Belo Monte dam project Brazil

The Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River is currently the largest dam project under consideration anywhere on the planet, and would be the world’s third largest in installed generating capacity if built. Belo Monte is highly complex – the project includes two dams, two artificial canals, two reservoirs (one on dry land), and an extensive system of dikes, some big enough to qualify themselves as large dams.

To build Belo Monte, more earth would have to be dug than was moved to build the Panama Canal. The sheer enormity of the project means that an area of more than 1,500 square kilometers would be devastated, resulting in the forced displacement of 20,000 – 40,000 people, and grave impacts to the land and livelihood of 800 indigenous people and thousands of riverine and urban families.

Belo Monte is one of the world’s most controversial dams; indigenous peoples and social movements in the region have fought its construction for more than 20 years. In July 2009, a delegation of groups opposing the dam met with Brazil’s President Lula, who said he would review the project and promised “no one is going to shove this project down anyone’s throats.” Yet the government is pushing through the project at all costs, in violation of Brazilian law and despite the strong opposition of indigenous groups.

Originally, five huge dams were planned for the Xingu basin, which would have flooded 18,000 sq km of the rainforest, generating over 20,000 MW of electricity. The upstream dams would have stored water for Belo Monte (then called Kararaô), making it more effective in generating electricity. They would have also flooded indigenous reserves and protected areas. That proposal was defeated in 1989 after huge opposition from the Kayapo Indians and a worldwide movement spearheaded by pop star Sting rose to defend the Kayapo's land and rights.

The Belo Monte plan was launched in 2002. Under the new engineering design for the Belo Monte complex, more than 80% of the flow of the Xingu would be diverted down two huge artificial canals - each 500 meters wide - to the powerhouse, leaving the 100-km rocky stretch downstream known as the Xingu's "Big Bend" high and dry. The powerhouse would have 11,233 MW of installed generating capacity, but would generate an average of only 4,500 MW. Belo Monte would operate at peak capacity for only a couple of months out of the year, and during the four to six-month-long low-water season on the Xingu, it would generate as little as 1000 MW of electricity.

The project's extremely high cost and inefficiency and the river's large seasonal variations in flow have led many to believe that after completing Belo Monte, Brazil will build other dams upstream with greater storage capacity to guarantee there will be enough water for Belo Monte to generate electricity year-round.

Banks must not finance Belo Monte.  The financial viability of the project is too shaky; the lack of private investment signals a high risk on returns that the government is only able to absorb by pushing down interest rates and utilizing funds meant to pay down the public debt, such as the Fondo de Amparo ao Trabalhador (FAT) and public pension funds.  Drawing from these funds will cause considerable social unrest amongst the Brazilian public, who will be left to judge the risk involved in trading off the availability of public funds for granting energy subsidies to electro-intensive industrial sectors like mining and construction.

Meanwhile, estimates of the total cost of Belo Monte have reached as high as R$44 billion (USD $25 billion) due to increasing environmental and social costs involved in the project.

The financial risk involved in Belo Monte, the meager amount of energy produced throughout the year (only 39% of the dam's capacity without building further dams upstream), and the social risk involved in financing a project that has gained international notoriety for its impacts on indigenous people, are reasons enough for banks to refrain from financing the project.

Indigenous people
Belo Monte would directly affect indigenous communities living along what is known as the Xingu’s “Big Bend.” About 800 indigenous people from the Juruna, Xikrín, Arara, Xipaia, Kuruaya, Kayapó and other ethnic groups live in this region. José Carlos Arara, who met with President Lula in July to voice his concerns, told the President “Our ancestors are there inside this land, our blood is inside the land, and we have to pass on this land with the story of our ancestors to our children. We don’t want to fight, but we are ready to fight for our land if we are threatened. We want to live on our land in peace with all that we have there.”

