Can We Stop The Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant?
By Anitha.S
22 September, 2012
Countercurrents.org
A tale for the future begins. Two young boys living near a town in a tropical, warm region start a miniature model for an energy park in their garden. The times were such that there was much hue and cry about energy crisis. There were many hours of power cut which disrupted a life style so connected to electricity. Being in the green garden is what triggered off this idea in their young minds. Their lives had got connected to the people struggling for justice in the context of the upcoming Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant. In a creative surge, the younger of the two boys made a miniature of the 2 domes of the Nuclear Power Plant and covered it with aluminium paper resembling solar panels. There were some wind mills and an attempt was being made to create a micro-hydel unit too. The slogans of the powerful women leading the struggle “How many ways are there for electricity generation – wind, tidal and solar? Why not try one of them? Why go in for Nuclear Power? We do not want this Nuclear power plant” resounded in the ears as the boys refined their model.
“Why not turn this whole Power Plant into a museum for science and technology with focus on energy? Why insist on Nuclear energy which is not clean or safe?”, asked the young fishermen who had assembled at the tea shop in Idintakarai village one evening.
In the context of the present scenario when the media is being flooded with the news of nuclear fuel loading, most of us would assume that this tale has ended. But the end is not the usual one “They lived happily ever after ”. Can we say this about nuclear power generation? But the finality and inevitability of the statement about fuel loading need to be re-examined. As preparations were getting underway for the first reactor to commence functioning many of us go by the general news that 14,000 crore rupees have been invested which will all go waste if the KKNPP is not commissioned now. But there is a long way to go before the Plant becomes fully operational.
As Anuj Wankhede has written in June 2012 (A Viable Alternative at Koodankulam, www.dianuke.org ) :-
“The KKNPP is not the first instance of nuclear projects stalled because of resentment from the local populace. The US has witnessed this in the famous Shoreham Reactor which ran for ONE DAY before closing down. The William H.Zimmer Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio was converted to fuel combustion when it was 97 % completed. The Midland Cogeneration Facility at Michigan and at Seabrooke , New Hampshire which were abandoned at very advanced stages of 85% completion for many reasons created a breakthrough in the history of nuclear power plant shutdowns.
Philippines , a country similar to India stopped the Bataan Nuclear power Station based on the disaster in Chernobyl and stiff opposition from citizens. Over $ 2 billion had been spent on the project. This was converted to a tourist attraction to recover the cost of $40 million needed to maintain the idled reactor and the complex.
The land acquired to create the sterile or exclusion zone about 3 kms around the park can be converted into a solar farm using concentrated solar cells and generating power. The research needed to establish this will cost less than the investment that is now needed for KKNPP to be fully operational.”
The details of the Shoreham plant where the Long Island Lighting Company and the Federal agencies agreed to the public demands and turned it into a natural gas- fired power station shows that nothing is impossible or too late ( www.dianuke.org , Sept 19,2011, P.K.Sundaram).
The process by which Austria shut down its Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant in 1978 along with 5 others respecting public opinion gained the country a position in the discussion on Energy Policy. This has been made into a museum where nuclear energy and science students can visit and study how a Nuclear Power Plant looks like. It seems ironical that Mumbai-based PM Dimensions has leased it out to train Nuclear Engineering students. 50 students from India visited this place in October 2011. It is ironical that Austrian President and our previous President Smt. Pratibha Patil had a discussion on how to train students from India there.
How will this tale end? Maybe with a ‘They lived happily ever after in which the 2 boys will be the real architects of an Energy Park, when people of Idintakarai and the other villages will go back to their homes and livelihood, where life will resume its usual rhythm and harmony. Or will it be that they will be forgotten as the young boy said - “ To annihilate the poor and not poverty is what development is all about”
As the day passed news about boats blocking the Tuticorin harbour comes in. Along with this is the news about fuel loading underway. What does 10% fuel loading mean? Melrit and Inita ask with trembling voice, “ We hear this news. Is it true? What next?”
Nothing is impossible in this country. If the State Government and the Central Government can stop this death game that is just for their power maintenance this madness can be reversed. When it comes to averting a disaster like having a death tomb at your door step it is never too late.
All of us who believe in peace and justice, true “Jananayakam” ( Democracy) and right to life and health should be at the door step of KKNPP demanding that this be stopped for ever. As the youngsters in Idintakarai said as we walked in under the crescent moon and stars on 19 th night accompanying one of the Fact Finding Team members,
“Give us 8 months. We will return the 14,000 crore rupees that you claim to have spend on the plant. Give us our land and seas. We want nothing more. Just the freedom to live here”.
Anitha.S after being in Idintakarai as the much dreaded news about uranium fuel loading started filtering in.
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