The Civil Nuclear Energy Deal, The Non Proliferation Review Conferences, access to Uranium fuel from Nuclear Supplier Groups, heated debate about Nuclear Liability Bill in the context of Bhopal tragedy and aggressive protests against proposed Nuclear Energy Parks across the country have brought the diverse aspects of the nuclear issue weaved together in seamless web. The strategic angle is unavoidable whenever there is talk about civilian use, criteria of commercial viability and scaling up is inevitable whenever there is scholarly comment on executive responsibility towards development initiatives from the perspectives of Integrated Energy Policy of Planning Commission and dimensions of electoral politics are so crucial to ignore when there are larger questions about the implementation of these projects and its implications on sustainability of human lives.
Renewed interest in Nuclear
After end of the cold war, on one side where strategic thinkers are analysing the decreasing probability of nation states using nuclear weapons against each other, on the other side emerging opinion in think tanks across the world is converging around one common anticipation about terrorists, non-state actors, and sub-national forces acquiring small plutonium bombs to wreck havoc. The ongoing debate about nuclear disarmament through NPT Review Conferences revolves around these affirmations and fears. Compelled by calculations of energy use and geopolitics of fossil and renewable energy markets magnified by climate change debates, every sovereign country is trying to explore the nuclear option in the age of nuclear renaissance where some people are projecting it as a next green, perhaps most preferable green energy for long term solutions of mankind`s development priorities. Nearly 60 countries have approached International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to seek permission to start nuclear energy development in their countries. Looking at the composition of those countries it is significant to note that many of those are outside the ‘umbrella’ provided by P-5 countries and nearly 25 of them are not self sufficient to start the nuclear energy program. (http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2010/nuclnewcomers.html)
‘Enriched’ Proliferation Concerns
Even though there legitimate wishes of the countries to develop technologies for peaceful use of nuclear energy, ‘international community driven by NPT mandate’ fears it will lead to loosening of the grips of NPT regime. Because it will lead towards more sophisticated and clandestine parallel programmes which may lead towards development weapon grade Uranium, though quality of Uranium required for this purpose should be enriched upto the level of 85%. and more. This may inspire presently NPT member stated to opt out of the treaty. Especially example of North Korea is still fresh and very much alarming. So foresight experts are confirming the most probable ever increasing intensity of threat. Thus, renewed efforts of ‘universalization of safeguards’ in the context of initiatives driven by IAEA supported by NPT establishment and Nuclear Energy Agency(OECD) increasingly being countered by the slogan ‘total nuclear disarmament’ especially by the countries like India who are often accused of double speak when there is question of commitment towards safeguards.
Negotiating NPT
Experts and strategic decision makers agree that accusation against India`s double speak was magnified when Indo-US Civil Nuclear Energy deal acknowledged the separation plan of strategic and civil nuclear energy plants. NPT`s consistent stress on Indian diplomacy to enter NPT as a nuclear non weapon state is actually negating the gains India has made over last few decades envisaged in the three stage nuclear power programme and commitment towards nuclear non-proliferation. DAE is firm on the belief that when negotiations about India-US Civil Nuclear Deal were in progress, there was no confusion in the minds of people representing India that this deal is going to give India status of Nuclear Weapons State. Going ahead they assert that “We maintain that when looked in the context of binary world in the eyes of NPT as NWS and NNWS, we are standing in between. We assert, we are not Non Nuclear Weapon State.” So, for India negating something is actually the effort to leverage gap between strategic asset of being NWS and liability of NNWS for greater future and to use that gap to create space for further strategic negotiations on the forum of NPT and other international forum. So, observers are not surprised on the failure of the NPT review conferences. They say, the success of non-proliferation initiatives largely depend upon the bilateral agreements like START and other negotiations outside the ambit of the NPT. So, lessons to be learned are that multilateralism is not always helpful framework to move towards the hopeful scenarios.
Asian Surge
Interestingly, the centre of nuclear knowledge and technology is shifting towards Asia. In East and South Asia there are 112 nuclear power reactors in operation, 37 under construction and firm plans to build a further 84 (at April 2010). Today out of total proposed nuclear power plants one third are from China. Mainland China has 11 nuclear power reactors in commercial operation, 20 under construction, and more about to start construction soon. Looking at the extent of fallout of Civil Nuclear Agreement and positive prospects of fuel supply from Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada, India is in the position of importing reactors and accelerating nuclear power production. India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power program and expects to have 20,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2020 and 63,000 MWe by 2032. It aims to supply 25% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050. Japan`s 54 reactors provide some 30% of the country's electricity and this is expected to increase to at least 40% by 2017. In South Korea there are 20 reactors under operation out of which six are under construction and 6 are planned. In this context of increasing initiatives of nuclear energy development are going to be hampered by growing fuel supply concerns, treaties related to Fissile Material, complex problems related to reprocessing spent fuel, deposition of spent fuel in deep underground storage facilities.
Issues of Nuclear Energy Development
India`s Nuclear Energy Development programme is going between two pronged approach, self-reliance and import. Given that Indian long term strategic programme, often criticised for it`s ambitious targets and inflated budgets, India has to ensure sustainable Uranium fuel supply for it`s second stage fast breeder reactors. This sequential three-stage program is based on a closed fuel cycle, where the spent fuel of one stage is reprocessed to produce fuel for the next stage. The closed fuel cycle thus multiplies manifold the energy potential of the fuel and greatly reduces the quantity of waste generated.