A panel of 40 independent experts that analyzed the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) found that, since the Big Bend would receive less water than at any time in its history, fish stocks would be decimated, with some species found only in the Big Bend likely to become extinct. The drying of the Big Bend would make it impossible for indigenous communities to reach the city of Altamira to sell their produce or buy staples. The lowering of the water table would destroy the agricultural production of the region, affecting indigenous and non-indigenous farmers, as well as water quality. In all probability, the rainforests in this region would not survive. The formation of small, stagnant pools of water among the rocks of the Big Bend would be an ideal environment for proliferation of malaria and other waterborne diseases.

Communities upstream, including the Kayapó Indians, would suffer the loss of migratory fish species, which are a crucial part of their diet. The Kayapó are bitterly opposed to the project and have vowed to wage war if the government proceeds.

Riverine and urban people
Officially 19,000 people would be forcibly displaced for Belo Monte, most in the city of Altamira, but the independent review of the project found the real number of directly affected people could be twice the official estimate. Contrary to what would happen in the Big Bend, Altamira’s water table would become saturated, leading to flooding throughout the city during the rainy season. More than 100,000 migrants are expected to arrive in search of work. Riverine families who have lived off of fishing and smallscale agriculture on the Xingu for decades would be forced to relocate to Altamira, where they would compete with migrants for very few jobs, most of them low-paying.

Given the limited infrastructure in the towns and villages in the region, it is expected that the vast majority of the migrants who do not find work on the dam would seek land in rainforest areas, leading to widespread deforestation and impacts on fish and wildlife, in addition to the invasion of indigenous lands.

Biodiversity
Belo Monte would affect biodiversity over an extensive area of the central Amazon. The rich flooded forests of the Big Bend and middle Xingu would no longer receive seasonal floodwaters. Besides affecting endemic and migratory fish species, it would seriously affect aquatic and land fauna, including endangered species such as the white-cheeked spider monkey and black-bearded saki monkey. Threatened turtle species downstream would lose their breeding grounds.

Climate change
Belo Monte is being proposed as a renewable energy project and an important part of the country’s commitment to reduce emissions by 38% by 2020. Yet reservoirs in tropical forests like the Amazon can themselves be significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions due to decomposing vegetation.

According to Philip Fearnside, Brazil’s foremost expert on reservoir emissions, Belo Monte is unlikely to be a standalone project due to its low generating capacity in the dry season. Fearnside therefore assumes that the Babaquara Dam – a much larger storage dam – will be built upstream. According to Fearnside, during the first 10 years of operation, the Babaquara and Belo Monte dams combined would have emissions four times higher than an equivalent fossil-fuel plant. After 20 years, the project would still have 2.5 times the emissions of a fossil-fuel plant. Even discounting its massive social and environmental impacts, the project can hardly be seen as clean.

The indigenous people of the Xingu Basin claim that they were never adequately consulted about the project, in violation of their Brazilian constitutional rights and their rights to free, prior and informed consent under international law. Opponents of the project have received death threats and have been subjected to initimidation.

Transmission lines would be constructed to connect Belo Monte with the central grid, meaning that the electricity from Belo Monte could go nearly anywhere in Brazil. But it’s most likely to go first to expanding aluminum, iron, and other smelting operations in the Amazon such as Juriti, Carajas, and Paragominas, owned by Alcoa and Vale.  The energy would also go to fuel the powerful industrial sector in southeast Brazil, which consumes 28.6% of all electricity in the country, mainly in São Paulo and Minas Gerais.

Alternatives
Considering Belo Monte’s astronomical cost, even without accounting for its social and environmental impacts, Brazil would be well-advised to give greater priority to less destructive alternatives. A study by WWF-Brazil published in 2007 showed that by 2020, Brazil could cut the expected demand for electricity by 40% through investments in energy efficiency. The power saved would be equivalent to 14 Belo Monte hydroelectric plants. This would result in national electricity savings of up to $19 billion by 2020, and reduce installed capacity by 78,000 MW. WWF-Brazil’s “PowerSwitch Scenario” would also generate 8 million new jobs through power generation from renewable sources such as biomass, wind, solar and small hydro, avoiding the need to build dams in the Amazon. These renewable sources could account for 20% of the total electricity generated in the country by 2020.