Qualla: Itaipu Dam

Itaipu Dam: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the Guarani language, Itaipu means "the sounding stone" -- named for an island in the Parana River that no longer exists. The island vanished beneath the reservoir. So did the world's largest waterfall by volume. So did the homes of 10,000 families. What replaced them is a concrete colossus that the American Society of Civil Engineers declared one of the seven modern Wonders of the World in 1994: a hydroelectric dam 196 meters tall -- the height of a 65-story building -- stretching more than seven kilometers across the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Itaipu generates so much power that it alone supplies roughly 90 percent of Paraguay's electricity and about 15 percent of Brazil's. It is a machine so large that its construction consumed enough iron and steel to build 380 Eiffel Towers.

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Itaipu Dam: A River Divided, a Treaty Forged

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Parana River is the seventh-largest in the world, and for decades both Brazil and Paraguay eyed its hydroelectric potential with competing ambitions. The diplomatic breakthrough came on July 22, 1966, when the two nations signed the Iguacu Act, declaring mutual interest in ha...

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Itaipu Dam: Moving Mountains for Megawatts

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Construction began in 1975, and forty thousand workers descended on the border region to attempt something that had never been done at this scale. On October 14, 1978, engineers rerouted the entire Parana River, diverting the seventh-largest river on Earth so they could build on ...

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Itaipu Dam: The Price Beneath the Water

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When the reservoir began filling on October 13, 1982, the rising water swallowed the Guaira Falls -- 18 cataracts clustered in seven groups, whose roar could be heard 20 miles away. Months before, an overcrowded footbridge overlooking the falls collapsed as tourists rushed for a ...

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Itaipu Dam: Two Frequencies, One Machine

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Itaipu's 20 generating units are an engineering oddity: ten run at 50 hertz for Paraguay, ten at 60 hertz for Brazil. Paraguay's electrical demand is a fraction of the dam's output, so most Paraguayan-side generation flows east through two 600-kilovolt high-voltage DC transmissio...

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Itaipu Dam: Power and Its Discontents

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For Paraguay, Itaipu has been both a lifeline and a grievance. The 1973 treaty obligated Paraguay to sell its surplus electricity exclusively to Brazil at below-market rates -- a provision that many Paraguayans viewed as economic exploitation by a much larger neighbor. President ...

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