The author is an anti-nuclear lobbyist. So, you know what you are going to get in this book, says Kumar Chellappan
THE POWER OF PROMISE
Author: MV Ramana
Publisher: Penguin, Rs 499
The year 2008 saw three persons getting killed in a major blast in the Moozhiyar powerhouse of the Sabarigiri Power Project in Kerala. More than 15 people were seriously injured in the blast. Three persons including two women engineers were killed in a 2011 blast occurred at Moolamattom Power Station in Kerala’s Idukki district. The blasts did not make it to the national media. Had the accident occurred in a nuclear power plant or near its vicinity, hell would have broken loose. The anti-nuclear lobby, which is very powerful, has a section of the media eating from its hands. Then, there’s another fact: Every year more than 80,000 people die across the world because of the pollution caused by coal-powered thermal power plants. Yet, there is no active anti-coal brigade in India to protest against setting up of new coal-powered plants. In fact, there were demands from anti-nuclear activists to convert the 1000 MW nuclear power plant, which was being built up at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu (since went critical), to a coal-powered thermal power plant!
The anti-nuclear lobbyists have come out with a new strategy to attack the Indian nuclear establishment. The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India, authored by MV Ramana, is part of this strategy. Ramana is a physicist who is associated with Nuclear Futures laboratory and Programme on Science and Global Security (Princeton University). The Princeton University itself has declared that the Nuclear Futures laboratory (NFl) works on policy questions related to nuclear energy and nuclear-weapon proliferation. This means that Ramana is an anti-nuclear lobbyist who is against any kind of nuclear research by India.
The question is whether Ramana does the same research as was done by the likes of Homi J Bhabha, Raja Ramanna, or PK Iyengar. They were physicists studying the intricate science behind the behaviour of matter. Though Ramana argues that Bhabha got the grant from Sir Dorabji Tata Trust to pursue his research because of his relation to the Tata family, there will not be many takers for that allegation. International Scientific papers wax eloquence on the three-stage or three-phase nuclear programme conceived and developed by Bhabha. It is true that Indian nuclear establishment could not meet the target of 10,000 MW which they had set for 2000 AD. The spoiler was the 1974 Pokhran nuclear test ordered by Indira Gandhi purely for electoral and political purposes. India was declared an international pariah by the US and its acolytes. The US never liked India’s graduation into the big league whether it be in the fields of nuclear science or space technology. Isn’t it an open secret that the country’s plan to develop indigenous cryogenic engine was derailed by the USIJ Because of international embargo in the name of use of dual technology, Indian researchers had to start from the scratch to develop its own reactors. This went unnoticed while the likes of Ramana cried from rooftops about the failure of the country’s nuclear programme! Incidentally, the International Atomic Energy Agency rates Indian nuclear reactors as safest.
In a country like India, which is plagued by shortage of land and water, nuclear energy is not a speedier option. land acquisition and water needed for cooling nuclear reactors are major headaches for the authorities. Since grid parity for solar energy is round the corner, India should focus more on that area. But we should have a serious nuclear energy programme because of its multi-pronged applications. The Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) designed and built by India could supplement the country’s energy requirements to some extent. But the argument by the proponents of the India-US deal that we would be able to generate 40,000 MW energy by 2020 is way off the mark. We will not be able to meet that figure even in 2045! That’s the only point on which one can agree with Ramana.
The author has tried to sell his arguments in style. He has people like Ramachandra Guha, Amitav Ghosh, Anand Patwardhan, etc, to vouch about the readability of the book. Without their “certificates”, it would have been a tough job for Ramana to sell his work. Most of Ramana’s references are reports picked from newspaper reports and leftist publications. Most of his referees are journalists and columnists with no background in science. Here it also needs to be mentioned that when many anti-nuclear energy stories appeared in newspapers, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked Raja Ramanna, the then chairman of DAE, about the veracity of such reports. “Prime Minister, I do not read newspapers and hence do not know what they write. So, I am not reacting to such arguments. I have a job to do here,” Ramanna is believed to have told her.
To sum up, one will not lose much even if one does not read Ramana’s book. At Rs 699, the price too is high.