Megaprojects in northeastern Brazil: the case of the nuclear plant

Abstract

The economic model based on a review of the sustainable development paradigm and the flexibility of the socio-environmental legal microsystem has been an issue explicitly present on the public agenda of the "new" right-wing governments, characterized by a deviation from all the socio-environmental commitments that were assumed at other times. Our objective is to analyze the newest megaproject of the energy matrix to be implemented in northeast Brazil, a nuclear plant in Itacuruba in the São Francisco Mesoregion in Pernambuco, indigenous territory of the Pankará people, which has fueled a conflict situation. Therefore, we use a theoretical framework that addresses an x-disciplinary approach that involves direct and indirect impacts related to the risk of installing a nuclear energy matrix against water pollution, biodiversity, air pollution, the threat to people and the atomic residue for future generations.