Nuclear Energy and Justification of Deal With USA

Demand and supply for uranium will continue to be affected for some more years though efforts are on to get additional supplies, Chairman Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary Department of Atomic Energy, Anil Kakodkar said.

Currently the nuclear power plants in the country were working at half their capacity nearly of 4,000 MW due to the fuel shortage. India was facing the short supply of uranium due to the slow process in opening up of new uranium mines, he said, adding that Uranium Corporation of India will soon be constructing a mine and a mill at Tummalapalli village in Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh with a capacity of 1,50,000 tonnes per annum.

Likewise, mining and milling was being looked at in the states of Rajasthan Karnataka and Meghalaya.

Nuclear Power Corporation of India is currently working on four 700 mega watts nuclear power plants to augment the capacity and once the fuel linkages are finalized then the construction would begin. It would take about five years to reach the installed capacity. The first prototype fast breeder reactors will start working in 2010-2011. In addition to these, four more fast breeder reactors are being considered to reach a target of 20,000 MWs.

Nearly three years ago, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood on the lawns of the White House with President George W Bush, announcing a civil nuclear deal with the US, there was another country he could have turned to for fuel for India’s N-power plants: India.

India has been sitting on massive, untapped reserves of uranium, hundreds of tonnes of which have been discovered over the past couple of years — adding to the over 1 lakh tonnes already identified in Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years.

India’s atomic energy establishment has done next to nothing to tap deposits identified up to 15 years ago. Mining is yet to begin at several sites explored, identified and handed through the 1990s by the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD), the government’s uranium exploration arm, to the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL).

Some untapped reserves in Meghalaya contain the best-available quality of uranium. And according to Anjan Chaki, chief of Hyderabad-based AMD, many of the new reserves too contain a much better quality of ore than is currently available.

However, despite having no uranium, the government has gone about spending thousands of crores on new N-power plants. The country has been burdened with overcapacity of nuclear power plants with little uranium to run them even though, ironically, we have had it all along.

Out of the 4,000 MW-plus installed capacity of India’s nuclear power plants, almost 2,000 MW capacity is lying idle. That is a waste of at least Rs 16,000 crore of public investment — it takes up to Rs 8 crore to build the capacity of generating one MW of nuclear power. India currently uses about 1,300 tonnes of uranium a year.

However, lack of funds has never been seen as a problem for India’s atomic energy programme, which has a Rs 8,000 crore budget, direct supervision of, and access to, the PM, and the legal power to acquire any area for exploration.

Nuclear power comprises a minuscule three per cent of India's electricity production, which is dominated by coal-based thermal power (72%) and hydro power (25%). The government touts nuclear power as the vehicle for the next stage of Indian economic growth. But on current form, even the modest target of extracting 8% of power from nuclear sources by 2020 seems out of reach.

By comparison, about 17% of power worldwide comes from nuclear sources, including 80% in France, 40% or more in eight other countries, and 20% in the US.

(Source: HT)