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Looking beyond the nuclear deal
Looking beyond the nuclear deal
India needs to quickly hand over to the IAEA a separation plan of its nuclear facilities and enact enabling legislation if it is to deal with private nuclear suppliers and achieve a real leap in nuclear power generation, says G. PARTHASARATHY.
No international issue in India’s post-Independence history evoked as much domestic and international controversy as the Indo-US Nuclear Deal concluded on July 18, 2005 between the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the then US President, Mr George Bush. Paradoxically, the heated debates generated in Parliament worked to India’s advantage, as New Delhi was able to secure assurances from Washington on such issues as guarantees of uninterrupted fuel supplies and reprocessing of spent fuel, which would have otherwise not been forthcoming.
Most analysts agree that while the Opposition BJP made valid points and expressed genuine concerns on the impact of the agreement on India’s strategic nuclear programme and its ability to conduct nuclear weapons tests in future, the arguments put forward by the Communist parties, alleging that the agreement would undermine the pursuit of an “independent” foreign policy, then and even now, remain specious.
The opposition of the Left parties, which led to their withdrawal of support for the UPA Government, strengthened the perception that their actions only complemented the opposition being mounted internationally by China, against the termination of international nuclear sanctions on India.
The UPA Government, in turn, failed to cogently explain to people in India that what was being undertaken through the Indo-US Nuclear Deal was an effort supported strongly by the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, and the then French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, to end global nuclear sanctions on India. Even today, few people realise that with global demand for oil set to outstrip supplies, oil prices in the long term are likely to rise significantly and become increasingly unaffordable.
Non-traditional options
Moreover, with rising concerns about global warming and environmental pollution, India has to look for non-traditional and non-hydrocarbon options to meet its energy needs.
With India unable to import uranium ore because of global nuclear sanctions, existing nuclear power plants with a capacity of 4,100 MW are generating barely 1,500-1,600 MW.
Following the nuclear deal, imports of uranium from sources ranging from France and Russia to Kazakhstan and Australia are now possible. There are now indications that nuclear power generation can reach 20,000 MW by 2020.
Moreover, Indian industry has now reached a stage of sophistication that would enable us to minimise costs by extensive indigenisation, even for power plants built with foreign collaboration.
Energy security for the country can be enhanced significantly only by stepping up indigenous energy production. This process will be accelerated if we tap the country’s virtually unlimited reserves of thorium. But, utilising thorium reserves in significant quantities is a complex and time-consuming process that could span two decades.
This process would involve, first running nuclear reactors based on imported uranium ore and then using the reprocessed spent fuel for plutonium-based fast breeder reactors, the first of which is to become operational shortly.
With Indian scientists, according to Dr Anil Kakodkar, having “mastered” the use of thorium-based fast breeder technology, the third stage will be the serial production of thorium-based indigenous fast-breeder reactors.
Thorium advantage
The crucial advantage of this route is that recycled fuel can produce 60-90 times the energy derived from current processes of fuelling reactors exclusively with uranium ore. It is important to remember that if we maintain present rates of economic growth, we will have to import three times the total electrical energy we produce today, by the year 2050, unless we devise and adopt alternative energy options. The real leap in nuclear power generation will come about once we are able to move to indigenous thorium-based fast-breeder reactors.
Contrary to the fears expressed when the nuclear deal was signed, India is not moving in any great hurry to conclude agreements with the US, till its concerns on guarantees of fuel supplies and reprocessing of spent fuel are credibly addressed. What has happened, instead, is that Russia has taken the lead, with agreements to build two more rectors of 1,000 MW each in Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, with arrangements in place to build eight such reactors in the coming years. Moreover, sites have been identified in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, which can each accommodate nuclear power reactors producing around 12,000 MW of electrical power.
But India needs to act quickly on issues such as formally handing over a separation plan of its nuclear facilities to the IAEA and enacting legislation consistent with the provisions of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, if it is to co-operate on nuclear power generation with such countries as France, Canada and the US, where nuclear power companies, unlike in Russia, are privately owned.
