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From the Nuclear Well in Serra do Cachimbo to the Agreement with Argentina and the Symbolic Gesture by Collor, Understand Why Brazil Does Not Have Atomic Bombs Even Mastering the Nuclear Cycle and Enriching Uranium with Its Own Technology
Brazil is a country that masters advanced nuclear technology, enriches uranium with its own gas centrifuges, and even developed a nuclear-powered submarine, but Brazil does not have atomic bombs. To understand why this path was interrupted, one must go back to the years of the dictatorship, to the secret parallel program, to the testing well excavated in Serra do Cachimbo, and to the moment when Fernando Collor de Mello literally threw lime over the location in 1990.
At the same time, this story shows how the struggle for power on the international stage intertwines with science, espionage, economic interests, and diplomacy. We live in a world where nuclear technology still defines global hierarchies, and understanding why Brazil does not have atomic bombs helps explain what place the country chose to occupy in this atomic order: far from warheads, but inside the club of those who dominate the nuclear fuel cycle.
The Scene that Symbolized the End of the Brazilian Bomb
On September 18, 1990, an image marked the recent history of the country. The then-president Fernando Collor de Mello went to Serra do Cachimbo in southern Pará and threw two shovels of lime into a hole dug in the ground. It was not just any hole.
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That cavity was the Nuclear Testing Well, excavated during the military dictatorship to serve as a point of explosion for a possible Brazilian atomic bomb. The well was part of a secret program, conducted parallel to the official nuclear project aimed at energy generation.
This clandestine program remained in the shadows for almost three decades, only coming to light after the redemocratization, about five years after the formal end of the military regime. The revelation of the well and the test structures caused an international scandal, precisely at the moment when the country was trying to show that Brazil does not have atomic bombs and did not intend to manufacture them.
When Collor threw lime into that well, the gesture was twofold. On one hand, it was a concrete burial of the bomb testing infrastructure. On the other, it was a symbolic burial of the ambition to transform the Brazilian nuclear program into a weapons program.
Why Nuclear Weapons Still Define the Game of Global Power
Since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, no nuclear weapon has been used in combat. But the planet still lives under the shadow of those bombs.
The five countries with permanent seats on the UN Security Council, the only ones with veto power, are precisely the five holders of the largest nuclear arsenals. It is not coincidental: military nuclear power and international political power go hand in hand.
These same countries, which monopolize nuclear weapons, tend to classify as an existential threat any attempt to produce or use nuclear weapons by countries outside this circle. Deep down, the global atomic order functions as a kind of hierarchy: those who master complete nuclear technology gain a voice, while those who do not remain on the periphery.
It is in this context that the central question arises: if Brazil does not have atomic bombs, what is its position in this game? The country chose an ambiguous path: it rejected for decades agreements that would hinder its technological development but decided to stop before crossing the line into weapons.
How Brazil Entered the Atomic Game: From Monazite Sand to CNPq
In the years following World War II, between 1946 and 1955, Brazil was in the final stretch of a process of industrialization that began in the 1930s. The idea was to stop relying solely on the export of coffee, sugar, rubber, and other primary products.
Almost ironically, Brazil’s entry into the nuclear world was also through a raw material. In 1945, the country began exporting monazite sand, a base for plutonium production, to the United States, which that same year was consolidating itself as the first nuclear power in history.
The payment should not just be in money. Brazil wanted technology and information transfer to establish a national nuclear industry. At the same time, Brazilian diplomacy was actively participating in international discussions about nuclear weapons, usually taking independent positions.
It was this way that the country tried to negotiate with France and the Netherlands for the purchase of the first reactors in 1946 and entered discussions about the International Atomic Development Authority (IADA), proposed by the United States at the UN to control all global nuclear technology and eliminate atomic bombs.
In practice, the IADA would take weapons out of the hands of nation-states and place all power over the atom in a supranational body. It would be up to it to administer stocks of uranium and thorium and decide who could access this critical material. The proposal never got off the ground, but it already showed the fear of the powers about seeing countries like Brazil gaining nuclear autonomy.
The Brazilian representative in these negotiations was Admiral Álvaro Alberto da Mota e Silva, a central figure in our nuclear history. He accepted discussing an international authority as long as Brazil received, besides money, nuclear technology in exchange for the raw materials it had in abundance.
