Brazil's Belo Monte hydroelectric dam is a concrete colossus sprawling over a swath of the Amazon. It was conceived to bolster the country's faltering electricity grid. But three weeks into full operation, it has left a string of broken promises.
The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam stands in the Xingu River in Altamira, Para state, Brazil, Friday, Sept. 6, 2019. With the start of full-scale operations three weeks ago, debate over its legacy, and whether its construction was worth local sacrifice, is coming into focus.
She used to live by the Xingu River. Today, it is the site of the Belo Monte dam, a colossus built with enough concrete and steel to make 22 Eiffel Towers. Boats crossing the river beside it look like toys. Sitting in the northern state of Para, Belo Monte has the capacity to generate 11.2 gigawatts of power, less only than China’s Three Gorges and Itaipu on Brazil’s border with Paraguay. It required excavating a canal larger than the Panama Canal.
A world away, in Rio de Janeiro, beachgoers on Ipanema applaud the sunset every evening. Lights come on across the city, illuminating the Christ the Redeemer statue, the Maracana soccer stadium and homes of 13 million city dwellers. Transmission line construction was impeded by 2017 protests in Para state, and Brazil’s government deployed National Guard troops to ensure no delays in work that was considered essential for growth of the country’s economy.
“Those excesses make their lives operate well in the metropolis, but they don’t understand where it comes from, the socioeconomic cost of it,” Novoa said.
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