While there were initial doubts on whether the Obama Administration would abide by the letter and spirit of the “123 Agreement” concluded on July 22, 2008, the US Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, has clarified; “The Civil Nuclear Agreement helped us get over our defining disagreement, and I believe it can and should also serve as the foundation of a productive partnership on non-proliferation.”
There are indications that the Obama Administration is working to address the issue of reprocessing of spent fuel, which has to be unambiguously clarified, before India can sign any agreement with American companies, which are now largely Japanese-owned and operate out of countries ranging from the UK to South Korea.
Discussion point
Despite this, it has to be admitted that those who believed that the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal would clear the way for India to access dual-use high-tech items from the US have yet to be proven right. There is nothing to suggest that there has been any easing of such restrictions since the Obama Administration assumed office. This has to be an item of high priority for discussions when Ms Clinton visits India.
Speaking in Washington on March 23, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, Mr Shyam Saran, made it clear that while India remained committed to its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, there were serious reservations about the CTBT, because the Treaty was not “explicitly linked to nuclear disarmament” and the manner in which it was adopted was obviously meant to circumscribe India’s nuclear options.
Moreover, he added that while “we cannot be part of a discriminatory regime where only certain states are allowed to possess reprocessing or enrichment facilities”, we would be willing to work with the US to curb nuclear proliferation. Another crucial issue Mr Saran alluded to was India’s readiness to accede to a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, provided it was a “multilateral, universally applicable and effectively verifiable” treaty.
India has to insist on the treaty being non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable, given China’s readiness to transfer fissile material and nuclear weapons know-how to Pakistan.
Finally, India could take the moral high ground internationally by calling for the outlawing of the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons and for de-alerting nuclear arsenals worldwide. Given the opinion of the World Court, which declared the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons inadmissible under international law, such moves by India will enjoy widespread international support.
(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. [email protected])
Looking beyond the nuclear deal
India needs to quickly hand over to the IAEA a separation plan of its nuclear facilities and enact enabling legislation if it is to deal with private nuclear suppliers and achieve a real leap in nuclear power generation, says G. PARTHASARATHY.
No international issue in India’s post-Independence history evoked as much domestic and international controversy as the Indo-US Nuclear Deal concluded on July 18, 2005 between the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the then US President, Mr George Bush. Paradoxically, the heated debates generated in Parliament worked to India’s advantage, as New Delhi was able to secure assurances from Washington on such issues as guarantees of uninterrupted fuel supplies and reprocessing of spent fuel, which would have otherwise not been forthcoming.
Most analysts agree that while the Opposition BJP made valid points and expressed genuine concerns on the impact of the agreement on India’s strategic nuclear programme and its ability to conduct nuclear weapons tests in future, the arguments put forward by the Communist parties, alleging that the agreement would undermine the pursuit of an “independent” foreign policy, then and even now, remain specious.
The opposition of the Left parties, which led to their withdrawal of support for the UPA Government, strengthened the perception that their actions only complemented the opposition being mounted internationally by China, against the termination of international nuclear sanctions on India.
The UPA Government, in turn, failed to cogently explain to people in India that what was being undertaken through the Indo-US Nuclear Deal was an effort supported strongly by the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, and the then French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, to end global nuclear sanctions on India. Even today, few people realise that with global demand for oil set to outstrip supplies, oil prices in the long term are likely to rise significantly and become increasingly unaffordable.
Non-traditional options
Moreover, with rising concerns about global warming and environmental pollution, India has to look for non-traditional and non-hydrocarbon options to meet its energy needs.
With India unable to import uranium ore because of global nuclear sanctions, existing nuclear power plants with a capacity of 4,100 MW are generating barely 1,500-1,600 MW.
