Indo-US
Nuclear Deal-
Some Unexplored Angles
By Buddhi Kota Subbarao
09 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The media build-up in favour
of civilian nuclear technology 'transfer' and 'trade' between US and
India is so systematic and clever, as to make the public in India see
only benefits from it. When all aspects are considered there are more
damages in store for India than benefits from it.
India does not fall in the
category of countries where nuclear power is a must to meet the growing
energy needs. India is blessed with many rivers and has enormous hydro
potential which is so far not exploited beyond thirty percent. It is
the faulty Indian planning that makes the nuclear power look as a necessary
component in meeting energy needs in India.
All the spin in the media
is aimed at making the Indo-US nuclear deal look like a golden opportunity
to boost energy security of India without affecting the national security
needs of the country. If the deal were to come in place really, and
if the future nuclear power plants in India are based on the fuel supply
from abroad, it is not only the Indian foreign policy that becomes vulnerable
to interference, but even the energy security in the country can become
precarious. When USA chose to ignore its agreement with India on Tarapur
Atomic Power Plant and declined in the seventies to supply nuclear fuel
to Tarapur, the Indian nuclear establishment having made tall claims
that Tarapur will run on indigenously developed MOX fuel (Mixed Plutonium
Oxide and Uranium Oxide), begged France to supply the fuel. France supplied
fuel for ten years commencing in eighties. Thereafter India begged China
and fuel was obtained for a few years from China. Now it is nuclear
fuel from Russia that helps to keep the Tarapur plant going. It is nothing
but being naïve to believe that there will be smooth flow of nuclear
fuel from abroad to look after India's energy needs. Nuclear technology
trade was, is and will be a trade with strings attached and unpredictable.
Dr. Anil Kakodkar Chairman
of Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) & Secretary Department
of Atomic Energy (DAE) publicly admitted in an interview to a national
daily (Indian Express, Mumbai, Wednesday February 8, 2006), that Indian
uranium resources can not support the projected nuclear power pursuit
in the first stage of 3-stage plan side by side the strategic needs
of India. It shows, the DAE has undertaken to build six more PHWRs (Pressurized
Heavy Water Reactors) now under construction, 2 x 540 MWe at Tarapur
(Maharashtra), 2 x 220 MWe at Rawatbhata (Rajasthan), 2 x 222 MWe at
Kaiga (Karnataka) knowing fully well that the country is being pushed
into dependency of nuclear fuel from abroad. The step to built 500 MWe
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) at Kalpakam (Tamil Nadu) should
have been timed after India is comfortable with the amount of plutonium
needed for its minimum nuclear deterrence. The uranium resources of
India will fall short if all the three components namely, the energy,
the minimum deterrence and the nuclear submarine needs are considered.
Having brought about a crisis with its reckless planning and mismanagement,
the DAE worked hard to make Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh to take
stands with President Bush and before Indian Parliament, to hide the
mismanagement in DAE. The biggest losers are Indians. How does it matter
to President Bush or for that matter to any other head of a foreign
state, if Indian Prime Minister is ready to go along his country's nuclear
establishment which is reckless in its planning and clever in hiding
its mismanagement?.
In USA, business interests
dictate foreign policy in almost all fields including the civilian nuclear
technology. In India, foreign policy assiduously builds the image of
Indian nuclear establishment. The latest proof of this fact is the ongoing
debate before and after Indo-US joint agreement of July 18, 2005 between
President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington,
and the separation agreement on March 2, 2006 in New Delhi to separate
civilian and military nuclear pursuits in India.
The truth is, USA wants
to make money by selling the disposable enriched uranium and weapon
grade plutonium derived from the dismantling of some of their nuclear
weapons, as nuclear fuel for power plants. Such is the case with Russia
also. While supplying oil, the seller can at the most dictate its price
and nothing more. But while supplying the nuclear fuel, the seller not
only dictates its price but also can demand many more commitments from
the buyers.
Cost benefit analysis in
Indian context does not show justification for building more nuclear
power plants. They are expensive to run and build, and the decommissioning
is also an expensive business. The present generation has no right to
pile up for the future generations, the financial burden arising from
decommissioning and the multiple dangers from the unsolved problem of
nuclear waste disposal.
