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NUCLEAR ENERGY

Key issues, challenges for India’s nuclear energy policy

As India celebrates 60 years of Independence, its first research reactor, Apsara, will also have completed 51 years of operation, having been made critical for the first time on August 4, 1956. Apsara was the first nuclear reactor to be made operational in Asia, outside of the Soviet Union. Due to the far-sighted vision of Homi Bhabha, India achieved success in making uranium fuel, producing heavy water and separating plutonium from spent fuel during the decade 1956 to 1 966. The initial objectives of the Indian atomic energy programme were to develop all aspects of peaceful applications in industry, medicine and agriculture, and, more particularly, production of power.

Two events brought about a change in India’s unqualified commitment to a peaceful atom. China conducted its first nuclear test in 1964 and embarked on a weaponisation programme. The second was the promotion of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union which sought to divide the world into two: the first part consisting of the five recognised nuclear weapon powers and the second made up of all other countries that were to give up their right to make nuclear weapons for all time to come. India refused to join the NPT as it was discriminatory and did not address its security concerns.

The 1960s and 1970s were marked by India developing all aspects of nuclear science and technology on its own and applying them in industry, medicine, and agriculture. Taking advantage of the available opportunities for international collaboration, India executed its first nuclear power project at Tarapur with the U.S. and the second one in Rajasthan with Canada. Establishing self-reliant capabilities in building nuclear power stations, heavy water production on an industrial scale, matching fuel fabrication, industry mobilisation, and managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle were the highlights of the activities in the 1970s and 1980s.

Geopolitics in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated clearly that the nuclear weapons states (NWS) were developing weapons of increasing destructive capability, along with missiles to launch them over intercontinental distances. Instead of initiating steps to eliminate nuclear weapons over a period of time, the NWS were engaged in an unending arms race. Moreover, possession of nuclear weapons became an expression of asserting a state’s power and influence in global affairs. This sentiment led to India conducting the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in 1974. At that time, the U.S. and the USSR were conducting such explosions for dousing oil well fires, excavations and so on.

The U.S. and Canada suspended nuclear cooperation with India thereafter. The U.S. orchestrated international policies denying India access to nuclear technology or components and materials thereof. This regime was made particularly rigid after the setting up of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in the early 1990s. India continued building nuclear power units and associated infrastructure despite the embargoes placed by the NSG members. The projects were no doubt delayed but they were eventually completed and started operating well.

India advocated the elimination of all nuclear weapons in the world from the early years of its Independence. In 1988, under Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership, it offered a plan to the international community to eliminate all nuclear weapons in a time-bound manner. While the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev welcomed this plan, the U.S. rejected it out of hand. Without the U.S.’ participation, denuclearisation is out of the question. True, under the Reagan-Gorbachev accord, the U.S. and the USSR agreed to end the arms race and reduce their nuclear arsenals to some extent. But the growing neo-conservative sentiment in the U.S. has made a “nuclear weapon free world” a contemptuous aberration.

Developments in India’s neighbourhood in the 1980s were especially destabilising. Pakistan went ahead with acquiring nuclear weapons capability through A.Q. Khan’s clandestine activities and even threatened India that it could use nuclear weapons in case of a war with India. Shortly thereafter, India refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the irony, of course, was that the U.S., the original sponsor, itself denied the treaty a Senate ratification. The Pakistani development forced India to seriously consider a weapon test around the mid-1990s. According to some reports, the U.S. exercised its influence to abort some earlier attempts. Eventually, India conducted the Pokhran II tests in 1998. It then announced a policy of building a credible minimum deterrent; it also announced a “No First Use” policy and voluntarily undertook not to carry out a future test.

THE BEGINNING: India’s first nuclear reactor, Apsara, which went critical on August 4, 1956.

The economy had become buoyant after the economic reforms launched by P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh and so withstood the U.S.-sponsored economic sanctions in the aftermath of Pokhran II. On the nuclear energy front, India-built heavy water power reactors registered a good operating record and new projects were built in much shorter time than earlier. The Fast Breeder Test Reactor operated well and gave confidence for launching the 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, which is now under construction at Kalpakkam. India’s three-stage programme eventually to use thorium, appeared a real prospect, although large-scale use of thorium was a few decades away. The inadequacy of uranium resources available in India, both in terms of quantity and concentration in the ore, assumed serious proportions. Thus, India found itself technologically in a position to exploit nuclear power in a bigger way but was constrained in doing so as it could not access nuclear fuel or reactor plants from abroad.

The inequity of the situation India faced was especially galling as China was able to import nuclear reactors and fuel from the advanced countries, namely France, Russia, Canada, and the U.S. The international community also woke up to the fact that India, now the fifth largest carbon emitter, could participate in mitigation of global warming by increasing reliance on nuclear power.

The world also recognised that India, although not a signatory to the NPT, had an exemplary record in non-proliferation. In the 2000-2005 period, the U.S. and India explored how the hi-tech embargoes against India could be softened. In the meantime, Russia and France were keen to resume nuclear commerce with India. However, it was the decisive Bush-Manmohan Singh initiative of July 2005 that paved the way for an end to India’s nuclear isolation of some three decades.

What is the action programme for India’s nuclear ambitions in the coming years? India could immediately import some twelve 1000 MW Light Water Reactors from Russia, France, and the U.S. Additionally it should build 12 indigenously designed 700 MW reactors. This will support a generation of some 25,000 MW of nuclear power by 2020, which could go up to about 50,000 MW by 2030. While intensifying the search for uranium domestically, India could obtain uranium from overseas, perhaps through investments abroad. It may explore participation in uranium enrichment, if its capacity in enriched uranium reactors is significant. Of course, in parallel, India should pursue the fast breeder reactor programme vigorously and begin thorium utilisation as early as is practical and economical.

India’s manufacturing base for nuclear power equipment is well developed for heavy water reactors; it is also being developed for fast breeder reactors. Indian industry can be inducted into producing equipment for the LWRs it may import from Russia, France, U.S. or elsewhere. Experience in other hi-tech industries shows that once the technology is assimilated, India is an economical source of procurement. The situation is bound to be so for even LWR equipment. India will have opportunities to export such equipment or participate along with advanced countries in projects in third countries. Naturally, India will be in a position to export a heavy water reactor power plant as a whole; a dampener may be a perception that these reactors are less proliferation-resistant than LWRs. There will be big opportunities for Indian companies and Indian technical personnel to service a resurgent global nuclear industry, in an era when the world as a whole is looking for non-carbon energy sources.

A “nuclear weapon-free world” must be a goal India must relentlessly pursue, along with the initiatives it would take to increase civilian nuclear energy use. The only effective non-proliferation measure that has certainty of success is the elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide. This will also release the financial and scientific potential of the world to the noble and worthy cause of eliminating poverty and hunger. This would be a vindication of the claim that science with humanism can indeed transform the world into a happy place for all of mankind.