Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 23 April 2010

Nuclear Energy

NO GOOD CIVILIAN BARGAIN

By Shivaji Sarkar

A scrap yard has exposed the country’s inability to handle a nuclear radiation hazard. The Mayapuri incident in the country’s capital, Delhi involving a cobal-60 exposes the inadequacy of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Body and raises doubts about the efficacy of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill (CLND), put off for the present.

The movement of cobalt-60 used for industrial and medical purposes is supposed to be monitored by the AERB. Its failure has led to severe exposure to about seven persons and various doses of exposure to about 50 others, including policemen. Nobody has been compensated as the world nuclear industry has not taken much of a safeguard against cobalt-60 for its supposed short half-life of 5.27 years. The industry says simply waiting for 10 to 20 years allows for sufficient decay. It has often found its way to dump yards. The industry has merely called such strayed away cobalt-60 as “orphans” and is not known to have made efforts to stop its recurrence.   

Indeed, cobalt-60 is a low-radiation hazard. But it has exposed that the country is not prepared for nuclear disaster of any magnitude. Presently, the nuclear facilities are operated by the government-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL). While accidents have taken place the NPCIL has managed them extremely well. This could not be expected of the private industry, which could compromise on safety and organisational aspects.

The Three-Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania in the US, Chernobyl in the Ukraine and Tokaimura near Tokyo, Japan are considered the worst disasters and the compensation in all these cases has been measly. The US government itself has spent over several billion dollars as clean-up cost for the Three Mile Island. The cost of the disaster at Chernobyl has yet to be estimated. Japan has started a rethink on nuclear power.

The nuclear industry has been continuously trying to paint these accidents as minor. What it does not say is that all these accidents happened due to the combination of equipment failure, faulty designs and human error. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has severely criticized the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, for concealing information of a severe radioactive leak in 2007. This is the reality that India would have to face with its lax preparedness of its official machineries.

The main reasons for opposition of the CLND are that it limits the liability of the operator to Rs 500 crore and that for all the damage to 300 million SDR (Rs 2,100-2,300 crore). Worse, the public will have to bear substantial costs of the damage and it exonerates suppliers of equipment from liability charges.

American interests are seeking to avoid open market competition by their companies. The US assumes liability for any nuclear catastrophic damages from an accident only above the $10.5 billion figure that is inflation-adjusted every five years and thus variable. This is itself quite low and through its machinations it denies India even the relief which it provides to its own companies. The US government has its interest in the Bill as most nuclear firms because of a cap in the US have little business and they see an enormous opportunity at low cost in India.

The Obama government is pressurizing New Delhi to enact the bill to help its firms. The proposed CNLD is seemingly an exercise to provide State subsidy to foreign nuclear reactor builders from the onus of the financial consequences of nuclear disasters, accidents and incidents by shifting the onus for accident liability from the foreign builders to the Indian State and its citizens.

The international non-government organization, Greenpeace, has said that India should not enact the proposed bill as it was discriminatory and would let foreign suppliers go scot-free. Recall, the way a US company has got away scot free by just paying peanuts to thousands of gas leakage victims of the Union Carbide accident in Bhopal. Even after 27 years they are battling for the compensation amount and suffering from diseases caused by the disaster. This should have formed the basis for drafting the new law.

Undoubtedly, the country needs power. “For every percentage of GDP growth, you need power to grow 1.5 times, which has not been the case in India so far,” says Amol Kotwal, a deputy director at consultancy Frost & Sullivan. And, nuclear power is often touted as the “safest and cheapest” energy source. It is neither. Apart from its high cost for setting up a plant, an area of about six km around the plant is virtually sanitized. This is not included in the cost. Radioactive waste disposal is a high cost, hi-tech affair that has to be managed for hundreds of years, in reality for over 5000 years. This is also not factored in the cost and would increase the cost of a plant manifold.

A country that is battling against land takeovers by Vedant and Posco groups in Orissa, Tata in Singur, chemical factories in Nandigram and host of other special economic zones has to ponder where it would get several square km tracts to raise nuclear plants.

No way is nuclear energy a good civilian bargain. The country should not be tempted by the US promise of selling nuclear know-how. Indian scientists have developed it despite a US sanction in 1974. Also, the Obama government and private companies would try to persuade Australia to sell us uranium --- the raw material needed for a nuclear power. But if the decision is to use the least of nuclear energy, such assurances have little value.

Even if we want to go for nuclear energy, the bill as drafted does not take care of the basic safety and security of the citizens. It must be revisited in the light of the international nuclear accidents the world over, many of which do not even come to the world’s knowledge. .

The bill also raises a question on the rights of Parliament. In the US, without the approval of the Congress, the President cannot take a decision. Here the Union cabinet has powers that do not require parliamentary sanction, particularly in matters of treaties and dealings with foreign governments. This calls for a review and Parliament’s power redefined. How could the Cabinet, a creation of Parliament, have more and unrestricted powers? ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)