The Brazilian press responded quickly with criticism of Norte Energia’s failure to plan for the operation of a dam into which R$40 billion (roughly US$9.5 billion) has been invested — with much of that funded by Brazilian taxpayers through the BNDES, Brazil’s giant development bank. This is what’s called “firm energy,” an approximation of actual electricity produced. “This is a fault in the construction and the planning.”, She plans to send a formal request to the federal authorities in the coming days for immediate humanitarian assistance to affected residents and a suspension of the dam. The Belo Monte dam a controversial hydropower plant that is being built in the Xingu river, one of the largest rivers in the Amazon basin. The latter includes this dam, the Altamira dam, and four other, smaller dams that were planned upstream. The government is planning more on the Tapajós River, the Trombetas River and other rivers across the Amazon basin. Norte Energia’s thermoelectric licensing request, countering its lack of hydroelectric generating capability, isn’t only a local trend. Designers of the Belo Monte hydroelectric project built their Amazon mega-dam on Brazil’s Xingu River with an installed capacity of 11,233 MW averaged monthly over a year. When we reach the Boca da Terra Preta waterfall, it is no longer navigable. Through their actions, these firms were protected from the speculative risk the electric company posed, while profiting from the huge influx of BNDES construction cash, which saw limited public oversight. Available for everyone, funded by readers. The construction of Belo Monte is further linked to increasing patterns of deforestation in the region. And if Brazil continues to pursue policies like those implemented to nurture Belo Monte while starving the Xingu, then it isn’t difficult to predict the future losers: “Up until now, it’s always the dam companies that have won. And the subsequent five dams which are expected to be built upstream of Belo Monte would flood huge areas of indigenous land. Each of the descending tubes marks one of the eighteen electricity producing turbines. “Things are already really bad, but they’ll get worse,” predicts Millikan. The consortium, whose shareholders include state-run utility Eletrobras SA, miner Vale SA and power companies Neoenergia, Cemig and Light, was ordered last month by a court to obey the Ibama order. The report says the problem arose as a result of unusually low water flows into the reservoir, with several days in early October when it dropped to 750 cubic metres a second. Since then, the giant infrastructure project has met with a near constant flood of contentious protests from indigenous and traditional communities, and from the international environmental community. The 11 October document – Urgent action to control the level of the Belo Monte HPP Xingu Reservoir - is signed by Norte Energia’s CEO and addressed to the head of the national water agency. Find the perfect Belo Monte stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. A 2010 plan called for almost 300 dams to be built in Brazil to provide the country’s power. The 11,233MW Belo Monte hydroelectric project comprises two dams, two powerhouses, a primary spillway at Pimentel Island, and a supplemental spillway at Bela Vista.The main powerhouse will be equipped with 18 Francis turbines of 611MW capacity each, while the supplemental power house is located at the Pimentel site, next to the Belo.The first turbine-generator unit of the plant was brought into operation in April 2016. The Xingu River is one of them. The Guardian and El País have seen a recent report by Norte Energia which warned that the fall in water levels in recent weeks has exposed a vulnerable section of the Pimental dam wall, which is separate from the barrier housing most of the turbines, to waves that sometimes form during tropical storms or strong winds blowing across the reservoir. His concerns were echoed by Francisco del Moral Hernandez, an energy science specialist who coordinated an expert panel on Belo Monte in 2009. Every day, Mongabay reporters bring you news from nature’s frontline. New research confirms the critical role that this unique biome plays in regulating the climate of South America and beyond. “It is already apparent this project is a mistake,” she said. “I’ve been fishing here for 35 years but all the fish have fled. There have been plans for the Belo Monte Dam as long ago as 1975. The Belo Monte Dam project along the Xingu River had its preliminary plans drawn under Brazil’s military dictatorship and was a highly controversial environmental project from the onset. The Belo Monte Dam is a large hydro-electric dam being constructed on the Xingu River in Brazil. The very same day, Norte Energia fired back that there was no error and no risk to the dam’s structure, even though their own letter said waves driven by high winds could “cause structural damages.”