India’s clash between democracy and nuclear power

The government is not able to comprehend the scale of challenge it’s facing at the moment..

Is Democracy Thwarting India’s Nuclear Power Ambitions?, WSJ, By Megha Bahree, SEPTEMBER 26, 2011, India’s democratic process is changing the country’s nuclear energy program at startling speed.

First it was protests at the proposed nuclear power plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra. Now it’s protests at the plant under construction at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, and at practically every site across the country that has been designated for a new power plant. And at most places, people’s concerns about the risks of nuclear power are clashing with the government’s plans to power the country with nuclear energy…..

At present India operates 20 nuclear plants that generate 4780 megawatts of electricity, a miniscule 3% or so of the country’s entire output. It has another four under construction, including the plant at Kudankulam whose fate is now unknown, which, if they come on line, will produce an additional 5300 MW.

The protests in places like Kudankulam and Jaitapur are more livelihood driven (along with a sprinkling of the environmental and anti-nuclear lobbies, of course.) Land and water are precious commodities in India and the locals are worried about a loss of both, as well as a loss of the farming life on both land and sea. In West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, the state’s chief minister, has refused to allow a plant at the proposed site of Haripur…..

The government is not able to comprehend the scale of challenge it’s facing at the moment.”.

M.V. Ramana, an associate scholar at Princeton University who focuses on the future of nuclear energy in the context of climate change and nuclear disarmament says the protests are justified. “The people who are in the areas near the plants are certainly at risk of accident,” he says. “What is the probability of accident, no can determine. The nuclear establishment will say chances of an accident are zero but that’s not really true, they don’t really know. The question is not whether these communities are going to be affected by an accident but they are at risk of it.”

The plants at Haripur and Kudankulam were Russian investments…..

This, he adds, is a different picture from the one drawn a few years ago when the impression was that India would import a lot of plants. “But democratic politics is pushing out the Kudankulam plant.”

For decades India’s department of nuclear energy has been promising a dramatic increase of nuclear power, but has consistently fallen drastically short of those ambitions. In 1970 it predicted that the country would have 43,000 MW by the year 2000. In the mid 1980s that estimate was revised to 10,000 MW.

After the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was signed in 2008 there were a rash of discussions – sites were identified; there would be imports from the U.S., France and Russia; deals were struck with Nigeria and Mongolia to import raw fuel. But once again things haven’t moved along quite at that speed.

Right now one big roadblock is the civilian liability bill that was passed by the Indian Parliament. It puts the majority of the onus of any disaster on the companies, an idea that is anathema to the Western companies who say the bill in its present form makes all investments unviable. But there really isn’t much room for negotiation on this bill, seeing this was the only version that was acceptable to all political parties and it was the only version that could be passed in Parliament….

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/09/26/is-democracy-thwarting-india%E2%80%99s-nuclear-power-ambitions/?mod=google_news_blog

September 27, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, politics

No comments yet.

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope