A vital step to fuel power needs

India has pledged to increase its nuclear power capability from 8.8 GigaWatt today to 100 GigaWatt by 2047. When the attention of scientists turned towards harnessing the power of an atom and converting the heat generated into electricity in the 1950s, the concern of accidents was foremost in their minds. The accidents over a period of nearly a century in civil aviation, chemical and oil and gas industries have made the design and operations more safe and secure. Nuclear power has very high energy density and can be more hazardous, but the design of the plant is meticulous and addresses all concerns. In the 60 years’ history of civil nuclear power generation, there have been three accidents; Three Mile Island, USA, 1979; Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986, and Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, 2011.

The Fukushima accident caused radiation exposure to workers, while the Chernobyl accident impacted the health of the workers. The Three Miles accident did not cause any harm. There has not been any accident in India so far. Bengaluru’s tech park and Chennai’s automobile industries face peak-hour power deficit, despite Kaiga and Kudankulam generating 2000 MW. Our dependency on fossil fuel must be cut to arrest the warming of the planet. Transitioning towards green energy like solar and wind is going to take decades to achieve scale and speed. Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai are emerging hubs for Microsoft, Google and Amazon and a data centre boom leads to surge in power demand.

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A single large data centre requires 50 to 100 MW of uninterrupted power and with the growing workloads of AI in India, we must step up generation of clean energy quickly. Sustainable harnessing and advancement of nuclear energy for transforming India (SHANTI) bill has been passed by Parliament and the sector has been opened for private players, though opposition members strongly opposed it due to safety and liability concerns. The rising demand of power from sectors like data processing, health care and industries needed the expansion of the nuclear sector. Minister Jitendra Singh has clarified in Parliament that the public sector undertaking, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) will expand its activities to generate 58 Giga Watt (GW) of power, while the private and joint sectors will generate the remaining by 2047. Further, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd.

(NPCIL) is setting up four reactors each of 4 Giga watt capacity with Russian collaboration and another 17.6 GW capacity in collaboration with other countries as part of a road map to reach the target of 54 GW by 2047. National Thermal Power Corporation has entered into a joint venture with NPCIL, named Anushakti Vidhyut Nigam Ltd. The joint venture has already approved 700 MW Mahi Banaswara project. At present there are 24 nuclear power plants generating 8,780 MW of power and eight nuclear reactors with a total generating capacity of 6,600 MW are at various stages of construction. The bill’s four-tier dispute resolution framework addresses safety and security concerns. It begins with Atomic Energy Regulatory Boards’ grant of license to the enterprise and technical supervision of activities on the site.

The next is the Atomic Energy Redressal Advisory Council empowered to take up independent review of regulatory decisions. The statute provides a time limit of 60 days to resolve regulatory conflicts. This would cut all project stalling delays. The third stage is the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity. This tribunal too is bound by the time limit of 60 days. The technical member of the Tribunal will be an expert in Nuclear Science, radiation safety and reactor Physics. Finally, the Supreme Court would ensure constitutional oversight. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 ensures suppliers’ accountability and the SHANTI bill sets a Rs 3,000 crore per incident liability cap. The operator is fully liable for this amount and the Central government covers any amount in excess of this, under the Convention on Supplementary Compensation. Further, the vendor’s participation is feasible as compensation is backed by sovereign guarantee. Opening the sector for private companies brings investment and hastens the process of clean power generation needed for our growth and development.

Nuclear projects have enormous front loaded capital costs and long construction periods. Finland’s Olkiluoto-3 reactor took an additional 12 years to open. The UK’s Hinkley Point C reactor has faced cost overruns and has ended up producing electricity at higher cost. The French 1600 MW EPR reactor, with most advanced technology also ended up with massive cost overruns and delays. One should not be alarmed by such historical backgrounds. These experiences should be considered for our planning and implementation of nuclear projects. Even private companies might be hesitant to invest in the sector, but the government should come forward to assure tariffs, sovereign backing, fuel supply support and liability protection.

Sometimes the project may have to be subsidized to make it bankable. Nuclear fuel comes from mining and so also the components of solar panels and wind turbines. Solar panels primarily use silicon cells, protected by glass, framed with aluminum, and connected with copper; while wind turbines rely on steel towers, fiberglass/carbon fiber blades and rare earth magnets (neodymium, dysprosium) in their generators. Both technologies increasingly need critical minerals, like copper, silver and rare earths, and face supply challenges. Separation and processing of critical minerals and rare earth elements are environmentally hazardous and have potential to generate waste water leading to health risks for the communities around. Manufacturing steel, silver, copper etc. also have heavy carbon footprints, as these are carbon intensive products.

Fuels for nuclear reactors are relatively less carbon intensive. In the process of making a hydroelectric power project operational, we need to sacrifice forests which are a known sink for carbon. Losing forests on hilly terrains can also have disastrous consequences like landslides, flooding etc. We have seen how communities as well as tourists suffer in the hills, when there are sudden cloud bursts. To achieve the speed and scale of transitioning away from fossil fuel, nuclear energy along with solar, wind and hydropower must be developed concurrently. Opening the nuclear sector for private investors is a welcome step.

(The writer is former Head of Forest force, Karnataka.)