Dr Arun Mitra

There has never been so concentrated debate on the question of energy security in India as today. This is because the Indo-US nuclear deal said to be for civilian purpose has raised several vital political, strategical and economic questions not only in India and the US but has evoked a worldwide viewpoint. Even though several arguments are coming forward from different quarters of all shades, the basic question however, whether do we really need such an agreement, which, as is being said will give boost to the power sector in India, remains ignored in most of the debate. The much-adored view point and media hype that energy needs of our country can be met with only if we resort to the nuclear energy for power generation are largely based on mistaken assumptions. Several issues that need to be addressed are whether this is an economically viable proposition! It is even more important to know about if there are any risks involved to the human population in the process of producing energy through nuclear power? Whether be political and strategical issues involved favour our country and help in strengthening peace & harmony in South Asia, which is of utmost importance to us today? Will this deal lead to a guarantee against the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region? And lastly whether is this the only alternative left? All these issues need to be examined with sobriety.


How safe are these plants?

To say that this is a safe method for power generation is completely negating the truth. Nuclear energy is fraught with dangers at every step right from mining, transportation, storage, utilization and management of the end product. The radiation related diseases in the population around Uranium mines and Nuclear facilities are well known. There is no foolproof method to safeguard the nuclear facilities. India has poor track record in this matter. According to reports an estimated 300 incidents of a serious nature have occurred, causing radiation leaks and physical damage to workers, but these have so far remained official secrets. How ever two big nuclear accidents, one in Three Mile Island in the US and another at Chernobyl in Ukraine should be eye opener. According to the studies conducted by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and German Society for Radiation Protection (IPPNW/GfS), 50,000 to 100,000 liquidators (clean-up workers) died in the years up to 2006. Between 540,000 and 900,000 liquidators have become invalids. 12,000 and 83,000 children born with congenital deformations in the region of Chernobyl. In Belarus alone, over 10,000 people have developed thyroid cancer since the catastrophe. These dangers were once again made clear in a recent report on shutting down of nuclear plant in Japan and study published in July in the European Journal of Cancer Care (2007, 16, 355-363), that there is up to 24% rise in Leukemia in children around nuclear facilities in Canada, France, Germany, Grate Britian, Japan, Spain and the US. Can we afford to ignore the human resource at the cost of power generation? .

Waste management!

Till date there is no such method with which we can dump the end products safely. There have been complaints that workers at the uranium mines and the extraction plant in Jaduguda in the state of Jharkhand, and the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad—which churns out 50,000 tons of contaminated wastes every day—are not adequately protected from radiation intake and external exposure. The threat posed by dumping wastes into a storage pond (known as the "lagoon") is already causing grave environmental concerns. The public sector Uranium Corporation of India Ltd. mines the ore in Jaduguda and transports it to the Nuclear Fuel Complex. After the ore is processed, radioactive waste is discharged, collected, and brought all the way back to Jaduguda, where it is dumped amid tribal villages. Several studies conducted in these areas point to radiation related diseases in the poor adivasi population. It is important to note here that half-life of uranium is 760 million years and that of Plutonium is 24,100 years. This means that after so many years half of the radioactive substance will still remain around us.

The question of Economic Viability and Sustainability:

The nuclear deal between India and US if implemented in true spirit is expected to add to the power generation by 20000 Megawatts in next 20 years. But the estimates based on previous experience show that it may not lead to more than 5000 to 7000 MW generation. In the year 1998 instead of an installed capacity of 2180 MW from the nuclear power plants, we were getting less than 872 actual MW of power. That means less than 40 per cent of their designed capacity. If we go by the predictions made in early 1950s we should have been producing at least 43,500 MW in the 2000 while actually it was only 2720 MW. India has already invested more than Rs.80,000.00 crores on these nuclear power plants. At present, 25 percent of our energy budget goes to the Department of Automic Energy (DAE), which accounts for far less than 3 per cent of total power output.

The cost of building a power plant based on Coal comes out to be around Rs.4.5 crores per MW. Like wise combined cycle gas turbines that run on gas or Naptha cost around Rs.3.00 crores per MW. But the cost involved in building a nuclear reactor for generation of electricity is around Rs.6.30 crores per MW. To this must be added the transportation cost, installation fee, maintenance and service charges etc. which will lead to total cost up to Rs.10.00 crores Per MW i.e double the cost from fossil fuel and triple the cost from gas. To build 20000.00 MW of nuclear capacity in next two decades India will have to spend Rs.10000.00 crores every year for 20 years which means a total of Rs.200,000.00 crores. There is no scientific basis to believe that the cost of nuclear energy in India is or can be cheaper than it is in UK, France, Korea and China. Nor is there any scientific basis to believe that the risks of nuclear technology are less for us than for these countries.

Since we do not have enough Uranium reserves, we will have to import them from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). There cannot be any guarantee that their prices will not escalate in the coming years. But these needs are bound to make us dependent on the NSG. Insurance costs in case of accidents of nuclear reactor are so high that no private company came forward to cover the insurance cost of these facilities in the US. Ultimately government had to pay the insurance cost. It is going to be repeated here in India. This will further add to the cost of power generation.

Strategic and Political Concerns :

Gas supplied from Iran could create a potential much larger than 20000 MWs of electricity India is looking for while we may get only 5000 to 7000 MWs ultimately through the deal with the USA. The gas supply from Iran would have strengthened relationship between India, Iran and Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. Such a strategic partnership is very much needed today to strengthen peace in the region. India has been leader of the developing countries and harbinger of the non-aligned movement, which was a ray of hope for the newly liberated countries. But by our actions in recent few years, latest being siding with the USA against Iran, we have lost credibility among the developing nations. The much-desired support from the USA for full permanent membership of the UN Security Council with right to Veto will never come true. The US will never like to have another such member.


