The Price of Nuclear Power

Catastrophe doesn’t seem to bother our planners, but how about paying attention to economics?

It is in the nature of our polity and media that important issues are left unresolved till a crisis brews. The Lokpal Bill will only re-emerge in the public conscience when it goes before Parliament, and Anna begins his long-threatened fast. In much the same way as memories of the nuclear plant disaster at Fukushima fade, we are back to business as usual on nuclear power, discussing the Liability Bill and talking about the possibility of importing new plants as if nothing has changed. Unsurprisingly, the worst offenders in this regard are exactly those who plug liberalisation unreservedly, arguing that we need energy to drive growth, whatever its source.  It would seem that they should be the ones most amenable to arguments of economics, but it turns out not to be the case. In their blindness to logic, in their espousal of certain positions, they are as blinded by ideology as their counterparts from the Left who so easily articulate concepts such as the ‘hegemony of neo-liberal structures’. Perhaps they deserve each other, but do the rest of us, the vast majority in this country, deserve either of them?  Consider India’s push for nuclear power. Over the next few years, we are going to see an unprecedented expansion of our nuclear power capacity. At present, India produces 4,780 MW of nuclear energy. The plants currently under construction should add another 6,700 MW over the next five years, more than doubling capacity. But here’s a fact no one speaks of: we still don’t know the cost per unit of producing nuclear energy in this country.  We are planning blind. If you ask atomic scientists in this country, as I did ask Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, at a recent discussion organised by the Asia Society, you will be told this cost varies a little depending on the particular nuclear power station, but is ‘highly competitive’ compared to other sources.

There is a catch here. The determination of this cost does not factor in the cost of storing spent radioactive fuel, which is quite expensive. Nuclear scientists argue that India follows the closed nuclear cycle and that, after reprocessing, this spent fuel will be used in the next stage of breeder reactors in India’s 3-stage nuclear programme. The obvious next question is then: what is the cost of reprocessing spent fuel and using it in a fast breeder reactor? The answer, or at least the one given by Kakodkar, is that the current 500 MW fast breeder reactor being constructed in Kalpakkam will largely be a research facility, and only after it has been in operation for a while will it be possible to determine this cost. In other words, we have been building nuclear plants, and will continue building nuclear plants, without knowing what the cost of power generation is—on the basis of the success and efficiency of  technology that is still at its research stage. The reasonable way to have done this was to calculate the costs of nuclear power, factoring in the cost of either storage or reprocessing without factoring in the fast breeder reactor. This cost could then have been lowered if, and this remains a big if, the fast breeder turns out to be viable both technologically and economically. Instead, in effect, we have been following a policy of surreptitiously subsidising nuclear power generation, and we have done so without seeking either the consent of Parliament or of the people.

This is reflective of the mindset of the nuclear power establishment in this country. It was one thing if it had been debated in public that such subsidies were necessary for a host of reasons. Instead, this was done by telling the electorate that there are strategic issues that preclude discussion on such matters. A blind nationalism was used to stifle a debate that is not only reasonable but necessary. This argument seems to extend across the board. After Fukushima, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had ordered a safety review of Indian nuclear power plants. We have been told that the review, unsurprisingly, has found that all Indian nuclear power plants are safe. There is reason to question this review; it has been carried out by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, which is still not an independent body. The Monsoon session of Parliament is likely to see the tabling of a bill for an independent Nuclear Regulatory Authority; there can be no better time for Parliament to take up the safety review already carried out. After all, no strategic interest can outweigh the likelihood of a nuclear disaster. At some point or the other, we need to know the price we are paying for nuclear power.

economicsnuclear powerplanning