It was under this vision that, in 1951, the CNPq, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, was born, directly linked to nuclear ambitions. In other words, much of modern Brazilian science stems from the attempt to give the country autonomy over the atom.
The Central Difficulty: Enriching Uranium
Mastering nuclear technology does not only mean building reactors or buying plants. The great Brazilian objective has always been to master the nuclear fuel cycle, a process in six stages.
The first two were relatively simple:
Brazil mined rocks with uranium and filtered the ore, separating what was of interest from what was waste.
The problem appeared in the third stage: converting the extracted uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF₆), the so-called yellow cake, used as a base for the fourth stage, uranium enrichment.
Here physics comes into play. Natural uranium is a mixture of two isotopes: uranium-238 and uranium-235. It is uranium-235 that is of interest for reactors and bombs, but it accounts for less than 1 percent of the ore found in nature.
To use uranium in reactors, the proportion of uranium-235 must be raised to around 5 percent. For nuclear bombs, that fraction exceeds 80 percent. Enrichment is nothing more than separating these two isotopes, exploiting a minimal difference in mass and stability between them.
In theory, the concept of separation by centrifuges is simple. In practice, it is a brutal engineering challenge. The gas centrifuges need to spin uranium gas at enormous speeds, tens of thousands of revolutions per second, generating forces equivalent to millions of times the force of gravity.
Building something like that without external help was almost unthinkable. But, precisely because of this, that was where Brazil wanted to get if it wanted to discuss on equal footing with nuclear powers, even though Brazil does not have atomic bombs.
Power Pressure and the Siege on the Brazilian Project
From the beginning, nuclear powers viewed with suspicion any Brazilian attempt to go beyond the role of raw material supplier. The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were not interested in turning a peripheral country into an autonomous nuclear power.
Despite the difficulties, Brazil made advances. In 1955, the Juscelino Kubitschek government managed to buy a nuclear reactor from the United States. Internal studies evaluated the adoption of natural uranium reactors, which did not require enriched uranium.
In foreign policy, the line was clear: the country declared itself pro-nuclear disarmament, as long as this did not limit the peaceful use of atomic energy. This position would become even more delicate after the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when Washington began to view any nuclear program in the Americas with maximum suspicion.
Even without evidence that Brazil wanted weapons at that stage, the equipment acquired could, in theory, be used to reach that goal. Neighbors like Argentina began to view the Brazilian program with concern, and the issue gained regional geopolitical contours.
Dictatorship, NPT and the Choice Not to Accept External Constraints
In 1964, with the military coup, Brazil became a dictatorship aligned with the United States. The international expectation was that this new government would accept without resistance the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was beginning to be drafted in 1965.
Signing the NPT would mean freezing Brazil’s nuclear capacity at a subordinate level: strong international oversight, little room for independent innovation, and no real possibility of mastering the entire cycle.
Against all odds, the military regime refused to sign. The country’s stance on non-proliferation remains: not to accept treaties that prevent the autonomous development of peaceful nuclear technologies.
The Brazilian logic was straightforward. Agreements of this kind could not serve to consolidate the hegemony of countries that already had bombs, turning the rest of the world into dependents. Brazil argued that any pact should be a starting point for developing countries, not a definitive ceiling.
This choice came at a cost. The country lost international goodwill and had to seek cooperation from partners also suspicious of the NPT, such as India and South Africa, even though the practical results were limited.
Even so, the goal did not change: to master the entire cycle of nuclear fuel and energy production, regardless of external favors. In 1968, the military government decided to build the first plant in Angra dos Reis. The technological ambition grew along with international distrust.
The Nuclear Madness Seen from Outside and the Growing Isolation
In 1974, India tested its first bomb, the Smiling Buddha. The indirect effect on Brazil was devastating. The pressure to contain nuclear programs in developing countries exploded.
In 1975, The New York Times published an accusation of “nuclear madness” against Brazil after the attempt to buy technology from West Germany. The logic was simple: Germany was a signatory of the NPT, Brazil was not. Therefore, the operation seemed to be a loophole in the containment architecture.
