The nuclear limit

There has been some heated discussion in the media about the latest decision of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to ban the supply of Enrichment and Reprocessing (ENR) equipment to India, despite the earlier Indo-US nuclear deal and the 2008 “clean waiver” accorded to India by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Fortunately, the three main suppliers (the US, Russia and France) have issued statements declaring their intent to honour all bilateral agreements. Let’s hope and pray that they honour their words with deeds and that India’s leadership is not led up the garden path yet again.
While India does have some limited indigenous ENR capability, it requires modern ENR facilities to ensure optimum use of the imported uranium. Why is ENR necessary? The answer to this lies in the peculiar process which low-enriched uranium-235 (U-235), (though initially in a critical mass in the reactor fuel core) undergoes during fission in a power reactor, wherein byproducts (called “poisons”) like iodine etc. are formed. These absorb neutrons, thereby making the reactor fuel core “sub critical” and incapable of generating power. The problem is overcome by initially adding “excess reactivity” with more enriched U-235, to ensure a few more years of operation before reactor fuel change. Reactor fuel change is a complex process that requires stringent safety measures, including storage facility for used fuel (in Fukushima two reactors with used fuel stored were also affected by the earthquake and tsunami), before transporting it for reprocessing where plutonium-239 (Pu-239) is removed for use in either fast breeder reactors or for making weapons — this latter use is the worry of IAEA-NSG, as they fear that Indian scientists may reverse-engineer the latest ENR technology to upgrade existing indigenous ENR equipment to enhance their capacity or to build new “indigenous” ENR plants, both of which would not be under IAEA safeguards. Also, some of the used U-235 can be isolated from the “poisons” and enriched for possible reuse, and this would need IAEA monitoring.
However, one cannot deny that India needs some nuclear power, despite Germany’s latest decision, post-Fukushima nuclear disaster, to have zero nuclear power by 2022. But we need to proceed with great caution and the realisation that nuclear power in India can never contribute more than 10 per cent to the national power grid, for reasons of safety, availability of highly specialised operators and economics. Nuclear safety lessons from the American Three Mile Island, the Soviet Chernobyl and the Japanese Fukushima accidents must be kept in mind, as also our inept handling of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
There is no doubt that the March 11 nuclear disaster in earthquake-prone Japan was due to a combination of various factors, including faulty location of the reactors and the standby diesel generators for emergency reactor cooling, the flawed decision to delay use of sea water cooling. Japan’s decision to decommission four of the six Fukushima reactors will not mean the end of nuclear emergency since these reactors, after being entombed in sand, lead and concrete, will require monitoring for a very long time because while some reactor “fission byproducts” like iodine have very short half-lives and decay quickly, others have very long half-lives, for example strontium-90 (29 years) and cesium-137 (30 years). The plutonium found in the soil in Fukushima has a half-life of 24,400 years.
I have always been a strong supporter of “limited” nuclear power (which would meet about 10 per cent of our energy needs), provided the nuclear plants are safely located (away from population centres and seismic zones), built as per the latest, stringent IAEA safety standards, are operated by skilled personnel and audited regularly for safety. In addition, I have always supported a strict Nuclear Liabilities Bill (NLB), an efficient National Disaster Management System (NDMS) with dedicated Nuclear Emergency Response Teams (NERT) and a three-minute automated Tsunami Warning System (TWS), unlike the present 30-minute Indian warning system which is reported to be non-operational due to pilferage of the buoys at sea by fishermen.
Despite the obvious lessons of the latest nuclear disaster in Japan, and the limitations of India’s NLB, NDMS, NERT and TWS, I am amazed that India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has reportedly projected a requirement of 6,55,000 MWe of nuclear power by 2050. This would involve setting up about 655 additional imported reactors of 1000 MWe each, in “nuclear parks” of about six reactors per “park” each. Given mainland India’s 6,000 km coastline, India could have 109 “nuclear parks”, about 55 km apart, dotting its coastline, which would be a recipe for major disasters, given worries of tsunamis, earthquakes, or a terrorist strike. Given India’s total projected power need of 1350,000 MWe by 2050, the DAE-reported proposal to meet 50 per cent of the country’s energy needs by nuclear power, if indeed true, is sheer madness. It makes no sense, it is not safe and it is not affordable.
It’s time for sanity to return. A transparent public audit needs to be done of India’s nuclear safety standards, availability of skilled manpower, suitable non-seismic zone cum unpopulated site locations, as well as NDMS, NERT and TWS. If these audits are done properly, India may discover that it will be able to afford and set up about 40 reactors (of which half would be indigenous) by 2050.
The balance power requirements would require greater exploitation of renewable energy sources like solar, hydro and wind power, along with the traditional “heavyweights” like coal, which Australia is willing to export, unlike U-235. New technologies are available, though at present expensive, to deliver “clean energy” from coal.

The author, a vice-admiral, retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam