Professor R. Rajaraman, Emeritus Professor of Physics at JNU, is an expert on civilian nuclear energy technology and also co-chair on the International Panel on Fissile Materials. Prof. Rajaraman believes the government needs to take strong steps to defuse the Kudankulam stir at the earliest.
Q. Criticism against nuclear energy is rising around the globe. Germany is shutting its nuclear programme. Post Fukushima, why should India want to walk down this path when the others are retracting?
A. In the West, including Germany, post capita energy availability is already there. Our current per capita energy is abysmal. If we are looking at growth figures of between 7-9 per cent, we cannot afford to lose out on any energy source whether it be nuclear, solar, hydro or wind. Every small town or village is clamouring for electricity. Where will it come from?
Q. But the protesters are demanding a virtual closure of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant...
A. We have to evaluate how serious the danger is before giving up on any source of energy. By and large, I believe our reactors are safe and the present situation, post Fukushima, does not justify a roll back. The reactor has double containment, inner 1.2-metre-thick concrete wall lined on the inside with a 6-mm layer of steel and an outer 60-cm-thick concrete wall.
The annulus between the walls is kept at a negative pressure so that if any radioactivity is released it cannot go out.
Q. The Kudankulam stir has been continuing for a long time now and has reached a point where it is seriously imperilling this `13,000-crore installation...
A. The actual fear does not warrant this agitation. We have had 15 nuclear reactors which have been working for more than a decade. Has anything happened to the people living around these reactors? Nuclear energy provides 70 per cent of power being used in France. The problem is that in both India and Japan, there has been a public loss of confidence.
The only people who can help restore this confidence by providing a rational assessment of the situation are people from within the nuclear facilities and the protesting public does not want to listen to them.
The problem has been worsened because of the lack of transparency that has characterised all our nuclear installations. Nuclear scientists have been demanding greater transparency but that has not been forthcoming.
Q. The Russians are extremely upset with these delays...
A. They have every reason to be. Each of these two reactors is costing a couple of thousand crores. I am not giving a deliberate figure because a lot of costs in Russia are in the form of subsidies. These are new-generation reactors of the Russian kind and are definitely better than the ones used in Fukushima. The installed capacity of these reactors is 1,000 MW per reactor.
Unfortunately, this agitation appears to have several political undercurrents which should have been resolved much earlier. After all, these installations have been existent for several years and no one raised their voices earlier. I would like to point out that the Jaitapur agitation is different from the one in Kudankulam. For one, the former is located in an earthquake-prone zone. The actual land acquisition on the ground has not yet started.
Q. Jaitapur farmers are questioning why land in such a fertile area should be taken up to create a nuclear facility...
A. The land displacement problem will remain because nuclear plants have to be located near the ocean since they need a great deal of water. But one cannot forget that nuclear facilities take up much less space than solar, hydro or even coal furnaces. Its carbon footprint is also much less. The problem is that people are deliberately being fed this confusion between a nuclear bomb and nuclear energy. The two are completely different. I’m not saying it is not without danger.
In the case of Chernobyl, there was an enormous damage to property and lives, but in Bhopal, the tragedy was much worse. If the reactor is functioning, there is no danger to the surrounding population.
Q. The issue of disposal of nuclear waste remains...
A. The problem remains and scientists have not been able to arrive at a satisfactory solution to this problem. The most effective management of high-level radioactive waste would be to store it in a stable geological formation, but many countries are not in favour of that either.