. Getty Images offers exclusive rights-ready and premium royalty-free analog, HD, and 4K video of the highest quality. Others described how they used to catch filhote, one of the most prized river species, weighing more than 100kg before the dam, but now rarely catch one of even 20kg. “As well as the death of a river, it will result in the death of people. Our biweekly podcast delivering news & inspiration from nature’s frontline. According to the letter sent to the National Water Agency (ANA) from Norte Energia Director-President Paulo Roberto Ribeiro Pinto, the October 2019 drought had lowered the level in one of Belo Monte’s two reservoirs, called the Xingu Reservoir, far enough to put the Pimental dam at risk of structural harm. In 2019, the Xingu’s flow dropped drastically during the July to November dry season, and even with all but one of its 18 turbines operational, the plant produced a monthly average of just 568 MW in August, 361 in September, 276 in October, and 583 in November, according to Brazilian authorities. As well as increasing hunger and lower incomes, several said they suffered depression as a result of the sudden collapse of the riverscape they had grown up with. Climate change is projected to cut water flows by about 30% by 2050. Put simply, the drying effect of the vast upstream soy plantations makes it hard to run a downstream hydroelectric dam that’s promising energy at consistently high levels. The Belo Monte hydropower plant features two powerhouses, one with 18 Francis turbine-generator units and a total capacity of 11,000 MW and another (called Pimental) with a total capacity of 233 MW. The Belo Monte Dam complex will leave Arara and Jurana people without water, fish or a livelihood. These days, some locals call it not Belo Monte, “Beautiful Hill” (from the Portuguese) but Belo Monstro, “Beautiful Monster.”. So it was that the Belo Monte construction consortium partners profited hugely. This will be the start of a new water management system that will prioritise the dam and the ecosystem on alternate years. In the short term, the authorities face the dilemma of whether to accept the possible erosion of the dam wall or a further decline in water quality. Critics argue that Norte Energia’s October flow decision is environmentally risky. Brazil's Belo Monte dam owners challenge order to raise outflow Back to video. Washington, DC – As the first reservoirs of the Belo Monte Dam are being filled, the Brazilian government is coming under fire from international organizations. But Norte Energia, the electric company, is increasingly troubled. The world's third largest hydroelectric dam is currently being built in the Amazon of Brazil. The controversial Belo Monte dam, completed in 2016, is the third-largest dam in the world, after the Three Gorges Dam in China and the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu Dam. When complete, Belo Monte will be the third largest hydro facility in the world in terms of generating capacity. Norte Energia said in a statement that it “strictly complies” with the conditions of its environmental license. Experts today attribute Belo Monte’s stunning inefficiency to a variety of factors, including poor design, poor siting on a seasonally variable river, plus dramatic increases in regional deforestation that are drawing down Xingu River water levels, and finally, global climate change, which is bringing more drought — factors that were recognized by dam opponents and business analysts alike in the planning stages. “This isn’t being factored in” as the government lines up more dam projects across the Amazon basin. When there’s less rain, it makes river levels more inconsistent,” Sawakuchi said. The problem isn’t merely theoretical or localized. The company denied it was trying to make up for the hydro project’s electricity shortfalls, as the press inferred, stating only that electricity companies often diversify their portfolios. “Everything is getting worse,” said Sarah Rodrigues de Lima. Advantages. Amazon forests, with their high humidity, help generate their own rain, and locally replenish moisture in the Xingu basin. Contrary to the popular belief that the Belo 'Monster' Dam that has no notable benefits, the Belo Monte Dam does retain a few major positive impacts, especially to Brazil's people and economy. André Oliveira Sawakuchi, a Geosciences Institute professor at the University of São Paulo, agrees that deforestation, particularly caused by agribusiness, is making Amazon hydropower economically inviable: “Soy and pasture expansion in the southeastern Amazon is the enemy of the Belo Monte dam in the decades to come,” he said. On the exposed rocks are two dead acari fish that appear to have been trapped, desiccated and had their guts ripped out by vultures. The river is drying up.”