Itaipú
Thursday, 20th July 2006 by Alex Turnbull
Damming the Paraná River on the border between Brazil and Paraguay sits an incredible engineering achievement - the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, Itaipú.
Itaipú is 196 metres high and contains enough iron and steel to build 380 Eiffel Towers. It took 40 thousand people to build it, and they had to move 50 million tons of earth and rock to do it.
In 1995 Itaipú provided 25% of the total energy requirement of Brazil, as well as 78% of Paraguay's! The facility has been constantly upgraded since then, and the expansion is expected to bring the amount of energy produced next year to over 100 million megawatt-hours.
Make sure you zoom in on the flow from the spillway, and there's more fascinating facts at Wikipedia!
Thanks to floki, Oliver Dueck, Luciano A. Ferrer, Rhaffael C. C de Barros, Bong Laden, Doug Olson, Vinicius Lage, Juliano Oliveira, Olaf van Zandwijk and Manuel Fernandez.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
That aught to show those whipper-snappers whats for! Thats what you guys get for not believing in GgSs.
Yes, Alex, that is MUCH more interesting – look at the way the valley is just flooded out to it’s contours – looks like there are still some dead trees poking out of the water here – but I could be (and usually am) wrong https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=-24.954108,-54.46094&z=18
Itaipú is amazing!!!! It makes a sea in the middle of the state.
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).
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.
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.
I wondered that too Spamboy, but presumably both countries spent equivalent funds on Itaipú, in which case I would have thought that Paraguay would be entitled to half the power.
Actually, this is incorrect. Read my reply to the comment above yours.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Correct spelling is Itaipu. There is no accent in final u’s in Portuguese (e.g., Iguaçu), but this is a spelling error commonly made in Brazil.