Following the nuclear deal, imports of uranium from sources ranging from France and Russia to Kazakhstan and Australia are now possible. There are now indications that nuclear power generation can reach 20,000 MW by 2020.
Moreover, Indian industry has now reached a stage of sophistication that would enable us to minimise costs by extensive indigenisation, even for power plants built with foreign collaboration.
Energy security for the country can be enhanced significantly only by stepping up indigenous energy production. This process will be accelerated if we tap the country’s virtually unlimited reserves of thorium. But, utilising thorium reserves in significant quantities is a complex and time-consuming process that could span two decades.
This process would involve, first running nuclear reactors based on imported uranium ore and then using the reprocessed spent fuel for plutonium-based fast breeder reactors, the first of which is to become operational shortly.
With Indian scientists, according to Dr Anil Kakodkar, having “mastered” the use of thorium-based fast breeder technology, the third stage will be the serial production of thorium-based indigenous fast-breeder reactors.
Thorium advantage
The crucial advantage of this route is that recycled fuel can produce 60-90 times the energy derived from current processes of fuelling reactors exclusively with uranium ore. It is important to remember that if we maintain present rates of economic growth, we will have to import three times the total electrical energy we produce today, by the year 2050, unless we devise and adopt alternative energy options. The real leap in nuclear power generation will come about once we are able to move to indigenous thorium-based fast-breeder reactors.
Contrary to the fears expressed when the nuclear deal was signed, India is not moving in any great hurry to conclude agreements with the US, till its concerns on guarantees of fuel supplies and reprocessing of spent fuel are credibly addressed. What has happened, instead, is that Russia has taken the lead, with agreements to build two more rectors of 1,000 MW each in Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, with arrangements in place to build eight such reactors in the coming years. Moreover, sites have been identified in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, which can each accommodate nuclear power reactors producing around 12,000 MW of electrical power.
But India needs to act quickly on issues such as formally handing over a separation plan of its nuclear facilities to the IAEA and enacting legislation consistent with the provisions of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, if it is to co-operate on nuclear power generation with such countries as France, Canada and the US, where nuclear power companies, unlike in Russia, are privately owned.
While there were initial doubts on whether the Obama Administration would abide by the letter and spirit of the “123 Agreement” concluded on July 22, 2008, the US Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, has clarified; “The Civil Nuclear Agreement helped us get over our defining disagreement, and I believe it can and should also serve as the foundation of a productive partnership on non-proliferation.”
There are indications that the Obama Administration is working to address the issue of reprocessing of spent fuel, which has to be unambiguously clarified, before India can sign any agreement with American companies, which are now largely Japanese-owned and operate out of countries ranging from the UK to South Korea.
Discussion point
Despite this, it has to be admitted that those who believed that the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal would clear the way for India to access dual-use high-tech items from the US have yet to be proven right. There is nothing to suggest that there has been any easing of such restrictions since the Obama Administration assumed office. This has to be an item of high priority for discussions when Ms Clinton visits India.
Speaking in Washington on March 23, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, Mr Shyam Saran, made it clear that while India remained committed to its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, there were serious reservations about the CTBT, because the Treaty was not “explicitly linked to nuclear disarmament” and the manner in which it was adopted was obviously meant to circumscribe India’s nuclear options.
Moreover, he added that while “we cannot be part of a discriminatory regime where only certain states are allowed to possess reprocessing or enrichment facilities”, we would be willing to work with the US to curb nuclear proliferation. Another crucial issue Mr Saran alluded to was India’s readiness to accede to a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, provided it was a “multilateral, universally applicable and effectively verifiable” treaty.
India has to insist on the treaty being non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable, given China’s readiness to transfer fissile material and nuclear weapons know-how to Pakistan.
Finally, India could take the moral high ground internationally by calling for the outlawing of the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons and for de-alerting nuclear arsenals worldwide. Given the opinion of the World Court, which declared the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons inadmissible under international law, such moves by India will enjoy widespread international support.
(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. [email protected])
