Brazil to build four nuclear power plants through 2030

BRASILIA, BRAZIL - The Brazilian government plans to build four new 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants through 2030, a top Mines and Energy Ministry official said.

These facilities would be in addition to the two nuclear power stations - Angra I and II, with a combined 2,000-megawatt generating capacity - already in operation. Construction of a planned 1,350-megawatt plant in the town of Angra dos Reis, in Rio de Janeiro state, is to begin once an environmental permit has been granted.

The first of the four new facilities are to be built before 2019 - five years after the projected completion date for Angra III - in an area between the northeastern cities of Salvador and Recife, the Mines and Energy Ministry's energy planning and development secretary, Altino Ventura Filho, said.

"The continuation of the nuclear program will be carried out (at) two locations... one in the northeast and the other in the southeast and each could have several plants. What is being planned through 2030 are two facilities in each of them," Ventura told a parliamentary committee on climate change.

Despite the push to develop nuclear energy, the secretary said that Brazil will try to maintain current levels of electricity production from renewable sources - which currently represent 46 percent of the country's energy mix - through 2030.

"Brazil's energy policy is to try to remain self-sufficient, with half (of the production) from renewable sources," the official was quoted as saying by government news agency Agencia Brasil.

Hydroelectric power is Brazil's main source of electricity, accounting for almost 80 percent of the total, and is also being promoted by the government through the construction of several dams in the Amazon region.