Civil Nuclear Liability Bill

atleast_a_bronze

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Cabinet approves Civil Nuclear Liability Bill
November 20, 2009 01:05 IST

In a significant message to the business lobby in Washington, the Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its nod to the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.

The move will encourage the nuclear power plant manufacturing companies, which have been eyeing the Rs 60,000-crore plus market in India [ Images ], for the next 5-10 years. According to sources, the government will fix the civil liability at approximately Rs 2,400 crore for the manufacturers.

However, the civil society in India will strongly protest the Bill if the liability clause is not stringent enough.

The bill is expected to be tabled in Parliament's Winter Session by the Ministry of Atomic Energy.

All over the world, commercial nuclear power reactors have given rise to concerns about the possible damage that can be caused by a severe nuclear accident. The Chernobyl disaster, the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and incidents like the Bhopal gas tragedy have raised the issue of liability.

While the manufacturers argue that the liability can't be impractically high, anti-nuclear power activists are more concerned about the criminal liability in the Bill.

According to social activist and lawyer Gopal Krishna, "If the Cabinet has fixed the liability at approximately Rs 2,400 crore, it is too meager an amount and cannot be accepted by the people of India. Our prime concern is criminal liability."

Once the Bill is passed by the Parliament, India will be in position to join the international convention on nuclear power.

However, the process will take its own time because the Bill is likely to go to a parliamentary standing committee for a detailed scrutiny.

Companies like General Electric, Areva, Westinghouse, and Rosatom Corp have been lobbying in New Delhi [ Images ] since many years.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India is the nodal agency that has been talking to foreign manufacturers of power plants. Reliance [ Get Quote ], Tata Power [ Get Quote ] and GMR have also shown interest in undertaking joint ventures with the NPCIL.
Cabinet approves Civil Nuclear Liability Bill: Rediff.com India News

2400 crores for damage. thats 500 million. Looks like real peanuts. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy cost us around 3 billion dollars. What sort of economics is Mr.Singh trying to do here?
 

Mad Indian

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I read the link. But does it anywhere say it includes the insurance premium that these firms might be paying?
The link posted by @Free Karma actually mentioned it. Did you go through this?

India cracks N-liability barrier with Russia
Under the agreement, India's public sector General Insurance Company has evaluated each component of the Russian reactors and has prescribed an insurance premium it will charge to cover any compensation Russia has to pay for an accident.

These premiums — for 20 years, the lifetime of the reactors — have then been added to the original cost of the reactors to arrive at the price tag that India will pay. The original cost of the reactors was about $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) each — and the delays and the insurance cover have led to the increase in price.
Ok. Lets think about it again. If the risk was so low(probability), why would the liability be so big? 1) The life time cost of losing around 500 sq km.(+ the people) in a nuclear accident might be too big or 2) The probability of accident is not too low.

Come on. This is an unfair question. If you want to consider the negative impact of the nuclear plants, you have to do a "comparison" with the available choices. Thats why I have been asking the nuclear nay sayers here to give me a link which shows that the damage caused by nuclear reactors is costlier than that caused by the coal powered ones. What is the health care cost/social associated with the deaths caused by the coal plants(which would arguably be more than that caused by the nuclear meltdown)? So do we have any environmental liability clause/health insurance clause for coal plants? So why nuclear plants?

And the risk of nuclear damage is not "unquatifiable". We have enough evidences from over 60 years of using nuclear energy to arrive at an average chance for it to happen and the cost it will bring. Now, is the ratio of health care/adverse effects from Nuclear plants in France compared with that caused by the coal plants in France higher than the Health care/adverse costs associated with using coal plants to nuclear plants in a country like Germany? I am basing this on the premise that France generates 75% of its electricity from nuclear plant and some 15% from coal, while in Germany 50% of its energy is from coal and 20 % is from Nuclear energy

IMO, saying no to nuclear energy based on its accident chance is like saying no to modern transportations citing the same. UNlike western countries, we cannot afford to be hippies use solar energy which costs 1.5-3 times as much as the fossil fuels

As far as I know the jholachaps don't decide the risk premium. It is the market players who access the risk. I am all ears to nuclear energy but the discussion on liability is not horse shit. If the liability kicks up the price, then I would not subsidize it.
Read the above link and tell me, do you think that the liability clause is necessary?
 
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Hari Sud

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Without getting around the Nuclear Liability act of 2009, there is no chance of France, US/Japan and other countries will ever supply nuclear reactors to India. It was a huge stupidity to enact this law, but since it is there, it has to be used to both protect the people as well as cajole the suppliers that insurance will cover any losses other than what international standards demand.

Without electricity, there will be no progress. Coal already in short supply, also in twenty years will kill all lakes and streams with acid rain and raise the earths temperature that the ice caps will melt. We will be worst off.
 

Sakal Gharelu Ustad

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Re: Narendra Modi - the people's politician

The link posted by @Free Karma actually mentioned it. Did you go through this?

India cracks N-liability barrier with Russia




Come on. This is an unfair question. If you want to consider the negative impact of the nuclear plants, you have to do a "comparison" with the available choices. Thats why I have been asking the nuclear nay sayers here to give me a link which shows that the damage caused by nuclear reactors is costlier than that caused by the coal powered ones. What is the health care cost/social associated with the deaths caused by the coal plants(which would arguably be more than that caused by the nuclear meltdown)? So do we have any environmental liability clause/health insurance clause for coal plants? So why nuclear plants?

And the risk of nuclear damage is not "unquatifiable". We have enough evidences from over 60 years of using nuclear energy to arrive at an average chance for it to happen and the cost it will bring. Now, is the ratio of health care/adverse effects from Nuclear plants in France compared with that caused by the coal plants in France higher than the Health care/adverse costs associated with using coal plants to nuclear plants in a country like Germany? I am basing this on the premise that France generates 75% of its electricity from nuclear plant and some 15% from coal, while in Germany 50% of its energy is from coal and 20 % is from Nuclear energy

IMO, saying no to nuclear energy based on its accident chance is like saying no to modern transportations citing the same. UNlike western countries, we cannot afford to be hippies use solar energy which costs 1.5-3 times as much as the fossil fuels



Read the above link and tell me, do you think that the liability clause is necessary?
I did not ask question. I pointed out that either the cost of nuclear meltdown is too high or probability of accident is high enough or both or none. I just used the liability cost to back out the risk premium of nuclear accident. In the end, it all boils down to numbers. So, I think the right point of debate would be to find out the liability cost or whether it is too high rather than discuss whether it is needed or not.
 
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