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U.S.A.’s business interests pushing for India’s Nuclear Liability Bill

The US government has its interest in the Bill as most nuclear firms because of a cap in the US have little business and they see an enormous opportunity at low cost in India.

No good civilian bargain, Central Chronicle – Madhya Pradesh’s News Portal Shivaji Sarka, April 28, 2010A  scrap yard has exposed the country’s inability to handle a nuclear radiation hazard. The Mayapuri incident in the country’s capital, Delhi involving a cobalt-60 exposes the inadequacy of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Body and raises doubts about the efficacy of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill (CLND), put off for the present.

The movement of cobalt-60 used for industrial and medical purposes is supposed to be monitored by the AERB. Its failure has led to severe exposure to about seven persons and various doses of exposure to about 50 others, including policemen. Nobody has been compensated as the world nuclear industry has not taken much of a safeguard against cobalt-60 for its supposed short half-life of 5.27 years. The industry says simply waiting for 10 to 20 years allows for sufficient decay. It has often found its way to dumpyards. The industry has merely called such strayed away cobalt-60 as “orphans” and is not known to have made efforts to stop its recurrence. Indeed, cobalt-60 is a low-radiation hazard. But it has exposed that the country is not prepared for nuclear disaster of any magnitude…..

The Three-Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania in the US, Chernobyl in the Ukraine and Tokaimura near Tokyo, Japan are considered the worst disasters and the compensation in all these cases has been measly. The US government itself has spent over several billion dollars as clean-up cost for the Three Mile Island. The cost of the disaster at Chernobyl has yet to be estimated. Japan has started a rethink on nuclear power.
The nuclear industry has been continuously trying to paint these accidents as minor. What it does not say is that all these accidents happened due to the combination of equipment failure, faulty designs and human error…..

The main reasons for opposition of the CLND are that it limits the liability of the operator to Rs 500 crore and that for all the damage to 300 million SDR (Rs 2,100-2,300 crore). Worse, the public will have to bear substantial costs of the damage and it exonerates suppliers of equipment from liability charges.
American interests are seeking to avoid open market competition by their companies. ………

The US government has its interest in the Bill as most nuclear firms because of a cap in the US have little business and they see an enormous opportunity at low cost in India.
The Obama government is pressurizing New Delhi to enact the bill to help its firms. The proposed CNLD is seemingly an exercise to provide State subsidy to foreign nuclear reactor builders from the onus of the financial consequences of nuclear disasters, accidents and incidents by shifting the onus for accident liability from the foreign builders to the Indian State and its citizens……

No way is nuclear energy a good civilian bargain. The country should not be tempted by the US promise of selling nuclear know-how. Indian scientists have developed it despite a US sanction in 1974. Also, the Obama government and private companies would try to persuade Australia to sell us uranium — the raw material needed for a nuclear power. Central Chronicle – Madhya Pradesh’s News Portal

April 29, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, spinbuster | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radiation, reactors, uranium