Nuclear energy accounts for about 3% of Brazil's electricity. It is produced by two pressurized water reactors at Angra, which is the country's sole nuclear power plant. Construction of a third reactor begun on 1 June 2010, but it is currently stalled. The sole Brazilian company in charge of nuclear energy production is Eletronuclear. Uranium exploration, production and export in Brazil is under state control through Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil although the government has announced it is ready to involve the private sector in the nuclear fuel industry.
Brazilian nuclear activities
Early years (1930–60) In Brazil, theoretical research in the field of nuclear energy began at the University of São Paulo (USP) in the late 1930s. The following decade, Brazil became a supplier of mineral resources (monazite, thorium and uranium) to nuclear experimentation projects in the United States, such as the Manhattan Project. In 1947, Álvaro Alberto, a Navy official and a vocal supporter of nuclear power, wrote the first Brazilian nuclear policy plan to be approved by Brazil's national security council, the Conselho de Segurança Nacional (CSN). Implementation of the plan began in 1951, with the establishment of Brazil's national research council, the Conselho Nacional de Pesquisas (CNPq), and the nomination of Alberto as its president. The institution's general purpose was to promote technological and scientific research in all areas of knowledge and CNPq had specific responsibilities related to the development of nuclear energy; such as promoting research on relevant mineral resources and undertaking the necessary measures to boost the industrialization of nuclear energy. The path toward developing a Brazilian nuclear sector included the nationalization of nuclear activities and specific compensations for exporting strategic raw materials. Accordingly, Brazil attempted to negotiate trade agreements that, in exchange for Brazilian raw materials, would include provisions to grant easier access to sensitive technologies and training for Brazilian nuclear engineers. This policy granted Brazilian scientists and engineers opportunities to undertake academic exchanges and training in the U.S. CNPq sought to acquire nuclear technology from the U.S. and other countries. Washington, however, rejected Alberto's request to purchase a cyclotron from General Electric, which would have allowed Brazil to conduct advanced nuclear physics experiments. Alberto also started negotiations for the acquisition of ultracentrifuges from West Germany. By the mid-1950s Brazil's nuclear program had purchased 3 West German centrifuges for US$80,000. Although the centrifuges arrived in Brazil in 1956, they only became operational in the 1970s. A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito – CPI) established in 1956 uncovered the illegal exports of atomic materials to the United States. It also revealed that Juarez Távora, chief of the military cabinet in the early stages of the Café Filho administration in 1954, acted in accordance with U.S. requests and adopted a new nuclear policy plan whereby the U.S. was considered the privileged partner of Brazil in the nuclear field. After the investigation was completed, the CPI argued in favor of a more nationalist approach to nuclear policy, resuming the plans advocated by Alberto and the CNPq. The new nuclear plan adopted by recently elected President Juscelino Kubitschek created a National Nuclear Energy Commission(Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear – CNEN) under presidential oversight. It also cancelled all the contracts related to atomic minerals exports. In 1957 Brazil obtained its first research reactor from the U.S. under the "Atoms for Peace" program. IEA-R1, as it became known when it reached the Institute of Atomic Energy (Instituto de Energia Atômica – IEA) in São Paulo, was the first reactor ever to operate in the southern hemisphere. This was followed in 1960 by the research reactor TRIGA Mark 1, located at the Institute of Radioactive Research (Instituto de Pesquisas Radioativas – IPR) of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), which was used in training and research activities related to radioisotope production.
1961–72 By 1962 Brazil had built its first indigenous research reactor, the Argonauta, which commenced operations in 1965 at the Rio de Janeiro-based Nuclear Engineering Institute (Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear – IEN). The Argonauta was an adaptation of a reactor designed by the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States. In the aftermath of the 1964 coup d’état that ousted the popularly elected government, the ruling military devised a nuclear policy based on the purchase of nuclear power plants in order to generate electricity but also create the conditions for an indigenous nuclear industrial complex inside Brazil. In the long term, stated the plan, Brazil would seek to acquire all the technologies necessary to master the nuclear fuel production cycle. With regard to international standards mandating a limit to peaceful nuclear explosions (PNE), the military's nuclear policy affirmed that renouncing the right of independent fabrication of PNEs represented "a price too high to pay", since
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
