Nuclear Deal

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DARK DAYS AHEAD
COMMON MAN’S GUIDE TO THE
INDO-AMERICAN NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
M.P.Parameswaran
1. THE CONTEXT
This book is born out of a unique situation in the wake of a nationwide debate on the Indo-US 123
Agreement. The Agreement has been proposed at an initiative from the Prime Minister’s Office and not either
from the Energy Ministry or from the Department of Atomic Energy. The left parties, particularly the CPI(M),
which have been giving support to the minority congress government felt that this agreement is against the
interest of the country and its people. They took a firm stand on the issue and warned the Congress that they
will withdraw support to the government if it goes forward with the agreement. The government slowed down
a bit, but never back tracked. They consider it a ‘life and death’ issue. It does not seem to be a prestige issue
alone. There is something more than that. Anybody with a little of common sense can see that a few months or
even a year’s delay in such an agreement is not going to impact upon our nuclear programme. It becomes very
difficult to understand why the Prime Minister and the Congress get so much worked up on this issue. The
crucial issues that have been projected during the course of the debate are:
1 India is facing an energy crisis.
2 There is only one way to solve it: expand the ongoing nuclear energy programme
3 We require help from other nations, especially the USA, to obtain uranium, equipments and technology
for this expansion.
4 India has not signed the NPT, it has conducted nuclear weapon tests; USA had promulgated “sanc
tions” against providing a host of equipment and materials; the Nuclear Supply Group nations
follow these sanctions. Unless these sanctions are removed or losened India will not get nuclear fuel or
equipment from other countries.
5 If this is to happen we have to sign a special treaty with the USA, on terms dictated by them. USA
enters this treaty in accordance with section 123 of its Atomic Law and hence it is known as the
123 Agreement.
6 This 123 Agreement is related only to nuclear energy production, it won’t affect military activities;
India’s right to make or test nuclear weapons will remain. The Left need not have any anxiety towards
this.
7 There is, also, no room for the fear that this will impact on our foreign policy.
8 On the other hand this agreement will facilitate increased cooperation in non nuclear areas; it will at
tract increased Foreign Direct Investment, help accelerate economic growth and thus eradicate pov
erty.
If we don’t sign this agreement it will lead India to a severe economic crisis; unemployment and
poverty will increase.
10 The Hyde Act passed by the US Senate to enable it to sign such an agreement with India is not
applicable to India, but only to US. We need not be unduly worried about the provisions in that law.
Essentially these are the arguments that have been put forward by the Government and its spokesmen.
However many leading experts in nuclear energy disagreed on most of the arguments put forward by the
government. Government too had many ‘experts’ to argue its case. Of course they did not ‘argue’ but only
‘repeat’ the official line. The left parties, especially the CPI (M) and the CPI disagreed with the government.
They raised the following issues:
1 The very idea of such an agreement originated under questionable circumstances. Neither the Integrated
Energy Policy of the Planning Commission nor the two departments connected with energy
indicated the necessity of such an agreement. It came out from the PMO more like a political initiative
than as a techno-economical proposal.
2 The energy and power deficit in the short run of a few years can be better met with by other sources,
like coal, than by nuclear energy.
3 The Hyde Act may not impact upon the internal policies of our country. But it restricts directly the
actions of the US government and through that the very operation of the agreement.
4 The Hyde Act directs US Government to ensure that the internal and external policies of India do not
go against US interests. This has got very wide implications. It will make India a satellite nation, a
dependent nation.
5 India can refuse. US too is at liberty to go back on the agreement. But by then we would have had
already committed our energy programme to nuclear source. Stoppage of that source will put Indian
economy into doldrums. After having committed the country to nuclear energy, in future it will not be
able to afford to break the contract. It will be forced to dance to the tunes of US interests.
6 So, this is not an agreement on technology, neither one on economy. It is out and out a political
agreement.
This, in substance, is the crux of the opposition from the left. They also argued that nuclear energy is
costlier and that there are better options. Further, they suspected that the present interest in import of nuclear
power stations might be also, to help the big US Corporations like Westing House,General Electric, Bechtel
etc. All these are true. But there is more to it.
1 Is there a real energy crisis in the country now? Five to eight percent deficit is not a crisis, especially
when there is a possibility of reducing losses by more than 10 to12%.
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2 How much energy we want in the coming decades? What for? What is our development perspective?
3 Is nuclear energy the best option? Technology wise? Costwise? Abundance? Are there not better
options?
4 What about problems of accidents and of nuclear waste disposal? Why USA stopped its nuclear
power programme in 1978 and never restarted it?
5 Do we want to stock pile nuclear weapons? Is the nuclear deterrent theory valid? What about terror
ism - both individual and state? How long we can turn our face from political solutions to the problems
we have with our neighbouring nations?
It may be possible to allay the fears of left parties with some changes in the clauses of the agreement.
