nuclear-news

American companies’plans to market nuclear technology to India have come to nothing

The Hindu 3rd Feb 2018, Watching the Republic Day parade, where 10 ASEAN leaders were chief guests,
it was easy to miss the fact that the dates of their visit also marked the
anniversary of another big visit three years ago: the visit by then U.S.
President Barack Obama, when he announced a “breakthrough” in the
India-U.S. civil nuclear deal, to finally pave the way for a commercial
contract.

“The deal is done,” Sujatha Singh, who was Foreign Secretary
at the time, said as the government issued papers and held briefings
describing the nature of the agreement between India and the U.S. on
supplier liability and tracking requirements, which would enable American
companies to build nuclear power reactors in India.

Today, nearly a decade since the memoranda of understanding were inked, and three years after the
last wrinkles were ironed out, there is no sign yet of any concrete
contract between an American company and the Indian authorities to build a
reactor.

In 2009, both GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse had begun talks
on techno-commercial agreements for six reactors each in India. These
commercial contracts were to be the start of the ‘payoff’ for the U.S.
that had considerably shifted its stand on non-proliferation to give India
the waivers needed, and they were to herald India’s arrival on the global
nuclear power stage in return.

Instead, GE-Hitachi’s plans were shelved after it rejected the Obama-Modi agreement in January 2015, saying GE would
not accept the compromise formula on supplier liability. (While others have
indicated they would accept the liability offer, none of them has put that
on paper.) Toshiba-Westinghouse then carried the baton to actualise the
India-U.S. civil nuclear deal, but ran into a different storm as both
Toshiba and Westinghouse had major financial troubles last year. After a
near-bankruptcy, Toshiba jettisoned Westinghouse for just $4.6 billion to a
Canadian consortium, a deal that is now expected to be cleared by the end
of 2018.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/forging-a-new-nuclear-deal/article22637628.ece

February 5, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, India, politics international, USA