World’s biggest dam has unwanted power

Press, 24 November 1982, Page 16

World’s biggest dam has unwanted power

From JAN ROCHA, in Sao Paulo

The world is full of energy white elephants as a result of the international economic, slump — power plants and hydrp-electnc schemes that are suddenly unneeded because of the fall in demand. Now. the biggest white ele-' phant of them all has joined the herd, courtesy of two South American Presidents, General Alfredo Stoessner of Paraguay, and General Joao Figueiredo of Brazil.

Built on the Parana River, which forms the frontier between. the two countries, the hydro-electric dam of Itaipu dwarfs the world’s other dams. Twelve million cubic metres of

concrete went into building the . dam wall, as high as a 62- > storey building. Twenty-nine billion cubic metres of water

are pent up behind it. • When Itaipu’s 18 turbines are all installed by 1988, they will produce 12.6 million kilowatts of electricity, six times as much as Egypt’s Aswan Dam. Up to 40,000 men laboured eight years to build the dam, whose cost has doubled from $7 billion to 414 billion since work began., The social and ecological costs have also been huge.

Hundreds of farmers have been evicted, leaving millions of acres of arable land to be flooded * ■* • ■ ' ■ A tribe of Indians, the Avagurani, were forced to move to higher, barren land.-Thousands of wild animals had to be rescued from the rapidly rising waters. The beautiful cataracts of Sete Quedas have disappeared. Brazil, like the rest of the world, is in the throes of a serious economic recession and instead of; needing more energy, it already has too much. ■> .When Itaipu was planned, demand, for electricity was ex-pected-to rise 11 per cent a year; instead it has risen less than 4 per cent f ~'< This year there is a surplus ' of 2.6 million kilowatts, and ■ when the first Itaipu turbines ' are switched on in March, 1983, ' the surplus will become embarrassingly large, so the > Brazilians are not planning to link Itaipu to the national grid until the end of 1983. ? The, Brazilian Government is not unduly worried because Itaipu is as much a political project as an economic one. It is no coincidence that the man .who heads the binational con-

sortium that built it is a general, Jose Costa Cabalcanti, tipped as a presidential.contender when General Figueiredo steps down in 1985. The dam, upstream on a river that then flows south to form one of Argentina’s main waterways, gives the Brazilians complete control over the volume of water in their river. The Argentines got their first taste of this unpleasant fact when a test opening of the dam gates swept away buildings in the Argentine frontier town of Puerto Iguazu, 12 miles downstream/.

Argentina’s plan to build another hydro-electric dam downriver depends entirely on Brazil keeping its promise to maintain the water at the necessary level.

It would be no surprise if Argentine generals occasionally have, nightmares about some Brazilian Doctor Strangelove opening the floodgates of Itaipu and unleashing a flood that would sweep away Argentina’s riverside industries and drown Buenos Aires. Copyright, London Observer Ser-, vice.