The UPA Government has “succeeded” in sabotaging the country’s five-decade-old nuclear power programme in just four years flat. Though the Western powers led by the US has been trying in vain for the last 50 years to undermine India’s nuclear programme, it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who finished off the indigenous nuclear programme charted by Dr Homi Bhabha, the father of the Indian nuclear programme. The prize delivered by the UPA Government to its western masters — not a single MW of nuclear energy added to the country’s kitty during the last nine years.
The indigenous 500 MW Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, which was scheduled for commissioning in 2009, is getting delayed indefinitely for reasons known only to Manmohan Singh. “The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, being built with Russian assistance and for which the agreement was signed in 1988 is yet to bear fruit. We are celebrating the silver jubilee year of the launching the Kudankulam project and are still nowhere near the commissioning of the reactor,” AN Prasad, former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, told The Pioneer.
Prasad, a master in nuclear power engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, said he had warned the Government against signing the deal with the then Soviet Union for importing nuclear reactors. “We had an efficient and systematic nuclear programme charted by Dr Bhabha who took into account the shortage of Uranium, the nuclear fuel. Dr Bhabha wanted India to be self-reliant in the nuclear power programme. He never wanted India to go with a begging bowl to the US or other countries for uranium or technology. See what has happenedIJ The nuclear deal was signed in 2008. President Bush and Manmohan Singh declared about the finalisation of the deal in 2005. Not a single reactor has been imported to India since then. Our indigenous nuclear programme has been put on the back burner since then,” said Prasad. He also pointed out that not a single reactor has been built by India during the last one decade.
“Manmohan Singh says India would generate 43,000 MW nuclear power by 2030. But he has forgotten that 2030 is just 17 years away. We will not be able to touch even the 10,000 MW mark by that time,” said Prasad. For India to generate 43,000 MW by 2030, the country has to set up 43 giant reactors each of 1,000 MW capacity. Right now, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India limited (NPCIl) is struggling to commission the 1,000 MW plant at Kudankulam, 650 km south of Chennai!
What has happened is that the Government has succeeded in convincing in the ordinary people with jingoistic plans, phrases and words. Dr Bhabha drew the three-stage nuclear programme after understanding the strength and weakness of India. He was aware that the country’s uranium resource was scarce. Hence the Bhabha envisaged setting up of pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) which are run with uranium.
“The spent fuel from these reactors are reprocessed to get plutonium. The Plutonium thus accumulated are used as fuel in fast breeder reactors. When we cover the plutonium with blankets of uranium, we will get more plutonium. If we use thorium as blanket instead of uranium, we will get more and more fuel grade uranium (U-233). In the third phase, Uranium -233, stockpiled from previous phase is used as fuel with Thorium as blanket. Since India has the largest Thorium reserve in the world, we would not have been at the mercy of the Western world for fuel,” explained Prasad.
Dr A Gopalakrishnan, former chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the country’s nuclear watchdog, said the signing of the India-US nuclear deal and the move to import nuclear reactors from a broad literally sabotaged the indigenous programme. “I am not against nuclear energy. I am for nuclear reactors. But what we should have done is to depend on the indigenous technology rather than depending on the untested and uncertain technology from west. India made giant progress in the nuclear power programme from 1974 to 2005, when we were denied technology and know-how by the super powers,” said Gopalakrishnan. He described it as the Golden Era of Indian nuclear programme. The country made good progress in nuclear power production even without any help from outside agencies.
The former AERB chief said India are leaders in pressurised heavy water reactor technology. “We could have scaled up our PHWR technology to 1,000 or 1,500 MW. Since we have decided to import light Water Reactors, we will be at the mercy of the suppliers who will make us dance to their tunes,” said Gopalakrishnan.
He said it is not practical to set up giant nulear reactors in this country. “Where are we going to acquire the land fromIJ In a country where there is severe shortage of land and water, it is unthinkable to set up nuclear reactor parks. Nuclear reactors can supplement a fraction of the energy’s requirement. It is impossible to meet a major share of India’s power needs through nuclear energy,” said Gopalakrishnan.
Country’s nuclear scientists working in Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam and BARC Trombay fully agreed with Prasad and Gopalakrishnan. “The indigenous nuclear technology development programme has gone in a state of limbo since 2008. We have been asked to just sit idle,” said a senior nuclear scientist in BARC.
Shankar Sharma, energy consultant, said as on date the nuclear power contributes less than two per cent of the energy needs of India. “It is hardly 2000 MW. If you take into account, the transmission and distribution losses and the inherent operational inefficiency, it will be less than one per cent. We can save 10,000 MW power by changing the incandescent lamps to either CFl or lED technology. It will not cost much. We need not set up a single nuclear reactor for power generation,” said Sharma.
Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission , who presided over the country’s nuclear establishment during the signing of the India -US nuclear deal and who claimed that the country would generate 43,000 MW nuclear power in the next two decades is silent now. Kakodkar, the nuclear engineer, is busy revising railway freight and passenger tariffs as the chairman of a committee appointed by the Union Railway Ministry for services rendered to make the India-US civil nuclear deal a reality. Nuclear energy and engineering do not figure in his scheme of thing now.
As this article is written, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India ltd (NPCIl) , the agency entrusted with the construction, operation and maintenance of India’s nuclear reactors with a total installed capacity of 4780 MW. “But the total output is less than 2000 MW since the plant efficiency is much lower,” said a senior executive of the DAE. To meet the 41, 000 MW target, The department of Atomic Energy may have to toil hard for the next three decades.
Nobody is more right than Prasad who questions the move to import reactors from USA and Europe. :Dr Bhabha perfected the three-stage nuclear strategy because of shortage of uranium. Manmohan Singh is importing reactors because of uranium shortage,” he said.
The former BARC chief pointed out that both Kakodkar and Singh had claimed from roof tops that the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was a win-win situation for India. “What we are seeing right now is a lose-lose situation,” said Prasad.