Day 12

Sadly, today was our last day in Brazil. After breakfast, we traveled to a cow farm that produced its own biogas that is used to power the farm. The cows defecate on to an automatic sweeper which sweeps the manure through some processes and eventfully gets deposited in an anaerobic digestor. This reactor produces the methane biogas which is burned as the fuel for the whole farm. This process is very sustainable the cow manure is essentially a renewable resource. After visiting the farm, we drove the Itaipu Dam, which is on the border of Paraguay and Brazil on the Parana River. The dam belongs 50% to Paraguay and 50% to Brazil because both countries but half of the resources to construct and maintain the dam. So, each country is entitles to 50% of the total power produced. Since Brazil's energy need is so much greater than Paraguay's, Paraguay sells its excess energy produced by the dam back to Brazil. This single dam provides 17% of Brazil's energy needs and 85% of Paraguay's needs. Itaipu's is listed as one of the seven modern wonders of the world, by the American Society of Civil Engineers. As the largest operating hydroelectric facility in terms of annual energy generation, I was in awe of its magnitude. We were lucky enough to get a tour of the inside of the dam and got to see many parts, including the moving shaft that turned the generating turbines.