Qualla: Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thâmily Vivian Massari, CC BY-SA 4.0. At its peak, the plan called for five dams to turn more than 2,000 square kilometers of Amazon forest into reservoirs. The combined installed capacity would have been 10,682 megawatts, roughly equivalent to burning thirty million barrels of oil a year. The dams would have contained enormous locks to convert the Tapajos and Jamanxim rivers into a soy-barge highway from Mato Grosso to the Atlantic. The Munduruku who live on the Tapajos understood exactly what this meant. They spent a decade stopping it.

Image: Thâmily Vivian Massari | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: The Engineering Vision

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greenpeace Brasil from Brasil, CC BY 2.0. The centerpiece was Sao Luiz do Tapajos, a 7,608-meter-long dam that would have stood 53 meters above the Tapajos with a reservoir of 729 square kilometers. Thirty-eight Kaplan turbines would have generated a guaranteed 4,012 megawatts. Upstream, the Jatoba Dam would have added 2...

Image: Greenpeace Brasil from Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: The Platform That Never Worked

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greenpeace Brasil from Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Planners knew the political problem from the start. Traditional hydroelectric construction builds access roads to remote dam sites, and those roads attract loggers, ranchers, and squatters who do far more damage to the forest than the dam itself. The proposed solution came out of...

Image: Greenpeace Brasil from Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: The Thirteen Thousand

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Greenpeace Brasil from Brasil, CC BY 2.0. Around thirteen thousand Munduruku live along the Tapajos and its tributaries. The dams, if built, would have drowned parts of the Sawre Muybu, Munduruku, and Sai-Cinza indigenous territories. Government-funded studies recommended relocating people, a suggestion the Munduruku fie...

Image: Greenpeace Brasil from Brasil | CC BY 2.0

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: Confrontation on the Tapajos

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. In November 2012, federal police shot and killed Adenilson Munduruku in the region. The following April, 24 researchers entered the area under military and police protection to conduct surveys for the dam. The Federal Public Ministry filed to have Operation Tapajos suspended, arg...

Image: Brazil_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Виктор В (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: The April That Ended It

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thâmily Vivian Massari, CC BY-SA 4.0. On April 17, 2016, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. Two days later, on April 19, FUNAI published the identification study recognizing the Sawre Muybu Indigenous Territory. On the same day, IBAMA suspended environmental licensing for the...

Image: Thâmily Vivian Massari | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tapajos Hydroelectric Complex: What the Numbers Showed

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thâmily Vivian Massari, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two independent studies had already undermined the economic case. A 2014 analysis concluded that electricity demand forecasts had been overstated and that improvements in energy efficiency and falling costs of solar and wind power were not reflected in the plan. Once transmission...

Image: Thâmily Vivian Massari | CC BY-SA 4.0