BIOMASS RELATED GHG EMISSIONS IN TUCURUÍ AND BELO MONTE HYDROELECTRIC PLANTS: AN INTUITIVE COMPARISON WITH THERMO ELECTRICAL POWER

Abstract

Brazil, the 7th world economic power according with the IMF, is one of the Country in the world with the cleanest energy matrix. Since the 80s public opinion and official debates have been more and more concerned about the pollution generated from any kind of source of energy and now new commitments in that sense are contained into the ten-year plan (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento). The main part of energy production in Brazil nowadays is based on hydroelectricity but the water source is well concentrated, especially in the Amazon Region, and the hydroelectricity impact is so far not well known. Thus simple and new methods to calculate how much hydroelectricity is clean are needed, indeed. In this sense a method based on the evaluation of GHG emissions of Tucuruí and Belo Monte (two of the main projects all over the Country) is going to be presented. Every result has to be compared with the performance of other source of energy that could actually represents an alternative (the thermoelectricity in the Amazon Region), also facing the challenge of the increasing demand of energy by diversify the energy matrix. KEYWORDS: GHG emissions, Hydroelectric, Thermo electrical.