It is false to say, nuclear
power is clean and cheap. Nuclear reactors frequently release radioactive
waste into the environment in the form of dust, mist, fumes, vapors/gases,
and liquid waste (water). Krypton-89 with a half-life of 3.2 minutes
decays into strontium-89, which has a 52-day half-life. Xenon-137, which
has a 3.9-minute half-life, decays into cesium-137, which has a 30-year
half-life. Xenon-135, which has a half-life of 9.17 hours decays into
cesium-135 with a half-life of 3 million years. These radioactive elements
when released into the environment, would ultimately enter into the
food chain and cause drastic health problems due to the long lasting
radioactivity which poses danger to all life forms on earth. One of
the main effects on the environment that the heavy water reactors at
Rawatbhata (Rajasthan), Madras (Tamil Nadu), Narora (UP), Kakrapara
(Gujarat) and Kaiga (Karnataka) and Research Reactors CIRUS and DHRUVA
at Bhabha Atomic Research Center(BARC), Trombay, Mumbai, have is that
they release vast amounts of tritium (a radioactive isotope of hydrogen
with a 12.3 year half life). Low doses of tritium have caused sterility,
microcephaly, stunting.
Indian context
A proper account of India's
natural resources and an honest cost-benefit analysis would show that
for meeting the growing energy needs and to improve quality of life
and health of its people, India should not commit any more of its money
to nuclear power, but exploit fully its hydro potential and explore
the uses of alternate sources of energy such as solar, wind, tidal wave
and geothermal, while taking strict measures and improvements on energy
losses . If India places its emphasis on hydro power and alternate sources
of energy, the climate change argument to favour nuclear power becomes
irrelevant so far as India is concerned. Nuclear power while it gives
electricity, is sure to leave behind radiation dangers which would last
for thousands of years.
India is blessed with a large
number of rivers and as such has enormous hydro potential which is exploited
not even thirty percent. Hydropower is clean and cheap, which gives
not only electricity, but also irrigation, drinking water, navigation,
fishery and such other additional benefits. There are many rural areas
in India where even after 58 years of India's independence, women have
had to walk 10 kilometers with pots on their heads to fetch drinking
water. Health of people improves if there is clean drinking water. Periodically
India experiences flood and draught simultaneously with most of the
rain water joining the sea. Indian planners failed so far, to appreciate
fully the multiple benefits from hydro-power.
On the eve of the 59th Independence
Day, President Dr.Abdul J. Kalam in his speech to the nation on 14 th
August 2005 focused on the highly technical theme of energy security
and independence. Dr.Kalam pointed out that India has 17 per cent of
the world's population and only 0.8 per cent of the world's known oil
and natural gas resources. But surprisingly Dr.Kalam failed to mention
the hydro-potential India has. However Dr. Kalam took pains to urge
that there would have to be a ten-fold increase in nuclear power generation
in order to achieve a reasonable degree of energy self-sufficiency.
In the recent times Kalam's speeches show him to be the spoke's person
of the Department of Atomic Energy. In 1998 on the Pokhran-II nuclear
tests, as Head of Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO),
Dr.Kalam knowing fully well the hydrogen bomb test failed, did not find
it necessary to inform the nation correctly. Dr.Kalam is an Honourable
Man. It is unfortunate, even while having a scientist as President,
there is no help to the nation to know the gap between the promise and
performance in the scientific establishments especially in DAE and the
wrong priorities of country's planners. DAE keeps the health of Tarapur
Atomic Power Plant (TAPP) as secret. But it is known TAPP is one of
the worst polluted atomic power plants in the world and its vintage
designs have been long ago decommissioned in other parts of the world.
Responsible To Whom?
To break with nearly three
decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy and to chart a course for the
United States to pursue full-scale civil nuclear cooperation with India,
US President Mr. George W. Bush in his Joint Statement with Prime Minister,
Dr. Man Mohan Singh in Washington DC on July 18, 2005, put forth his
appreciation that India is a "responsible state" with advanced
nuclear technology. Whatever may be the meaning of the word 'responsible'
gathered by President Bush, the people of India living in the largest
democracy with longest written Constitution, are in no position to say
that the Government of India and its Department of Atomic Energy(DAE)
conduct themselves in a 'responsible' way towards the people of India
in the matters of nuclear safety. Now the concern for safety has become
more acute when DAE Chairman Dr.Kakodkar has cleverly projected that
India specific safeguards alone will come in place. It means Indian
nuclear establishment will continue to ignore the international practices
in matters of nuclear safety. The then Chairman of Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board (AERB) Dr.A.Gopalakrishnan in the year 1996 termed the nuclear
regulation in India 'a farce'. DAE refuses to disclose to the public
the details of the accidents even in the civilian nuclear technology
field. Here are a few relevant facts:
· On March 31, 1993
there was a serious accident at Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS) in
Uttar Pradesh. India was close to repeating Chernobyl, in a nuclear
disaster that could have changed the very face of the subcontinent.
