Meanwhile, Bush wants to meet India’s N-power need

Neither Shyam Saran nor Chidambaram have to make the broader Indian arguments on gaining access to the global nuclear market. In a series of speeches in the last few weeks, including one yesterday, President Bush has made repeated calls for revamping American energy policy and underlining the importance of nuclear power.

His four-fold plan involves conservation, better use of existing energy sources like nuclear technology, developing new sources of energy like bio-diesel and ethanol, and finally helping India and China to develop energy efficiency and reduce their pressure on international oil supplies.

As sustained high oil prices take their toll on American economy, developing a new national energy policy has been high on President Bush’s domestic political agenda. It is in this context that Bush has reversed the three decades-old American opposition to building new civilian nuclear power reactors in the US.

‘‘To ensure a diverse energy supply, we need to promote safe, clean nuclear power. America hasn’t ordered a nuclear power plant since the 1970s, and it’s time to start building again,’’ says Bush. He has asked the Congress to reduce uncertainty in the nuclear licensing process and provide federal risk insurance.

Equally significant, India and China have become central to Bush’s energy security strategy.

Highly places sources here say when he briefly met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Moscow earlier this month, all President Bush had to talk was about energy and managing the impact of Indian and Chinese energy consumption on global markets.

Bush is telling his own public that without ensuring the energy security of India and China, America will find it impossible to reduce the international prices of oil.

It is this domestic American imperative that provides an entirely new context to the current Indo-US negotiations on civilian nuclear energy cooperation. In the past, Indo-US nuclear dialogue was entirely framed by the question of non-proliferation.

While proliferation concerns have not disappeared, Bush is signalling that they must be addressed in a different framework that is being shaped by the consequences of rapid economic growth and energy demand in India and China.

Assisting India and China to develop alternative sources of energy, including nuclear, has become an integral part of America’s own energy strategy. ‘‘We must help countries like India and China to reduce their demand for crude oil.’’ What better way than encouraging India and China to build more nuclear power plants.

Besides the price of oil, there is another imperative that compels US help India and China to adopt nuclear power generation—the need for a global reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases that come from the consumption of fossil fuels like oil and coal.

Bush says, ‘‘Nuclear power is one of the safest, cleanest sources of power in the world—with no air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions’’. Even the American environmentalist groups, once vehemently opposed to nuclear power, are now reconsidering their attitude to atomic energy.

The diplomatic challenge before India and the US is no longer about making the case for nuclear energy development. That Bush is doing. It is about finding practical ways to resolve the remaining differences on non-proliferation.