The Madeira River is a wide, shallow, muddy waterway wending through Brazil’s far western state of Rondônia. It is here, on the largest tributary of the mighty Amazon River not far from the border with Bolivia, where Brazil has staked its electrical future.

Large-scale hydroelectric work stalled in Brazil in the early 1990s, but now a pair of dam projects in the initial stages of construction and valued at $10.5 billion mark the first step toward meeting the country’s 21st-century energy demand. The hydroprojects are scheduled to begin feeding the energy grid in 2012. By 2016, they are to be fitted with their maximum combined generation capacity of 6,450 MW, approximately 8% of the country’s total electricity generation.