visit to the construction site of Brazil’s third nuclear power plant, Angra 3.


The ambitious plan, a priority for the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has yet to be approved by Brazil’s National Council of Energy Policy, he added.

The construction of Angra 3 started in 1984, but was halted for21 years. The decision to resume the project and expand the nuclear program 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.

Xinhua