Day 2

 8/12 (Day 2)

After a light breakfast, we took 3 hours bus ride to our first company visit in Capivari de Baixo. Before the visit, we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. We had buffet and enjoyed the delicious dishes.

After lunch, we arrived in the Tractebel Energia in around 30 minutes. We attended a presentation of the company first. We learned that Tractebel Energia is the largest private electrical generating company in Brazil, including plants of hydro, thermoelectric and wind generators. All the plants are certified under ISO standard for process quality and environmental quality norms. 82% electricity from the company is from hydro plants and 14% from the thermal, and Tractebel is able to make up around 7% of Brazilian electricity generation. Due to flexible weather conditions, drought may occur and river level can drop down, which have negative impact on electricity generation. Thus the company makes use of fossil fuel to maintain stable energy supply in case of emergency. To provide sustainable energy, they are trying to research energy resources such as wave energy, wind, biomass, solar. Though nuclear energy is one alternate source, they are not going to adopt because of intractable waste.

Then we visited the coal-fired power plant. In the control room, we saw different parameters on screen to help monitor the burning process. Following we visited a community center with many amazing pictures inside. They told us that lots of ash was buried under this construction since this place was used to be an ash field.

After the visit, we spent 4 hours back to Osorio for dinner and sleep.