Two enquiry reports were obtained one by the Committee setup by the
Atomic Energy Regulatory (AERB) and the other by the Nuclear Power Corporation
of India Limited (NPCIL). Neither of them has been made public. In a
similar fire accident on March 22, 1975, at the Brown's Ferry Nuclear
Plant near Decatur, Alabama, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission published
a detailed report on February 1976, marked it NUREG-0050, and made it
available to the public at $5 from the National Technical Information
Service, Springfield, Virginia.
· To investigate the
collapse of the containment dome of Unit-I of the Kaiga Atomic Power
Plant under construction in Karnataka in 1994, with about 130 tonnes
of concrete falling from a height of nearly 30 meters during construction,
two investigating teams were commissioned, one by the AERB and the other
by NPCIL. However, the findings of both Committees have been kept secret.
· In 1992, it came
to light that an illegal practice was admittedly going on at BARC for
over 20 years. Senior BARC scientists were making money by using research
reactor Apsara to irradiate natural diamonds, thereby making them dark
in colour, as well as radioactive. These diamonds were then released
into the market, both domestic and foreign, passing them off as rare
black diamonds which are more costly. According to the London-based
Diamond Trading Corporation (DTC), these diamonds had a dangerously
high level of radioactivity. The DTC warned the government of India
through a letter in mid-1992 not to allow its nuclear facilities to
be used to irradiate diamonds. It is difficult to know how many people
all over the world are wearing jewellery studded with the irradiated
black diamonds, and have unknowingly become victims of cancer and leukaemia.
This criminal act was not allowed to come under police or CBI investigation.
In June 2005, the social organization named "Citizens For A Just
Society", founded by noted Gandhian and Freedom Fighter Dr.Usha
Mehta, has submitted a Memorandum to Dr. M. Elbaradei, Director General,
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) urging IAEA to cause the Government
of India to investigate into the illegal irradiation of diamonds at
BARC and to take necessary punitive action against concerned scientists
of BARC and DAE. Simultaneously the social organization also submitted
formal letters to President Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister
Dr.Manmohan Singh to bring offenders of law to justice. But all of it,
is of to no avail so far.
· Fraud was committed
on Bombay High Court in January 1997 by the DAE. Through a Memorandum,
purportedly made under the purported instructions of the then Prime
Minister Shri.Deve Gouda, submitted to the High Court in January 1997
as well as with an undertaking given in the open Court, the High Court
was made to believe that the high power committee constituted as per
the Memorandum with Dr.Raja Ramanna as chairman of the committee and
Dr.Abul Kalam, Mr.Anil Kakodkar and others as members, would submit
a report in four months on the matter of reorganization of AERB (Atomic
Energy Regulatory Board) and on the 90 nuclear safety violations in
our nuclear power plants, out of the total 130 nuclear safety violations
in all our nuclear establishments compiled by the then chairman of AERB
Dr.A.Gopalakrishnan in 1996. Believing thus, the High Court did not
admit the public interest petition filed by People's Union For Civil
Liberties(PUCL), but the Court was kind enough to keep the doors open
if an occasion demands and also recorded that information on the safety
violations can not be denied to the public for all times. It is not
made public if the said Committee submitted its report in four months
(January to April 1997) as promised to the High Court. The information
is, the Committee never met, let alone rendering its report in four
months. Big names in the field are thrown at the High Court to deflect
the imminent judicial examination into the mismanagement and criminal
acts of DAE.
Indo-US civilian nuclear
collaboration may ultimately lead to promoting US business interests
and the inevitable media spin would make it much more difficult for
the people of India to guard themselves against nuclear safety violations.
There is nothing the President of US can do to help on this point. The
people of India have to help themselves against nuclear radiation dangers.
Indian specific safeguards should not mean denying the people of India
the international practices in matters of nuclear safety.
The writer is former Indian
Navy Captain with Ph.D in nuclear technology from IIT Bombay.
Email: [email protected]