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The Biggest Hurdle In India’s Nuclear Energy Pushm Oil Price.com By Ag Metal Miner – Oct 05, 2019,  Nuclear energy is, for now, playing a minuscule role in India’s energy story, contributing to about 2 percent of the country’s electricity needs.But nuclear power generation in India is a story that is set to grow.

But new nuclear plants have been opposed by the local populace in almost every part of the country where they have been proposed to be set up.

Now, an in-principle approval given by the Indian government to initiate exploratory mining for more uranium across the two southern provinces of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana has locals up in arms.

The location also includes a nature reserve not only rich in flora and fauna, but also with a large tiger population. The technical go-ahead was given a few months back for Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) to begin exploration for uranium, but an earlier protest led to a temporary pause in the process.

Next to the mine there is a processing plant that converts the uranium ore into sodium diuranate for use in nuclear power plants. Over the years, local farmers and environmentalists have alleged that it had led to the contamination of soil and groundwater, in addition to the destruction of water bodies.

A rethink by the government to go ahead with the fresh exploration has once again raised the hackles of environmentalists in India, who argue that whatever the procedure used to extract uranium, the wholesale mining for uranium would produce large amounts of radioactive waste that would pollute a major river nearby (as well as the surrounding areas).

They claim even if the waste is treated before disposal, uranium mining can still lead to the contamination of water and soil, eventually harming the flora and fauna of the region………https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/The-Biggest-Hurdle-In-Indias-Nuclear-Energy-Push.html