Brazil Rediscovers Nuclear Energy

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Sunday December 27 12:30 PM ET 

ANGRA DOS REIS, Brazil (AP) - Visitors to the Angra 2 nuclear 
plant stroll by posters of Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci put up as 
reminders of the age-old struggle between science and skepticism. 
 
``The work you do today will be recognized tomorrow,'' the posters 
proclaim in Portuguese.

At least that's what the government hopes. So far, the power plant 
has been a public relations nightmare, delayed for more than a 
decade by cost overruns and safety concerns.  

Now, Angra 2 is being finished and is scheduled to go into 
operation in July. For workers, there is a sense of vindication.  

``This is the energy of the future,'' Jose Eduardo Brayner Costa 
Mattos, the construction site manager, said while waving a hand at 
an electricity generator stamped with the date 1988.  

Critics say Brazil is out of step in rediscovering nuclear power. 
They note that no U.S. utility has ordered a reactor since the late 
1970s and that Germany's new government and others in Europe 
are moving to phase out nuclear power.  

The gray concrete sphere of Angra 2 on Itaorna Beach, 100 miles 
west of Rio de Janeiro, seems like a relic from another age.  

``It will be a problem for generations to come,'' said Roberto 
Kishinami, executive director in Brazil for the environmental group 
Greenpeace. ``There's no place to put the waste, and the 
environmental impact report is vague.''  

Those weren't big concerns in 1975, when President Ernesto 
Geisel signed an agreement with West Germany's Kraftwerk 
Union, a subsidiary of Siemens, to build as many as eight, 1,300-
megawatt pressurized-water reactors to generate electricity.  

For Brazil's ruling generals, the deal was part of its ``Big Brazil'' 
development drive. It also gave them a reactor that could produce 
fuel for an atomic weapons program, something they didn't get with 
Angra 1, a 626-megawatt plant then being built by Westinghouse 
Corp.  

Right away there were problems.

Angra 2's first foundation was built on crumbling stone instead of 
bedrock, and almost the entire budget went into sinking additional 
support columns. Residents said it was a mistake to build at 
Itaorna, a Guarani Indian name usually translated as ``rotten rock.''  

Angra 1 didn't inspire much confidence, either. It broke down so 
often that Brazilians dubbed it ``the lightning bug,'' because it
kept going off and on.

In the 1980s, with Angra 2 way behind schedule, Brazil went broke 
and plunged into recession. With no money and less need for 
energy, the plant was not a priority.  

In 1987, a year after the Soviet reactor meltdown at Chernobyl, 
Ukraine, a Brazilian junk dealer found a lead capsule containing 
radioactive cesium 137 in the ruins of an abandoned medical clinic 
and broke it open with a sledgehammer. Brazilians panicked after 
radiation poisoning killed four people and sickened 103. So Angra 2 
was kept in limbo.  

It stayed there until 1994, when a new government economic plan 
ended hyperinflation. With a strong currency, consumers went on a 
buying spree - and suddenly needed more energy for new freezers, 
air conditioners and microwave ovens. President Itamar Franco 
gave go-ahead for Angra 2.  

Some 4,500 workers are laboring around the clock to finish the 
plant. Machinery, vacuum-sealed in special foil and warehoused for 
a decade, is unwrapped and installed.  

``It's 94 percent done,'' said Costa Mattos, the site manager.

A ``hot'' test of all systems but without fuel is set for April. The final 
step is to load the reactor core with 236 zircon alloy rods 
containing the uranium oxide fuel.  

Greenpeace is campaigning to block the licensing of Angra 2. 
However, 16 years late and at a cost of some $9 billion, it is 
expected to go on line in July.  

Over the years, Brazil's priorities have changed. Civilian rule 
returned in 1985, and the government signed the nuclear 
nonproliferation treaty and scrapped the military's secret nuclear 
weapons program.  

Eletronuclear, the government nuclear company, knows any slip-up 
at Angra 2 could sink its plans to finish Angra 3, today just a $1 
billion hole in the ground.  

``The design is old, but it has the same upgrades as in Germany. 
So I would say it is First World,'' said Heini Schroer, a Siemens 
computer technician from Erlangen, Germany.  

The pressurized-water reactor is the safest reactor made and 
environment-friendly as well, Costa Mattos said. Angra 2 won't heat 
the seawater much or emit methane or other ``greenhouse gases,'' 
and radiation levels will be checked periodically around the 
countryside, he said.  

For now, the spent reactor fuel rods that remain deadly for 
thousands of years will be kept in a pool at the plant, but in 20 
years the pool will be full. After that, no one is sure will happen. 

------------------------
Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

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