Nuclear activities in Brazil
[21][22] With regard to international standards mandating a limit to peaceful nuclear explosions (PNE), the military's nuclear policy affirmed that renouncing the right of independent fabrication of PNEs represented "a price too high to pay", since Accordingly, in a CSN meeting, President Artur da Costa e Silva voiced arguments in favor of "doing research, mining and building devices that can explode" and added: "We will not call them bombs, we will call them devices that can explode.
[24] Two years later, the parliamentary commission completed its work and concluded that the Brazilian booming industrial growth meant a rising demand of electricity in the country, which confirmed the necessity of nuclear energy.
[12][25][26] Also in 1968, the government issued a secret "National Strategic Concept" arguing that the acquisition of nuclear science and technology was a means to overcome Brazil's peripheral position in world affairs.
This in turn pushed Brazil to accelerate talks with West Germany and France, eventually signing an agreement with the former on 27 June 1975, that established the transfer of operational know-how regarding reactors.
[42] In order to overcome the mounting suspicious, and after much negotiation, a tripartite agreement on nuclear safeguards was established between Brazil, West Germany and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The material was later stored at the IPEN research facility in São Paulo, where the Brazilian Navy was developing technology for uranium enrichment and reactor construction with the ultimate objective of building a nuclear-propelled submarine.
[58][59][60] Civilian rule was re-established in the country in 1985, and the administration of President José Sarney publicly revealed two years later that Brazil had achieved uranium enrichment capacity through a secret nuclear program.
In 2012, a review of the PNE 2030 was commissioned, so as to take into account the increasing share of renewable sources like wind and biomass in the Brazilian energy matrix and the consequences of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
The following year, Admiral Oscar Quihillalt, president of Argentina's National Atomic Energy Commission (Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica – CNEA) toured all Brazilian nuclear facilities.
The bilateral interaction was possible because, in many respects, Brazil and Argentina shared a common understanding of the global non-proliferation regime as a top-down imposition of the major nuclear powers at the expense of weaker nations.
While the CSN considered it a positive development, then-Brazilian President (General) Ernesto Geisel conditioned any nuclear cooperation on the resolution of an outstanding dispute over the uses of the Paraná River that forms their shared border.
[97] At the time, Brazilian diplomat Luiz Felipe Lampreia stated that Brazil was part of multilateral safeguards structures, which he argued was the right path to enhance nuclear security.
This declaration also stated both countries’ willingness to commence negotiations with the IAEA on the implementation of nuclear safeguards and later join the regional regime of a nuclear-weapon-free zone of Latin America and the Caribbean as laid out by the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
Nonetheless, Geisel asked Robinson to keep this agreement secret, as a way to avoid domestic criticisms coming from the military hardliners and the Brazilian public, which supported "national nuclear independence.
"[161] In this sense, Brazil refuses to sign the Additional Protocol (AP), a voluntary legal instrument that complements comprehensive safeguards agreements and provides the IAEA broader rights of access to sites.
[77] Another source of conflict has been Brazil's refusal to sign the Additional Protocol (AP), a voluntary legal instrument that complements comprehensive safeguards agreements and provides the IAEA broader rights of access to sites.
[55][173][174] One of the main Brazilian newspapers, Folha de S. Paulo, published an interview in April 1985 with a retired military officer who stated that the government planned to develop a nuclear device and explode it in 1990.
"[185] In 2008, Brazil issued its National Defense Strategy (Estratégia Nacional de Defesa), in which it reaffirmed its ambition to develop and master nuclear technology and conclude the nuclear-propulsion submarine.
Hans Rühle, a former official from the German defense ministry who also worked with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) wrote an article in 2010 in which he indicated that Brazil might be on the path toward getting the bomb.
[188] He based his argument on the submarine project, which may involve the production of highly enriched uranium, and the fact that Brazil seeks to develop capacity to conduct all phases of the nuclear fuel cycle indigenously.
[211] The poor condition of the storage facilities led to a judicial ruling in 2011 that fined the INB, ordered it to treat the mining residues, and mandated that company must provide regular analyses of the radiation levels in the soil, animals, plants, groundwater and rivers that run through the city.
[214] A few months later, a technical mission led by Dhesca Brasil, a network of human rights organizations,[215] observed that the fountain continued to be in use and the residents had not been informed about the risks of consuming its water.
[216] In May 2011, after learning that 13 trucks loaded with radioactive material were about to leave from São Paulo to Caetité, local residents and activists asked for official explanations and requested that safety measures be taken.
[219] INB published a note in its website claiming that the cargo consisted of chemical compounds of uranium, coming from the Navy Technological Center (Centro Tecnológico da Marinha em São Paulo – CTMSP) to Caetité to be repackaged.
[89] The remaining radioactive waste from the 1987 radiological accident in Goiânia, Goiás, was quickly transferred to the nearby city of Abadia, generating resistance from local residents suspicious of risks associated with nuclear material.
And the human presence in the area is expected to increase; the Santuário Theotokos Mãe de Deus, a large church with a capacity of 20,000 worshippers that will rise to 100,000 upon the completion of its construction, has been built only 300 meters (984 feet) away from the radioactive waste site.
[277] According to reports of then-Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, the United States had been trying to impress on Brazil the need to convince Iran to come to an agreement with the IAEA regarding its nuclear program.
One reason cited was that the agreed-upon quantity of 1,200 kilograms was considered too low because it did not take into account Iran's accumulation of a larger amount of low-enriched uranium in the time since the IAEA first proposed the agreement, in late 2009.
[281][282] Thus, the United States and other Western powers worried that this agreement did not require Iran to curtail its enrichment program or even resolve outstanding questions about the possible military purposes of its nuclear activities.
[284] However, despite being called naïve and accused of prolonging a controversial activity of a dubious regime, President Lula maintained that "engaging Iran – not isolating it – was the best way to push for peace and stability in the Middle East.
