Peaceful atom

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is resolved to give every Indian access to the miracle of electricity. A laudable aim, but to achieve...

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is resolved to give every Indian access to the miracle of electricity. A laudable aim, but to achieve it, he must wait for the miracle of wisdom in government.

He says that nuclear power has been on the back-burner for too long and that it costs less to generate every additional megawatt of energy from nuclear sources than from fossil fuels. But usually, calculations do not take into account the total cost of ownership of a nuclear plant, which includes scarcely quantifiable but nevertheless real expenses.

Russia could count the total cost of owning Chernobyl only after the meltdown, for instance.

Safety measures, waste disposal and the dismantling of outdated equipment all cost money and the government should budget for these if it intends to invest in nuclear power, instead of going merely by the cost of setting up a plant and generating electricity from it. Nuclear power may exact a social cost less frequently than thermal power but when it decides to collect, itcharges premium rates.

Besides, the government should not push India towards nuclear power at the expense of other forms of energy.

Proponents of nuclear power usually advance the example of France, whose experience is rather similar to what is happening in India today. The French chose the nuclear option under De Gaulle. They opted for a deterrent that was independent of the US-NATO nuclear umbrella, and for nuclear power.

Today, 77 per cent of its energy needs are met by reactors. India under Vajpayee has also chosen independent deterrence and is now opting for nuclear power. But there is a very essential difference between the two countries. France has almost no fossil fuel or hydel resources. India is liberally supplied with coal and has exploitable rivers in almost every part of the country. Even the US, the world leader in nuclear power in terms of megawatts generated, depends on the nuclear option for only 22 per cent of its electricity needs.

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Despite the expense of running green thermal plantsin a nation that is obsessional about air pollution, they generate 56 per cent of US electricity. The hydel option is popular in the western states which have a good fall of water.

The factors responsible for India8217;s stagnation in the power sector despite ample coal, hydel and non-conventional resources are well-known: the politicisation of projects, project delays, transmission losses and the inability of governments, for purely political reasons, to guarantee collections. The induction of nuclear power will not end these problems.

The government might want to take another look at an idea it toyed with in the Eighties, when big dams first became a political issue: run of the river8217; hydel schemes. These would be too small to become political icons. They would cause less discontent because they would not disturb the flow of a river. Besides, they would distribute their benefits down its course.

It is a question of trading off efficiency for usability. The government should have the wisdom to seek outoptions such as these, small ideas that deliver adequate results. Only after exhausting them should they look at highly efficient options that are viewed with suspicion in most parts of the world.