Do we need nuclear power in India? At what cost?

The nuclear power emergency in Japan has raised two major questions regarding nuclear power.

First, can a disaster comparable to the one in Japan happen here? The answer, of course, is yes — whether caused by an earthquake or some other event or series of events. Nature is unpredictable and human beings are fallible. It could happen.

So the second question is whether it makes sense to follow through on plans to increase our reliance on nuclear power, thus heightening the risk of a terrible problem occurring here. Is that a risk worth taking?

There has been a persistent tendency to ignore the toughest questions posed by nuclear power: What should be done with the waste? What are the consequences of a catastrophic accident in a populated area? How safe are the plants, really? Why would taxpayers have to shoulder so much of the financial risk of expanding the nation’s nuclear power capacity, an effort that would be wildly expensive?

A big part of the problem at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power station are the highly radioactive spent fuel rods kept in storage pools at the plant. What to do, ultimately, with such dangerous waste material is the nuclear power question without an answer. Nuclear advocates and public officials don’t talk about it much. Denial is the default position when it comes to nuclear waste.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said again this week that the 40-year-old Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County, 35 miles north of New York City, should be closed. Try to imagine the difficulty, in the event of an emergency, of evacuating such an area with its millions of residents. “This plant in this proximity to New York City was never a good risk,” said the governor.

There are, blessedly, very few catastrophic accidents at nuclear power plants. And there have not been many deaths associated with them. The rarity of such accidents provides a comfort zone. We can look at the low probabilities and declare, “It can’t happen here.”

But what if it did happen here? What would the consequences be?

If Indian Point blew, how wide an area and how many people would be affected, and what would the cleanup costs be? 

Rigorously answering such questions is the only way to determine whether the potential risk to life and property is worthwhile.

The 104 commercial nuclear plants in the U.S. are getting old, and many have had serious problems over the years. There have been dozens of instances since 1979, the year of the Three Mile Island accident, in which nuclear reactors have had to be shut down for more than a year for safety reasons.

Building new plants can be breathtakingly expensive and requires government loan guarantees. Banks are not lining up to lend money on their own for construction of the newest generation of Indian Points.

In addition to the inherent risks with regard to safety and security, the nuclear industry has long been notorious for sky-high construction costs, feverish cost-overruns and projects that eventually are abandoned.

Nuclear power is hardly the pristine, economical, unambiguous answer to the nation’s energy needs and global warming concerns. It offers benefits and big-time shortcomings. Ultimately, the price may be much too high.

Bob Herbert in The New York Times. More Here.

Fukushima's failure, India's nuclear policy and some lessons

To be trite, words are inadequate to describe the trio of disastrous events which have hit Japan recently - from earthquake, to tsunami, to potential nuclear meltdown. While the first two disasters are acts of nature, the third revives the historic trauma of the original detonations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at a time when the idea of a nuclear energy renaissance had been gaining international popularity. Japan occupies a crucial role in these plans as a manufacturer, investor, and even moral arbitrator related to nuclear technology.

Domestically, nuclear power makes up 13.6 per cent of Japan’s total energy supply and a substantial portion of its electricity production.  Globally, the destruction of the nuclear plants in Fukushima will have international consequences for future nuclear power installations. Europe, India and the United States have all been in the process of shifting more of their future energy needs to nuclear power. How might Fukushima alter that shift? What will be the short-term energy ramifications of such a shift? What might be the more long-term geopolitical consequences?

There was a 1999 critical nuclear accident at a small experimental reactor in Tokaimura, Japan.  Breaches in existing safety standards caused the accident, damage (resulting in two fatalities) was limited, and it did not grab the imagination of the international public. In contrast to Tokaimura, the present extensive nuclear accident in Japan is dramatic and symbolic; already other countries that use nuclear power are looking into the safety of their own reactors. But change is reactor construction and safety may well not be the most dramatic shift in nuclear energy politics. There will be ripple effects.

Even Europe is rethinking its reliance on nuclear power.  In Germany, nuclear energy has been a contentious issue for decades - nearly 70 per cent of Germans opposed nuclear power even before Fukushima. Henrik Paultiz, of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, believes that “the accident in Japan could lead to a major rethink in Europe. And not before its time. Governments have not been transparent enough about the safety levels of the nuclear power sector.”

If some European countries who have been relying for some of their energy needs on nuclear power for decades are reconsidering nuclear energy in response to Fukushima, the US is in an even more politically charged position. Following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979, nuclear energy became deeply unpopular. Yet support for nuclear energy has experienced resurgence and is one of the few issues which has support from both Democrats and Republicans. However, Fukushima is causing all to pause in their enthusiasm. Senator Joseph Lieberman captured the new ambivalence around nuclear energy: “I think it calls on us here in the U.S., not to stop building nuclear power plants but to put the brakes on right now until we understand the ramifications of what’s happened in Japan.”  

In India, the reaction to Fukushima has focused more on safety of domestic facilities rather than doubts about the safety of nuclear energy itself. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ordered the Nuclear Power Corporation of India to review its safety systems and security designs. The Government of India is also considering additional environmental safeguards to ensure safety of future nuclear reactors. Even before Fukushima, there have been growing protests of the “not in my backyard” variety related to the construction of Jaitapur reactor in Maharastra. Fukushima could well intensify these protests to the point of halting construction.

In the short-term, Fukushima will make nuclear power plant construction at the very least a much more difficult proposition in many places in the world.

Lydia Walker in ipcs.org. More Here