The then U.S. President Gerald Ford still maintained some openness to limited nuclear cooperation with Brazil, but faced strong opposition in the Senate, led by Jimmy Carter. In 1978, already president, Carter made slowing the nuclear ambitions of countries like Brazil a political agenda.
Over time, the siege tightened: the sale of uranium to supply Angra 1 was prohibited, and the promised fuel arrived five years late. There was no longer an easy path.
Without external cooperation, the dictatorship made a strategic decision: to start a completely domestic, secret, and parallel nuclear program to the official project.
The Parallel Program and the Brazilian Technological Race
In 1978, the so-called Parallel Program was born, organized by the military, but with the participation of civil institutions like IPEN in São Paulo. The objective was clear: to master the entire nuclear fuel cycle without depending on anyone.
For this, the program was divided into subprojects.
The REMO Project sought to develop a mini-reactor for a future nuclear submarine, whose hull would be built by the Chalana project.
The Cyclone Project aimed at the heart of the problem: the development of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
The first major result came in 1979 when Brazil learned to produce uranium hexafluoride on an industrial scale, the famous “yellow cake.”
At room temperature, the compound has a yellowish color. Heated above 57 degrees, it turns into gas and can be used in centrifuges.
To separate uranium-235 and uranium-238, the program needed cutting-edge technology in magnetic bearings, which allow centrifuges to spin thousands of times per second without falling apart. This part could not be bought ready.
That’s when the espionage dimension came into play. A Brazilian spy bought in Germany a vacuum pump with magnetic bearings, sent to Brazil in a diplomatic pouch, immune to inspection at airports.
From that, scientists at IPEN deciphered how the bearings work and managed not only to reproduce them but to improve them.
The country also trafficked dismantled old German centrifuges, hidden in boxes of household appliances like mixers and chocolate makers.
In another episode, a Brazilian diplomat brought to the country 101 industrial silver switches, critical components to power the gas centrifuges, sold officially only within France.
These combined efforts paid off. In 1984, IPEN began enriching uranium in a completely domestic process.
From a technological standpoint, Brazil crossed the threshold that separates merely purchasing countries from those capable of closing the nuclear cycle.
Still, Brazil does not have atomic bombs, and this decision was not technological but rather political.
Rivalry with Argentina that Turned into Nuclear Cooperation
While operating outside the international system, Brazil also sought alternative partnerships. The most important was with Argentina.
Historically, the two countries nourished a deep rivalry. The Itaipu case is emblematic: Argentines complained about the construction of the hydroelectric plant without more active participation from their country. At the same time, Argentina, also under dictatorship, criticized non-proliferation treaties and had a more advanced nuclear program than Brazil’s.
There was a fear of a regional nuclear arms race, something like a South American version of India and Pakistan. But what happened was the opposite: Brazil and Argentina decided to cooperate.
They began aligning their criticisms of the international nuclear order and, tired of frustrations with partners from the North, decided to open their programs to each other.
In 1980, Argentina began producing nuclear fuel for Brazil, which in return could provide heavy equipment for Argentine plants.
In 1983, Brazil was warned in advance that Argentina would announce to the world that it had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle.
This cooperation also helped to resolve the Itaipu crisis. What normally generates hostility – nuclear programs – in this South American case became a platform for mutual trust.
Later, already in democracy, this partnership would be consolidated in security agreements, until it reached the point where Brazil and Argentina monitor each other’s nuclear activities, ensuring that neither seeks weapons.
The Near-Bomb of the Dictatorship and Brazilian Surrealism
In the final stretch of the dictatorship, in the mid-1980s, some Air Force military personnel had an idea so absurd it seems like a movie script. To mark the end of the regime and celebrate the nuclear advances, they wanted to explode a “commemorative” atomic bomb.
The idea was to use a warhead as if it were a gigantic firework to salute the political transition. The problem: there was not enough time to produce sufficient Brazilian fissile material.
The proposed solution was even more problematic. China had sold Brazil some kilos of uranium and plutonium for study purposes.
The military considered using this material in the commemorative bomb, ignoring the fact that this would violate the terms of the agreement with Beijing.