Advanced Technology Development
Considering the sequential nature of the indigenous nuclear power program, and the lead time involved at each stage, it is expected that appreciable time will be taken for direct thorium utilization. Therefore, innovative design of reactors for direct use of thorium is also in progress in parallel to three stage program. In this context, the frontier technologies being developed include the Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) and Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The ADS essentially is a sub-critical system using high-energy particles for fission. One of the significant advantages of this system is small quantity of waste production. The AHWR is another innovative concept, which will act as a bridge between the first and third stage essentially to advance thorium utilization without undergoing second stage of the three stage program. It uses light water as coolant and heavy water as moderator. It is fuelled by a mixture of Plutonium239 and Thorium232, with a sizeable amount of power coming from Thorium232.
According to claims of NPCIL, “The country has developed comprehensive capabilities in all aspects of nuclear power from siting, design, construction, operation of nuclear power plants. Comprehensive multidimensional R&D facilities have been set up. Capabilities have also been developed in front and back ends of the fuel cycle, from mining, fuel fabrication, storage of spent fuel, reprocessing and waste management. Infrastructure for other inputs heavy water, zirconium components, control and instrumentation etc. has been established.” Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has adapted its AHWR design, which features only passive safety features, to run on LEU-thorium MOX fuel. As a result of its fuel mix and fuel breeding properties, the 300MWe plant requires 42% less mined uranium per unit of energy produced than a modern high burnup PWR. (http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2056393)
Introduction of Thorium Reactors
It is in this context DAE proclaims from time to time that introduction of Thorium based technology and commercial development of the Thorium based reactors are two different things. DAE is confident of having established Thorium technology on a smaller prototype operational scale. Though DAE has not secured patent for this technology (nuclear research and technology is patentable in India) establishment is confident of successfully launching Thorium based reactor by facing scaling up issues. They are also confident of securing international leadership in this particular area of thorium reactor design and reactor development. DAE has been claiming that they have calculated strategic timeframe to introduce commercial Thorium reactors for Nuclear Energy Development. Considering the total energy requirements according to the estimates surrounding year 2031-32 when power generation, capacity must increase to nearly 8,00,000 MW from the current capacity of around 1,60,000 MW. According to Integrated Energy Policy, “The substantial Thorium reserves can be used but that requires that the fertile Thorium be converted to fissile material. The three stage programme consists of setting up of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) in the first stage, Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) in the second stage and reactors based on the Uranium 233-Thorium 232 cycle in the third stage.
It is also envisaged that in the first stage of the programme, capacity addition will be supplemented by electricity generation through Light Water Reactors (LWRs), initially through imports of technology but with the long-term objective of indigenisation. PHWR technology was selected for the first stage as these reactors are efficient users of natural Uranium for yielding the plutonium fuel required for the second stage FBR programme.
The FBRs will be fuelled by plutonium and will also recycle spent Uranium from the PHWR to breed more plutonium fuel for electricity generation. Integrated Energy policy views FBR technology as critical to develop stage two of India’s nuclear power programme. “Without developing the wide-scale use of FBR technology, India will find it difficult to go beyond 10,000 MWe nuclear capacity based on known indigenous Uranium resources. Use of FBR technology would enable indigenous Uranium resources to support a 20,000 MWe nuclear power programme by the year 2020. Such a FBR programme is critical to developing the Thorium-based third stage of India’s nuclear power programme.” Problem of spent fuel depositories in still open for debate. Merely hiding it under deep depositories will not answer the questions of radioactivity. Still, DAE feels it as a question of combined sustainability of environment, energy and most importantly security.
Role of Media
Authorities in DAE and strategic establishment feel that lack of awareness on part of media persons and peoples representatives definitely creates the nuisance value in terms of strengthening the hands of NGOs which often highjack the debateable issues. One of the experts in strategic studies commented that there is enough material made available by DAE on its websites but journalists are not doing their homework rightly by accessing those documents. Apart from DAE, Parliamentary debates, reports of the Standing Committee meetings, documents of the other autonomous institutions like CAG throw significant light on the operations of the DAE. It seems that despite the validity in the oxymoron claim that DAE is actually communicating secrecy through the media, media is often lacking in studying the gravity of the issues properly considering the necessity to understand technical architecture and mechanism of nuclear energy.
There is massive ignorance about the linkage of nuclear energy issues and other societal aspects governing our lives. So, there is need of mobilising people from across the scholarly and professional disciplines committed to interact, study and propose concrete programme to remove this tag of privileged secrecy to move forward for creating an ambience of conversation. In the context of Nuclear Liability Bill, nuclear power initiatives are being criticised. Former secretary of DAE believes that Bhopal and Chernobyl happened around same time. The number of prompt fatal and sustaining deaths due to deadly infection due to hazardous elements is more in Bhopal, still there is more outcry about Chernobyl compared to Bhopal. Ironically the kind of architecture and design of Chernobyl is not being used in today`s reactor development process. It is learnt that DAE had organised a orientation programme for Parliamentarians and only two MPs turned up. Looking at this kind of callous attention towards this issue, it is not surprising that level of debate and understanding about the nuclear issue is appalling amongst the Indian lawmakers.
So, there is need to organise more and more orientations programs for regional media also. It is very important to address the concerns of the local population and educate the regional media persons from where the ground developments emerge. It is matter of investigation when was the last time, DAE has organised a tour for the journalists to create an awareness about the technical, scientific, legal issues of nuclear energy. It is better to debate after being informed rather than aimlessly beating the bush before knowing or engaging into effort to learn anything at all.
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