Brazil and the Atom in the Service of Peace

Marlene Rossi Severino Nobre

While the world great powers wage a declared war against the Brazil-Germany nuclear agreement, in Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais, the Symposium on Areas of High Natural Radioactivity, which brought together scientists from around the world, has just confirmed the unimaginable wealth of the Brazilian soil.  As a guardian of the future, it is undoubtedly a storehouse carefully reserved for the uncertain days of the next millennium.

The Morro do Ferro (Iron Hill), located 14 kilometers from Poços de Caldas, was recognized by the symposium participants as the site with the highest natural radioactivity in the world.  To give an idea, the normal radiation level received by people anywhere on the planet is about 100 millirads per year, whereas at Morro do Ferro, radioactivity reaches 32 millirads per hour, far exceeding internationally known maximum standards.  For comparison, the monazite sands of Guarapari Beach, Espírito Santo, emits around 650 millirads per year, which is significantly lower than the levels found at Morro do Ferro.

After visiting the Poços de Caldas region, German nuclear physicist Wolfgang Jacobi, one of the symposium participants, stated that he had no doubt that “the discovery of extensive uranium deposits in Brazil is only a matter of proper exploration.”

The recently signed German-Brazilian nuclear agreement includes the installation of a pilot-scale uranium enrichment plant, scheduled to begin operations in 1977.  Through this project, the two countries will form a consortium for the construction of reactors, uranium enrichment and reprocessing uranium for third parties under contract, in addition to ensuring the supply of uranium for Germany’s own reactors.

There is not much concern about finding large uranium reserves, because it is expected that by 1980, breeder reactors (regenerator reactors) will be capable of producing a large amount of fissile material from a small quantity of uranium or thorium.  Thus, about 2,000 additional tons of uranium — which are relatively easy to detect, according to Wolfgang Jacobi — would need to be found through joint prospecting, to add to the 3,000 tons already known, a quantity sufficient to support the joint plan of the two countries.  It should also be noted that Brazil holds the second-largest thorium reserve in the world, a major potential source of nuclear fuel.

According to statements by the German scientist, the Brazil-Federal Republic of Germany agreement includes the construction of the first two reactors by the Brazilian company Nuclebras and German corporation Kraftwerk Union for the Angra dos Reis Nuclear Power Plant, with an electric output of 1,320 megawatts.  These will be pressurized water reactors, the largest of their kind in the world.  The first components of the Angra Unit II will arrive in Brazil in the first half of 1979, manufactured in Germany; the second unit of this nuclear plant will have 30% of its equipment built by Brazilian industries.

Independence

The pilot-scale uranium enrichment plant will begin operations in 1977, producing 25 to 50 tons of uranium enriched to 3-3.5% annually.  Although this is a small amount, it will allow Brazil to free itself from the contract it maintains with the United States for enriching the uranium used in Angra dos Reis Unit I, a plant built by Westinghouse with a capacity of 626 megawatts.

Finally, by 1985, Brazil is expected to end another contract with the United States — this one for reprocessing — as industrial-scale production of plutonium through reprocessing irradiated fuel from that plant is projected to begin by then.

With this, the country will be practically free from the strict control imposed by the North American contract regarding plutonium extracted at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was previously sent back to the countries of origin.

Contrast

The newspaper Folha de São Paulo, on June 20, published the following note: “The United States yesterday detonated an underground nuclear bomb in Nevada, 10 to 50 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.  Without a doubt, this is a clear contrast in the use of the same force.”

We fully understand the unease of the superpowers — particularly Russia and the United States — regarding our nuclear independence projects.  However, history stands sovereign and undeniable.  It is true that our past includes the painful laments of slavery and the heavy burden of border wars, but above all, it reveals an unmistakable tendency toward the cultivation of fraternity.

Pedro Álvares Cabral arriving on our shores due to calm seas; Tiradentes ascending the gallows to avoid fratricidal conflict; Princess Isabel freeing the slaves without military skirmishes; Deodoro da Fonseca establishing the Republic without bloodshed, and an entire nation shaken by the sorrow of its kind monarch in exile; Baron of Rio Branco consolidating our territory without massacres.  These are just a few of the countless facts that demonstrate the deeply rooted principles of fraternity and peace in the Brazilian people.

There is no reason for fear regarding our atomic project.  According to the spirit of Humberto de Campos, Brazil is the “heart of the world and the homeland of the Gospel.”  Peoples, like individuals, are accountable for their actions, for the law of action and reaction applies equally to nations.  By this principle, each country must reap either the winds of discord or the wheat of peace, according to what it has sown.

We did not commit the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we did not divide Vietnam, we did not invade Prague, we do not dispute the Middle East, we do not use intelligence agencies to sow unrest among peoples, we do not have despair found in the Gulag archipelago.

No!  The heart of the world exemplifies Christian virtues, offering to Earth the testimony of its unblemished history.  The homeland of the Gospel preserves the teachings of Christ in its acts of kindness.

No!  You will yet feel the peace of our tranquil fields, the gifts of our generous country, concerned only with the well-being of all nations.

Let suspicions be calmed — Brazil’s presence in the atomic cycle is a guarantee of peace and progress for the world.

Castro Alves, in admirable verses received on December 20, 1971, by Chico Xavier during the TV program Pinga-Fogo, exalted this mission of our beloved homeland:

[…] Since the day you were born,
By Cabral’s forceps drawn,
Time lit up anew
In maternal Bahia’s dawn!
Today, as the world awaits you
To uphold the laws of a new era,
Through Brasília bathed in light,
May life in you unite,
From Manaus to Porto Alegre,
In the Spirit of Jesus!

In defending what is right,
Upholding justice and love,
Fight and bare your chest in the battle,
But never scorn your brotherhood…
Raise the great future high,
Lift up, calm and dignified,
The noble, manly peace you wield!
To humanity that weeps,
Crying out, “Lord… what now?”
Christ points the way: Brazil!”