Danger of Nuclear Weaponisation :

Till date the US had put sanctions on India for having carried out nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. Why this sudden change in US’s perceptions? India has not sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) because these two treaties are discriminatory in favour of Nuclear Weapon States (NWS). The US never supported this idea. India has not signed these treaties even today. Does it not appear that US wants to retain India as a country with special status and use us against China! India has not given any undertaking that we will stop nuclear weapon programme. The only undertaking given is that the civilian and military nuclear facilities will be separated and will be subject to IAEA’s inspections. The international situation is not going to remain the same through out. Under any changed circumstances what is the guarantee that these nuclear facilities may not be turned into production of nuclear weapons.

Alternatives :

It is incorrect to say that there are no other alternatives. That the Thermal plants add to green house effect is an acceptable argument but electricity generation accounts for only 9 percent of global Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Transportation's share is much higher. That nuclear plants involve no fossil fuel is untrue. Each step in the "nuclear fuel cycle", from uranium mining to reprocessing, emits GHGs. Nuclear power isn't hugely superior to gas or coal as regards GHG emissions. It's certainly inferior to renewables like wind and solar. India has ample potential for renewable resources of energy, which are hazard free, much cheaper, transparent, do not require any security and are much easy to be installed. For example the total gross potential of wind power in our country is over 45000 Megawatts out of which we are using only 2900 MWs. Solar and biomass energy potentials have not been fully explored even though they are in abundance. Small Hydro power plants have a potential of about 15000 MWs. Similarly biomass power has a potential of 19000 MWs and urban and industrial waste of 1700 MWs. Besides this India receives solar energy equivalent to over 5000 trillion kWh/year, which is far more than the total energy consumption of the country.

Developed Countries Phasing out Nuclear Reactors

The countries, which have installed nuclear power reactors, are phasing them out. Not a single plant was being built, or planned, in the United States. It has been 25 years since an order for a US reactor was placed. In the 1970s and 1980s, utilities not only stopped placing new orders but began canceling existing ones. Similarly according to the Financial Times of December 1995, no new nuclear power-stations are likely to be built in the UK for at least a couple of decades to come. The last reactor built in the UK, called Sizewell B, was completed in 1995 at a cost of some $3000 per kilowatt of capacity, nearly 10 times more than what it costs to build a gas-fired plant. In France, where nuclear energy is the dominant power source, it has taken longer for the true costs to come to light. Until 1992, the amount of direct and indirect government subsidies being fed into the French nuclear industry was not known very clearly. An assessment conducted for the Dutch government found that once the subsidies are included, the cost of nuclear power in France was 30 to 90 per cent more than official claims. In South Korea, which has the world’s largest ongoing nuclear construction programme, completion costs for plants currently under construction are expected to be nearly double that of existing plants. In China, nuclear power is estimated to be four times as costly as producing electricity from coal.
The nuclear industry has been beset by problems since its inception, problems now believed to be endemic to the technology. Costs of dismantling old plants sometimes exceed those incurred in building the same plants. For instance, the Yankee Rowe reactor in western Massachusetts (USA), which cost 186 million dollars to build in 1960, will cost an estimated $306 million to dismantle. Germany has had a similar experience with the 100 megawatt Niederaichbach plant in Bavaria, which cost about DM 230 million ($160 million) to build in 1972, but would need DM 280 million ($195 million) to dismantle.
Are these facts quoted above not enough to think hundred times before venturing the nuclear plants for power generation? Why should we adopt these in the wake of the excessive costs, the hazards involved and the strategic considerations? Every year on 6th August and 9th August we pay homage to the victims of atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where generations are facing the hazardous effects of nuclear radiations in form of genetic mutations leading to malformed newborn babies and other anomalies. By now we have enough information to learn lesson from them. Let us divert our budget to the R & D in renewable energy sources.

References:
1. Buddhi Kota Subbarao - India's Nuclear Prowess, False Claims and Tragic Truths,MANUSHI/Issue 109.
2. Sudha Mahalingam - Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. http://www.thehindu.com/2006/03/16/stories/2006031601611000.htm
3. Professor Dhirendra Sharma, "Hazards of Nuclear Power" Hindustan Times, March 6, 1997.
4. Prful Bidwai – Journalist and Member National Coordination Committee, Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP). Public Hearing on the Proposed Uranium Mine in Lambapur-Peddagattu, Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh, August 19, 2003.
5. M.V.Ramana - Fellow in the Center for Interdisciplinary studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore. Economic TimesMarch 10, 2006Don't switch over to nuclear powerM V RAMANAhttp://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1444956.cmsTIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2006 12:15:04 AM]
6. V. K. Shashikumar - Special to The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor - October 11, 2002.
7. T. S. Gopi Rethinaraj - BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS November/December 1999, Vol. 55, No. 6, pp. 52-57.
8. Arjun Makhijani- (President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and one of the leading technical nuclear experts in the United States) An Interview with Arjun Makhijani Why India Should Choose Iran, Not the US, By AZIZ HANIFFA.
9. S Anand - India’s Worst Radiation Accident(Outlook Magazine July 28, 2003)).

Dr Arun Mitra
General Secretary
Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD)
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