The Government, apparently, is not ready even for this. However there is much more to this. The government
may sign even a worse agreement with anybody, with impunity. We often take pride in being the largest
(greatest?) democracy in the world. But if democracy is a government By the people, our’s is scarcely one.
It is a government by the bureaucrats and the cabinet. People don’t have any right other than to cast their
votes. There is not, even, any provision for recall of elected representatives. But rights are not enough. People
should have the ability to govern themselves. Knowledge is an essential element in this ability, as much as the
will to learn and to act. India has a sizeabale educated middle class, nearly a couple of hundred million
people. To take an informed and well considered stand in any issue they should have sufficiently deep knowledge
on the issues that are being debated. Nuclear energy is not a well understood subject. The ‘experts’
speak in several languages. The ‘educated’ are not knowledgeable enough to make sense out of mutually
contradictory statements coming out of experts. This book is an attempt to put the various issues connected
with nuclear energy in ‘non’-experts’ language so that they could be understood by any educated person -
whether in science or in humanities.
The present government is bent upon importing nuclear power stations, departing from the policy of self
reliance followed for the past fifty years. Two reactors of 1000 MW each imported from Russia are being
erected at Koodamkulam, Tamil Nadu. Two more such reactors will be imported. Further, they want to
import another 10,000 MW of Pressurized Water Reactors, from the USA. For all these reactors we have to
import enriched uranium from USA which has a large stock of fuel to be sold off for the coming 40 years.
This dependency will force us to collaborate with USA in all its acts of terrorism (imperialistic invasions) as it
did in Afghanistan and Iraq recently, in Korea, Vietnam and scores of other countries in earlier times.
If we are to go on our own in the nuclear field the maximum we can achieve by 2015 is only 10,000
MW. We don’t have enough uranium for more. We can purchase any quantity we want, provided we have
resources to buy and they are willing to sell. But are we paying a fair price or too bloated a price, apart from
the political price? Import of 10,000 MW of nuclear power stations will cost anywhere between Rs.90,000-1,20,000 crores. With the same amount we can import 20,000-30,000 MW of wind power, we can import
an equal capacity of solar stations or we can build 30,000 MW of our own coal based thermal stations.
BHEL and NTPC are capable of executing such a task.
It is strange to see that the nuclear proponents are raising the bogy of global warming against coal based
thermal stations. An additional 10,000 MW of coal stations in lieu of import of 10,000 MW of Nuclear
Power Station will add to the atmosphere only 88 M Te of carbon dioxide per year as against the current rate
of 35,000 MTe of carbon dioxide per year.
The nuclear prospects globally for the coming three decades show that the share of nuclear energy in the
total will not increase, but only decrease. It has source limitation, as against the common belief of unlimited
availability. Currently world over the installed nuclear capacity is about 370,000 MW, of which 99,000 is in
USA. This comes to about 9-10% of the total installed capacity. The energy production comes to about 15-
16%. Japan and a few European nations like France, Belgium, Germany etc, however continue to build
nuclear stations. This is, in spite of the fact that the issue of final disposal of high activity nuclear wastes remains
unsolved for the past 50 years, in spite of the fact that nuclear costs are considerably higher, in spite of the
fact that the final decommissioning of a nuclear power station is as or even more costly than the initial construction
cost. Why did they decide on the nuclear option? Why did projects like Plowshare aimed at
peaceful uses of nuclear explosion were shelved? Why the nuclear club nations, particularly US, is keen on
continuing nuclear tests and building more nuclear weapons when there is already a stockpile enough to
destroy the entire planet several times over? Will the people of the world would become more safe with more
nuclear bombs? Will bomb bring in peace? Further, are there not cleaner, cheaper, more abundant and renewable
sources for energy like wind, solar radiation etc? Why governments spend very little on research and
development in these fields? Why government of India doggedly refuse to spend on solar research?
There are many more questions. What are the major and minor nuclear accidents that have taken place
so far? How serious they were? What is the probability of Chernobyl type accidents happening again? What
precautions are to be taken? What are the considerations for siting nuclear power stations? What safety and
evacuation provisions are to be made?
These are all somewhat technical questions, but not beyond the capacity of ordinary people to understand.
They are to be told in a simple language and honestly and, of course, they have to put in effort to learn.
As mentioned, the objective of this book is to help ordinary citizens understand the basic elements of nuclear
power so that they can make informed decisions.
Besides techno economic issues there are social and philosophical issues too, as mentioned earlier.
How much energy we require and what for? What is the relationship between energy consumption and
quality of life? Which are the elements in the quality of life which depend on energy consumption and which don’t . Will all goods and services produced with the expenditure of energy- such goods like weapons of
mass destruction, narcotics, biological weapons - enhance quality of life? Are not the resources on this earth
limited? Can we use limited resources at an exponentially increasing rate? Are growth and development
synonyms? Can capitalism conceive development without growth? We will address some of these questions
in due course.
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