In summary: a military dictatorship against communism contemplated exploding a bomb made with plutonium sold by the communist China to celebrate its own end. It is hard to find a more didactic image of the phrase “Brazil is not for amateurs.”
The idea, of course, did not progress. Exploding a bomb at that point would only reinforce the image built since the 1970s of “Brazilian nuclear madness.” Instead of reinforcing the country’s position, it would bury any pretense of being seen as a responsible actor on the subject.
Fortunately, a pragmatic view prevailed: the atomic program was too important to be burned in a gesture of bravado.
Redemocratization, Vargas Commission and the Redesign of the Program
On March 15, 1985, José Sarney took office as president of the Republic without a mushroom cloud on the horizon. One of the first institutional moves of the new phase was to investigate the secret nuclear program inherited from the dictatorship.
The Vargas Commission was created, chaired by scientist José Israel Vargas. The final report had an ambivalent tone: it criticized the military for maintaining a parallel program without informing the transition process, but acknowledged the technical success of the project, advocating that it continue under civilian command.
At the same time, accidents like Chernobyl and the radiological disaster of Cesium-137 in Goiânia imposed a brake.
The program was scaled down, but it was not terminated. Nuclear energy and technology continued to be seen as too strategic to be abandoned.
The old parallel program was then formalized as the Brazilian Nuclear Program (PNB). The country’s stance on nuclear technology remained, something rare in our history: continuity of state spanning military regimes and democracy.
In 1985, Brazil signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Argentina, which later evolved into an agreement for mutual security. Today, they monitor each other’s installations, ensuring that neither diverts its program toward weapons.
In 1987, the announcement that Brazil had mastered the nuclear cycle – including gas centrifuge technology – shocked the international community. A successful secret program scared, but also forced powers to view the country as a real technological partner, and not just a mineral exporter.
Collor, the Well of Cachimbo and the Final Step
As the second president of the democratic cycle, Fernando Collor assumed with a delicate mission: to show that Brazil would give up nuclear weapons without giving up nuclear technology.
It is in this context that the gesture at the testing well in Serra do Cachimbo occurs. The shovels of lime thrown by Collor not only destroyed a hole; they destroyed the physical symbol of a possible Brazilian bomb.
In parallel, Itamaraty was moving so that the country could finally sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1998, now from a very different position. Brazil was already able to produce its own fuel. Signing the NPT ceased to be a constraint and became a badge of international reliability.
From then on, the country consolidates itself as a nuclear fuel exporter and advances in the development of a nuclear-powered submarine, high-value strategic applications that do not involve the construction of bombs.
In other words, Brazil does not have atomic bombs because it chose to capitalize on nuclear technological mastery towards peaceful use and international credibility, rather than the race for warheads.
So, After All, Why Does Brazil Not Have Atomic Bombs?
Looking at this entire trajectory, one can summarize it as follows:
- Technical Capacity: the country reached the point of enriching uranium by its own means, producing hexafluoride on an industrial scale, and mastering the nuclear fuel cycle. Technically, the path to weapons was open.
- Political and Diplomatic Cost: crossing the line into bombs would mean facing sanctions, isolation, loss of credibility, and breaking agreements, including with Argentina. Instead of leveling up on the international board, the country would likely drop down.
- Long-Term Strategy: by showing that Brazil does not have atomic bombs but masters the atom, the country positions itself as a reliable actor, capable of negotiating in international forums, exporting fuel, and competing for high-tech contracts without raising proliferation alarms.
- Rare State Consensus: from Álvaro Alberto to redemocratization, passing through the dictatorship, there is a thread of continuity: seeking nuclear autonomy without giving up the discourse of peaceful use. Collor and the well of Cachimbo merely crystallized this choice in the eyes of the world.
In the end, atomic bombs are among the most destructive inventions of humanity. The Brazilian nuclear story demonstrates that the same technology capable of producing horror can generate cooperation, science, regional integration, and a more autonomous position in the international system.
Brazil is far from perfect, but in this chapter, it chose a path where Brazil does not have atomic bombs, it has technology, and attempts to use it as a tool for development and diplomacy, not as a threat.
In your opinion, did Brazil do well to opt not to have nuclear weapons or should the country keep the possibility of developing atomic bombs open for the future?
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