. It says that water levels fell the previous day to a critical 95.2 metres, which posed a risk that waves “will reach areas of the dam not protected by rock” reinforcements. But now even that amount looks high. Belo Monte is highly complex. “That there is already a shortage of water calls into question the entire viability of Belo Monte hydroelectric project,” Thais Santi, the public prosecutor for Altamira, said. The answer: mega-profits to be made from taxpayer dollars during construction. Locals explain how the waterway is narrowing and becoming shallower. “We’ve always known this project is inefficient from the standpoint of power generation. The biggest hydroelectric project in the Amazon rainforest has a design flaw that poses a “very serious” threat to human life and globally important ecosystems, according to documents and expert testimony received by the Guardian. Those projects ignore the warnings of scientists, including Carlos Nobre and Tom Lovejoy, who in December 2019 declared that a long modeled Amazon tipping point from rainforest-to-degraded-savanna “is here, it is now.” If these researchers are correct, the prospects for Amazon rainfall, river flows, and existing and proposed Amazon hydroelectric dams will grow bleaker. I think part of the evidence for that is that all of those big construction companies all migrated away from Belo Monte’s [energy generation] investors.”. The Belo Monte project has been beset with problems since its inception during the era of Brazil’s military dictatorship. 12/11/2020 | 05:43pm EST *: *: * SAO PAULO, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The consortium that owns the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the Amazon is asking Brazil's government to reconsider an order to increase water outflow from its massive dam, which will reduce both power generation and profits. Previous agreements with IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, established that at least 300 m3/s must be maintained in the intermediate reservoir to avoid harming its water quality. They also intend to appeal to the Brazilian government for emergency humanitarian aid to support riverine populations that have experienced a devastating decline of fish on which they depend for nutrition and income. He concludes that advancing deforestation and climate change will cause the “company to have to modify their way of operating the dam” to meet minimum flow requirements for generating electricity, protecting structural integrity, while meeting needs on the Volta Grande. The grim situation is apparent on a motor canoe ride along the volta grande, or great bend, of the Xingu river. Construction on the Belo Monte mega-dam, on the Xingu River in Pará state in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, began in 2011. That’s what the turbines technically could spin — that is, if there weren’t this organic being called a river, with its own seasonal rhythms, rising, falling, spreading, mounting, and dropping again. 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If Norte Energia fails to supply enough energy, then its government contract says it must buy electricity on the spot market to make up the difference, which is expensive. But even in the high water season, the dam never came close to producing the 11,233 MW monthly “full operational capacity,” which Norte Energia’s press release touts to investors. Smaller companies like Queiroz Galvão and Galvão Engenharia, for example, originally invested in a minor way in the Norte Energia energy utility company, but then pulled their money out, instead joining the Belo Monte Construction Consortium (CCBM). Brazil's Belo Monte dam owners challenge order to raise outflow. The Belo Monte Dam has had severe and irreversible impacts on the lives of local communities, especially indigenous peoples, as it had destroyed their culture and the environment. The hydroelectric complex is expected to cost US$26 billion to develop. “[T]he problem is that there’s just not enough water in the Xingu River,” said Millikan, something that is typical of other Amazon basin waterways. Operator faces choice of weakening 14km barrier or potentially devastating a biodiversity hotspot, Fri 8 Nov 2019 16.00 GMT Prosecutors involved in the Car Wash corruption investigation found Belo Monte contractors were paid inflated fees in return for kickbacks to political parties. The project consists of two dams, one artificial canal, two reservoirs, of which one is on dry land and an extensive system of dikes, some big enough to qualify themselves as large dams. Find professional Belo Monte Dam videos and stock footage available for license in film, television, advertising and corporate uses. The Belo Monte project has been beset with problems since its inception during the era of Brazil’s military dictatorship.
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