At the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, a major point of contention between nations was ‘climate change’. Today, almost all countries are trying to put a cap on their own and others’ carbon emissions. In a scenario where our energy demands are increasing exponentially, going nuclear seems like the only solution. But with its inherent safety hazards and environmental implications, is this really the best way forward?
A quick look at the facts shows that India’s nuclear dream is older than the nation-state itself and has been a part of its ambitions for decades. Today, India has 20 nuclear reactors installed at six plants in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka. Despite this, proposals to set up new plants are meeting with stiff resistance.
WHY NUCLEAR ENERGY
With the rapid climatic changes pointing towards an impending doom, all nations are fighting to reduce carbon emissions. Carbon emission is directly related to our increasing energy demand, which in turn is directly related to growth. So reducing carbon emissions can lead to a slow down in economic growth; perhaps an unending one. If we want to save the planet and continue to progress, we have to shift focus to cleaner and safer forms of energy. And that is where nuclear and other renewable sources of energy come in. In ideal circumstances, renewable sources—solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and biomass—would be the best way forward. But various limitations, the lack of storage technology and the huge amount of land required, do not allow for their complete exploitation. Nuclear, however, has the capability to provide large amounts of energy with very little fuel consumption. Today, almost 16 per cent of the world’s energy demands are being met with nuclear technology, which is clean, green—and if nuclear activists are to be believed—safe. Yet, in India only 2.9 per cent of electricity generated comes from nuclear plants and it continues to be a contentious subject.
A RECIPE FOR DISASTER?
The nuclear accident that happened in Chernobyl, Ukraine in the year 1986 was the biggest in world history, releasing large amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere. The battle to contain this accident involved 500,000 workers and an estimated cost of 18 billion rubles, which crippled the Soviet economy. In the year 2011, following an earthquake and a tsunami in Japan, a series of equipment failures and nuclear meltdown led to the release of radioactive material. In following days so much of it was released in the atmosphere and ground, that the government banned the sale of food grown in the area. In 1988, India signed an agreement with the USSR for the construction of two reactors. The project, however, remained in a state of limbo due to the breaking-up of the Soviet. Moreover, environmentalists started protesting against the plants owing to their potential hazards, and continue to do so even today.
CAUSES FOR CONCERN
»» There is no proper waste disposal technology in place
»» In case of a disaster or leakage, it will lead to earth, air and groundwater contamination and make the land uninhabitable
»» Radiations can cause cancer and can lead to genetic disorders for generations
»» Hot water from the plants released into the sea will disrupt aquatic life In this environment of resistance to the idea, the government is struggling to maintain its nuclear expansion plans. It is undeniable that if steps are not taken today we will run out of power. With so much at stake, we asked the experts for their view on the future of nuclear energy in India.
