Hydroelectric Energy, Repressed Demand and Economic Change in Amazonia

Abstract

SUMMARY The economic activities that have been historically identified with Brazilian Amazonia required no inanimate energy. Extraction of forest products was managed with manual labor, so was placer mining. Steam powered machines and internal combustion motors became part of doing things in the context of time and space without conferring a measure of energy autarchy upon the region. Brazil's Amazon region, inspite of its physical wealth, could not mount a much needed infrastructure, It produced wealth without lasting benefits for the region. Amazonia, like the American prairie, had to await technological changes that make its careful utilization possible. One of these technological changes is hydroelectric energy. While hydroelectric energy will hardly be an exclusive agent of change, it will occupy a central position in reordering the human use of the land. It may provide the basic means for the much needed careful domestication of the land. Hydroelectric energy opens perspectives on Amazonia that invite rethinking about what is possible, desirable and necessary.