Comments on: Itaipú

By: Werner

Werner — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:01:41 +0000

Manoel,
Regarding your last statement, I believe you are dead wrong.

To the Brazilian people, this is considered an outrage, as Brazil provided the financing and the majority of manpower used for Itaipu’s construction, while Paraguay’s only contribution to the project was allowing for part of the area located within its boundaries to be used for the lake and partial construction. Still, Brazil has to buy excess energy from Paraguay, which in turn, has always complained that this was an “unfair deal”. Hence, Mr. “Lula’s” recent agreement in favor of Paraguay.

By: Werner

Werner — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:57:43 +0000

Actually, this is incorrect. Read my reply to the comment above yours.

By: Werner

Werner — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:55:53 +0000

Actually, you heard right. Since its beginning, the Itaipu bi-national consortium (consisting of the Paraguayan and Brazilian authorities) has fashioned an agreement in which Paraguay was the “bigger beneficiary” so to speak (being the much smaller country than Brazil is), which rendered a huge amount of excess energy, which Brazil was forced to buy from them (due to the above-mentioned “agreement”), in order to keep the country running. In 2009, Brazilian’s president “Lula” has agreed to triple Paraguay’s income from Itaipu, and to allow Paraguay to sell its power to Brazil at market rates.

By: Roberto

Roberto — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 23:28:51 +0000

Correct spelling is Itaipu. There is no accent in final u’s in Portuguese (e.g., IguaÃ§u), but this is a spelling error commonly made in Brazil.

By: -edu-

-edu- — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 20:30:18 +0000

I wouldn’t say both countries spent equivalent funds. I’ve lived there for over 10 years and I don’t think Paraguay would have ever been capable of affording as much as half the expenses. Plus, Paraguay is far more underdeveloped than Brasil. Back when the Dam was being built, most of the machinery used was brought from Brazil and also designers and engineers were Brasilian. Paraguay provided the manual labor. It is said that Paraguayan cassualties during the building was as high as if there has been a war. Pretty amazing though… It would really be cool if they had the picture taken at night. Its really beautiful because they turn all the lights on.

By: Pedro

Pedro — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:49:34 +0000

There are 18 turbines currently functional and two more to be installed. Paraguay only needs the energy produced by one of these turbines -as it is smaller and has other hydroelectric plants. The rest of the energy of the half that belongs to the country is sold to Brazil.

By: Manoel

Manoel — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:15:21 +0000

Another information. Half of the energy has frequency of 50Hz (for use in Paraguay), and the other half has frequency of 60Hz (use in Brazil).
About the division of the power, believe me, the brazilians are not frustrated with this.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:11:38 +0000

I wondered that too Spamboy, but presumably both countries spent equivalent funds on ItaipÃº, in which case I would have thought that Paraguay would be entitled to half the power.

By: Spamboy

Spamboy — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:56:39 +0000

When I travelled there, I remember hearing something about the dam frustrating Brazilians because the country of Paraguay enjoys such a large percentage of the power output in comparison to the number of people that actually need the power (Brazil, of course, being a more populous country).

By: Manoel

Manoel — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:31:43 +0000

ItaipÃº is amazing!!!! It makes a sea in the middle of the state.