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Financial Express (India)
April 14, 2005
With crude prices showing no signs of abatement, will nuclear power
gain ground?
NEITHER SAFE NOR CHEAP
Praful Bidwai
The global nuclear industry has seized on the current
unprecedentedly high petroleum prices to plead for expanding
electricity generation based on atomic fission. Its case has been
apparently boosted by political support from the Bush administration
and the International Energy Agency forecast of a 60% rise in global
energy demand over the next 25 years. The fact that nuclear power
plants do not directly generate greenhouse gases also impresses many
environmentally conscious people who are concerned about global
warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Despite this, the case
against nuclear power remains as convincing as ever.
Consider the major disadvantages of nuclear power, including its
potential for catastrophic accidents, and generation of high-level
wastes which remain active for millennia, not to mention routine
emissions of radioactive toxins, and high costs. Nuclear power's
potential for large-consequence accidents, such as Three Mile Island
and Chernobyl, is simply undeniable. All existing reactor designs-and
there are 440 reactors across the globe-are capable of undergoing a
Chernobyl-style core meltdown. Equally important, spent-fuel pools at
power plants are vulnerable to pilferage and diversion of material to
military uses. All reactors are tempting targets for military and
terrorist attacks, with horrifying consequences.
The waste problem has proved intractable. Not only is it hard to find
or make materials that resist the corrosive effect of high-level
wastes for centuries. It is impossible, say geologists, to guarantee
the safety and integrity of remote storage sites for an indefinite
period. Eventually, waste will leach out. This unique hazard is
wholly unacceptable. Radiation biologists are agreed that all
exposure to radioactivity, regardless of the dose, is harmful, as are
routine emissions of radionuclides from various stages of the "fuel
cycle", from uranium mining to fission and fuel reprocessing.
Occupational workers and the public living near nuclear installations
are all liable to be affected. For instance, a five-fold increase in
cancer incidence is reported among uranium miners. Indian nuclear
plants have exposed hundreds to radioactive doses well above
"permissible" limits (themselves open to question).
The economic costs of nuclear power are higher than those of
electricity produced by fossil fuels-even without accounting for the
expense of decommissioning plants after the end of their useful life,
or of storing wastes. Decommissioning costs are of the same order of
magnitude as construction costs! This makes nuclear power even more
expensive than coal-based thermal power-even with an environmental
tax. The case for nuclear power might have sounded less unreasonable
if renewable energy weren't a serious option.
However, at least three renewables are viable and attractive,
especially in India. Indian wind generation has come of age, with a
3,000 MW capacity-already higher than nuclear power, without any of
the gargantuan subsidies it receives. Wind potential is 70,000
MW-plus. India's uranium reserves cannot even sustain 5,000 MW.
Ultra-hazardous fast-breeders are no solution. The "thorium cycle" is
industrially unproved. Solar-thermal and photovoltaic costs have
dropped to a point where their combination can compete with grid
electricity in remote areas and in the millions of village homes that
remain unelectrified. Nanotechnology is dramatically lowering PV
prices to highly competitive levels. Small and micro-hydroelectricity
plants can contribute 80,000 MW without the punishing costs of large
dams. Combined with biofuel cultivation and combustion, renewables
can create energy-self- sufficient villages, revive the agrarian
economy and transform India in ways inconceivable with centralised
nuclear power generation.
Nuclear power becomes even more unattractive when its indirect
greenhouse gas contribution is considered. As an obsolete capital-
and -materials-intensive technology, it consumes a huge amount of
fossil fuels at each stage. Indian uranium ore is of low quality
(0.1%). It costs a lot to transport and mill it. So does fuel,
fabrication, fission and reprocessing-not to speak of waste storage
and decommissioning. By contrast, decentralised technologies,
amenable to community control, have fewer disadvantages and many
merits. It would be suicidal for India to go down the nuclear path.
The writer is a columnist and environmentalist
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