Brazil’s spending on polluting energy will increase inequality levels

Amid one of its largest water crises in almost 100 years, Brazil is once again on the brink of blackouts as chief hydroelectric reservoirs reach dangerously low levels. With an election year looming, the Jair Bolsonaro government responded to the crisis — belatedly, some experts say — by prioritizing the expansion of Brazil’s thermoelectric power network.

Thermoelectric generation costs and pollutes more than making electricity from renewable sources, and the energy shift is likely to push more and more Brazilians under the poverty line in the coming months.

The most recent and severe case of power outages in Brazil came exactly 20 years ago, when the government imposed blackouts across a period of nine months to control electricity consumption and stop the national grid from collapsing. This came in Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s penultimate year in power — and is seen by many as one of the factors which led to his fall in popularity and the subsequent election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002.

The inherent problem of water shortages in Brazil is that the country is so heavily dependent on hydroelectric power stations to generate energy. However, since the 2001 blackouts, Brazil has reduced its reliance on hydropower — 20 years ago, it made up 85 percent of the national grid, now that rate is down to 65 percent. The country’s energy mix is more diverse, with significant investment in wind power and biomass energy. Still, prolonged droughts have a direct impact on the cost of producing electricity — and this is invariably passed on to the consumer.

Bolsonaro backing fossil fuels

Back in May, the government decided to switch on all of the country’s thermoelectric power plants, at a cost of over BRL 13 billion (USD 2.39 billion) until November. A further BRL 12 billion is earmarked for investing in the thermopower sector between now and 2026.

Furthermore, the government is planning an...