Rio Pledges 'Power Island' Immune From Blackouts

The Lagoa de Freitas neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro is seen during a blackout Tuesday, Nov. 10,...

The Lagoa de Freitas neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro is seen during a blackout Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009. A massive power failure threw Brazil's two largest cities Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo along with other parts of the country into darkness Tuesday night affecting millions of people. Media reports said problems at a huge hydroelectric dam are to blame for the electrical outages.

(Felipe Dana/AP Photo)
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Organizers of the 2016 Olympics are pitching host city Rio de Janeiro as a potential "power island" immune from blackouts like the one that left 60 million Brazilians in the dark, though experts questioned Thursday whether a safe energy haven for the games is possible.

Rio has the capacity to produce more energy than it can consume with natural gas-fired plants and nuclear energy facilities nearby. And Brazil's Olympic Committee touted that fact in its bid proposal, saying locally generated energy could supply the city alone instead of being fed into the national grid.

The Olympic venues themselves will also be supported with power from new wind and solar power projects.

But since late Tuesday's blackout, which darkened all of Rio and much of Brazil, the committee has refused to comment on the outage or the power island concept.

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Instead, committee officials e-mailed to reporters the section of the bid proposal on energy that does not provide detailed information on what's needed to isolate Rio with its own electricity. Brazil's Energy Ministry also declined to comment Thursday.

Experts said the idea of removing Rio from the national grid so it alone would use its energy is feasible, but questioned why bid officials provided no details of their planned infrastructure investments in the proposal.

The Olympic report calls Brazil's electrical system "highly successful and structured." But red flags were raised by storms that apparently short-circuited transformers on a key transmission line from the Itaipu dam that funnels 20 percent of Brazil's electricity, said Johanna Mendelson Forman, an energy expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Producing energy and getting it on the grid are two different problems," she said. "It's the same in the United States. There are a lot of places that produce a lot of energy, but the challenge is getting it onto a grid that is antiquated."