Argentina’s oil and natural gas supplies are not keeping pace with the country’s 8% annual growth, leading some experts here to predict a national energy crisis next year or the following. Worried about the prospect, the government has launched a series of initiatives aimed at increasing power generation—in the process creating a welter of environmental tradeoffs. The most controversial such step was President Néstor Kirchner’s announcement last month of a US$3.5 billion, eight-year investment to boost Argentina’s nuclear-power capacity. Kirchner says the funds would be used to complete construction of the country’s long-delayed third atomic power station, begin feasibility studies on a fourth nuclear plant and resume enriched-uranium production, which was suspended two decades ago. The two atomic power... [Log in to read more]