CHANDRA BHUSHAN// I am not against nuclear energy. All I am saying is that there are issues with nuclear energy which must be addressed. The government has to be very transparent, all information has to be in the public domain and people must be allowed to scrutinise it. The causes of concern are many—such as waste disposal, fear of accidents and leakage, per unit cost of electricity, etc. Whenever they do an environmental assessment of these plants they don’t give us enough information, they only say that these are confidential documents. If there is an anti-nuclear environment in the country, the blame lies squarely with the government. You can’t bulldoze public opinion. You can’t just come and say, “I am going to acquire all your land and set up a nuclear plant there, come what may!” I am sorry to say that the nuclear establishment has been arrogant about this issue in a way. For them, it’s become like “either you are with us or you are against us”. But this cannot work in a democracy. People have different opinions and you have to sit together to resolve conflict. Look at Koodankulam. As of today, they have stopped people from entering the plant, so this issue has shot into the limelight, but it has been simmering since 1988. I can tell you, the main reason behind this issue is the economic well-being of the people, which has not been addressed properly since 1988. We also have to find alternate solutions. For instance, if you think that renewable energy has a future then the government should probably pay attention to it. With all the new technology, renewable energy can be made cheaper, and attention should be focussed on it. It shouldn’t just focus on nuclear energy because it is a prestige issue. The government authorities keep stressing the usage of Thorium (which is available in abundance in India), but the fact is that many countries find it unsafe. Also, we have been talking about Thorium for the past 60 years, but no one has really been able to put it to proper use. What really has been nuclear power’s contribution to India? These plants generate just about 5,000 MW of energy, which is just about three per cent of our total production capacity. Even if they start producing 30,000 MW the contribution of nuclear energy to India’s energy demands will be not more than five per cent. The issue is the energy security of the country, and we need to shift focus from whether we should have nuclear energy or not, to what our strategy should be to ensure energy security. Fifty per cent of the population still survives without electricity more than six decades after independence. Moreover, India needs to learn a lesson from the Fukushima incident in Japan. If a tsunami and earthquake can hit Fukushima, they can also hit the coastal regions of India. We need to take various opinions into conscaresideration, learn from what happened and take necessary precautionary measures. There is a myth about nuclear power plants generating electricity at competitive rates. But the truth is that we don’t know enough. The land is subsidised, the plants are funded by the government and we don’t know what calculations they are using. And if these plants are being set up by the private sector, how competitive will the rates be? If the government was to take the liability of `15,000 or 20,000 crore in case of a nuclear accident then the insurance cost itself will make these plants unviable. None of our plants have insurance right now; the only available insurance is sovereign insurance. The government says it will take care in case of a disaster, but we all know what happened in Bhopal. It has been 30 years now and people are still suffering and the company has not been held accountable. Therefore, I think it is a misplaced notion that nuclear energy will make us energy independent. Why don’t you look at Germany? It took a decision not to use coal or go nuclear, and instead decided to invest only in renewable sources. So why can’t our government look in that direction? I don’t know what numbers it is looking at, but I would put my money on renewable energy every time. We have looked at the Nuclear Liability Bill very closely and there is not much information available. There are also security concerns—and here I am talking about atom bombs. They have to be very clear about segregating arms from energy needs and nuclear has to be seen only through the prism of energy. The past decades have seen rising protests against nuclear, and the situation is different from what it was in the early ’60s. I think it is about information and education and has everything to do with empowerment. It is a very healthy sign for a democracy that people have strong opinions on different issues, and it should be celebrated.
SAURAV JHA// I don’t really tilt towards any particular form of energy; I think we need them all. If we have to move to a world where we can sustain our current living standards and also take into account the energy intensity ethos, we will need a source which will fulfil the demands and yet be clean and green at the same time. There is a certain amount of energy that every society demands. And this demand is met by coal all over the world. To the niche that coal fills, nuclear is our only answer. I have found that awareness about nuclear power is not what it should be. The notion that nuclear is going to be expensive is not accurate. If you look at the cost of electricity generated by NPCIL’s nuclear stations in 2010-2011, the delivering cost has been between `2.13 to `2.65 per unit, and that is not expensive by any yardstick. You will have to understand the nature of nuclear; it is only expensive when you build it. Its overheads and initial capital costs are high, but running costs are not. If you look at Japan, it is generating 40 per cent of its power from nuclear, as is Korea. We talk