As India twiddles thumbs, US, Russia unveil nuclear deal

The plan aims to provide reliable supply of nuclear fuel to all interested countries as part of a plan to intensify the use of atomic energy around the world.

US and Russia plan to take back the spent fuel from the reactors in other countries and reprocess it to produce plutonium which will be put to further use in advanced nuclear power generation reactors such as fast breeders.

India, which could have played a significant role in this international initiative, must wait until it sorts out its problems in implementing the nuclear pact signed last July with the US.

Until the pact is implemented and the current international rules are modified, India will remain ineligible for any international cooperation, let alone participate in the new joint plan being floated by Russia and US.

The US-Russian plan is partly aimed at addressing the larger questions raised by the current Iranian nuclear crisis that has begun to escalate with Tehran’s decision to stop cooperating with the IAEA in response to the nuclear watchdog’s censure on Saturday in Vienna.

Presidents George W Bush and Vladimir Putin have now recognised that while denying sensitive uranium enrichment technology to the Iran, the world must offer a credible mechanism for greater use of civilian nuclear technology with assured supplies of nuclear fuel.

In the last few weeks, Putin has been pressing for the creation of international nuclear fuel cycle centres that would replace the need for countries like Iran to develop their own uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities.

In a statement on nuclear energy last week, Putin said, “We need to create the prototype of a global infrastructure that will give all interested countries equal access to nuclear energy, while stressing reliable compliance with the requirements of the non-proliferation regime”.

“The creation of a system of international centres providing nuclear fuel cycle services, including enrichment, on a non-discriminatory basis and under the control of the IAEA, could become a key element in developing this new infrastructure”, Putin added.

With Bush coming around to back Putin, India could doubly benefit from the US-Russian nuclear initiative; only if Delhi and Mumbai get their act together.

As a country short of natural uranium resources and without a capacity to commercially produce enriched uranium, India would gain from a mechanism for reliable supply of fuel for its indigenous and imported reactors.

Given its demonstrated capabilities in reprocessing of spent fuel and the research on the use of plutonium for power generation, the Department of Atomic Energy could join Russia and the United States in the proposed global initiative to reprocess spent fuel and develop new generation of nuclear reactor technologies.

While the DAE is trapped into a narrowly conceived notion of self-reliance, China is determined to take advantage of a globalising nuclear industry by scouring the world to import natural uranium. While Beijing is planning to buy up uranium mines in Australia and elsewhere in the world to feed its rapidly advancing nuclear power programme, the DAE has set its sights low by focusing on plutonium reactors.

Instead, if it can quickly implement the nuclear deal with the US, India will be in position to massively expand its nuclear power programme to include both natural uranium reactors and breeder reactors. It could also take the lead internationally in promoting the use of plutonium for nuclear power generation.