Nuclear ambitions

India inked a deal with Russia wherein the latter will help build four new reactors in addition to the two already under construction at Kudankulam in TN. Two of the reactors will be 1,000 MW and two additional units will be 1,200 MW.

When completed, the complex at Kudankulam will be the single largest nuclear power station in India with a combined generation capacity of 6,400 MW. The first 1,000 MW reactor is reportedly nearing completion. Russia has shipped the first fuel loading containing enriched uranium for the unit to India.

The deal is the first major nuclear reactor trade deal with India since the NSG cleared the country to receive nuclear fuel from member countries. French nuclear giant Areva, Canada's AECL, and U.S. firms including Westinghouse and General Electric all have representatives working on similar deals with India.

While India has an installed base of 4 GW, none of its plants are bigger than 500 MW, and are less efficient in design thanks to the nuclear isolation. Fuel shortage has been another problem.

Nuclear fuel costs have risen even more rapidly, as environment expert Lester Brown noted. At the beginning of this decade uranium cost roughly $10 per pound. Today it costs more than $60 per pound. The higher uranium price reflects the need to move to ever deeper mines, which increases the energy needed to extract the ore, and the shift to lower-grade ore.

In the United States in the late 1950s, for example, uranium ore contained roughly 0.28 percent uranium oxide. By the 1990s, it had dropped to 0.09 percent. This means, of course, that the cost of mining larger quantities of ore, and that of getting it from deeper mines, ensures even higher future costs of nuclear fuel.

But above the costs, safety and disposal problems, the immediate ones are that of manufacturing bottlenecks in engineering, construction and management skills. Not here in India, but in the US believed to be the leader in the area! World over a lack of expertise has seen long delays in new plant launches.

How equipped are we in India? And how are we planning the cost economics of nuclear?

When we begin building on a large scale, and relying on external fuel supplies, what does that do to our security?

There are a growing number of people who believe that nuclear has to be part of the clean, renewable energy adoption. Nuclear can provide the base load power, solar can provide the peaking power, and we can begin to retire the fossil fuels, they say. But bringing the two groups together is often a problem. Because, the nuclear people all think the solars are a bunch of hippies and the solars think the nuclears are a bunch of Nazis.!!!

Can the two be made to sit at the same table?