about China in every other instance, except in the one area in which it is really surging ahead. They are marching forward and have put in place the highest forging capacity which is required to make the main components of Pressurised Water Reactors (PWR). Let me now take you to Koodankulam; it already has two nuclear reactors functioning for the past 30 years. These have been hit by tsunamis also and nobody has died so far of radiations in the region. And with Koodankulam’s new reactor, which is the safest nuclear reactor ever built, with 12 back-ups installed, with safety nets installed so that fish don't get sucked into the intake channel, are we going to destroy the livelihood of people in that region! I understand that people are afraid of cancer, but establishing a direct relationship between nuclear and cancer is is just scaremongering. There certainly is a link between cancer and radiation, but there has to be a major leak from a nuclear plant for that to happen. I know that our energy situation is going to lead us to high inflation. People ask why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that nuclear energy will decrease our oil consumption. The answer is very simple—a 1,000 MW thermal plant requires 2.3 to 2.6 million tonne of coal per annum which is transported by rail, which is essentially running on diesel. But a 1,000 MW nuclear plant requires 73-100 tonne of Uranium, which is transported by trucks so there is hardly any comparison. If even 10-12 per cent of our generation was through nuclear energy, we would reduce oil consumption by the same amount each year. The biggest problem with nuclear reactors is how to get rid of the residual heat. In case of an emergency, when you shut down a reactor you shut down the chain reaction. But the already fissile material keeps undergoing radiological decomposition and emitting heat in the form of radiation. That heat, if not brought to a kind of thermal equilibrium, will lead to a meltdown. But in the case of PWR you don’t reach that point and the emergency core cooling reactors are much easier to design for these reactors. In nuclear, all the cost of safety has to be built in with the landing cost of power; with other technologies you don’t do that. 650,000 people in China die premature deaths because of emissions from coal. How much is coal paying for that? Wind causes a lot of upper air circulation problems, a lot of birds die because of that. Is that calculated anywhere? Naturally not, because with wind you are already paying `5 per unit and it is an attractive technology! But India knows that it cannot run all its plants based on wind. Wind is a very intermittent source and if you need to deal with the situation today, you need nuclear. Solar PV requires eight acres per MW of land, so where will you find thousands of acres to build a power station which will then not even generate that much power? The problem here is also of transparency— the government just doesn’t do enough to educate people. Being in the energy sector I can tell you there’s a lot of hogwash around how we run a grid, etc. Whenever you install renewable energy plants, they need back-up power. Take the example of wind. It will flow whenever it wants to, so how can I supply continuous power with it? When you say that the wind plant has the install capacity of 3,000 MW, the assumption is that there is 3,000 MW capacity of base load power coming in, which certainly isn’t the case. Nuclear is actually a friend of solar and wind. It will provide back-up to wind and solar without emitting anything. And tell me, where have you achieved storage? One of the biggest challenges ever since Faraday demonstrated electromagnetism is that we do not have big capacitors which can store power for a reasonably long time. If we achieve that, then great! We will generate electricity when the wind is blowing, store it and use it later. If we had efficient batteries then we could shift to renewable completely. As far as consumption of water and disruption of aquatic life is concerned, the essential water supply system of a nuclear plant is the same as that of thermal. Even if the heat generated here is higher due to the superheated steam, the difference is not that much. In fact, this factor has already been considered by the Environmental Impact Assessment team. Let me give you the example of Kaiga, Karnataka. It has a reservoir made from the Kali river, 23km inland and it has been found that the slightly heated water is better for breeding a certain kind of fish. So the NPCIL lets the fish grow to a certain level and then releases it into the Kali river for fishermen to catch. If you talk about disasters, there was no loss of life due to exposure to radiation even in Fukushima. The only worrisome factor is the clean-up cost. And this will not cripple your economy; it will in fact boost it as it will make you invest in better infrastructure. You know what will cripple your economy? All the carbon restrictions that you have been made to take on. You talk about the costs you pay in Fukushima what about the cost you pay everyday due to coal? Finally, coming to the burial of nuclear waste; it is a contentious issue everywhere. India has been working on this and the DAE is working on coming out with waste disposal sites. But radioactive burial is not the ultimate solution. You must recycle your residual uranium. In fact, one reprocessing reduces the physical volume by 97 per cent. The main problem is with the actinide group, a highly radioactive and unstable group of elements. A lot of work is going on in the field of bio-remediation of these actinides. Certain microns have been found which can digest these actinides. That could be a big story coming out in the next couple of years. But till all this happens you have to recycle and reduce the sheer volume of waste.