Itaipu Dam: The Dam That Powers Two Countries

The Itaipu Dam — 14 gigawatts of raw power, enough to light two countries at once. On the Brazil–Paraguay border, a river becomes a machine. Seven point seven kilometres of dam, 196 metres of concrete, and a spillway that can unleash forty times the flow of the great Iguaçu Falls. Twenty Francis turbines at 700 megawatts each. 12.7 million cubic metres of concrete — enough to build 210 Maracanã stadiums. The story: the 1973 Treaty of Itaipu, the river diversion of 1978, the submerged Guaíra Falls, 40,000 workers, sixteen years of construction — and a world record 103.1 terawatt-hours generated in a single year (2016). Today Itaipu supplies roughly 10% of Brazil's electricity and about 90% of Paraguay's. CHAPTERS 0:00 The dam that powers two countries 0:31 The river 1:01 The deal 1:42 Building the impossible 3:02 The machine 3:48 The record 4:38 The price and the wonder 5:11 The blueprint 🔔 Subscribe to The Impossible Blueprint for a new engineering giant every week. ⚠️ AI-generated content — all visuals are AI reconstructions, labeled AI in the video (altered-content disclosure enabled). #megaprojects #engineering #itaipudam #dam #documentary #impossibleblueprint