ENERGY SECURITY FOR INDIA IN THE COMING DECADES

India is on the move and to accelerate our progress growth is a must. Energy Security is so vital for this growth. From the point of view of environmental sustainability, nuclear energy provides the best option. Unlike solar and wind power it has got economies of scale, is less susceptible to price escalations and more importantly like fossil fuel based thermal power plants does not generate greenhouse gases. More importantly, in an era where nuclear energy is being looked at with renewed interest, India’s prospects for a better future in energy security have received a shot in the arm with the Indo-US nuclear deal of July 18th, 2005. But with dithering and accusations flying all around over the possible implications to India’s strategic interests due to the deal, there is a very real possibility that the deal may simply collapse and get buried. Let us hope that our negotiators on the strength of India’s flawless and impeccable nonproliferation record and our strategic importance in the Asian region buttress our negotiating position and close the deal on a positive note for the benefit of India’s consumers. The best way this stillness in the negotiations about the deal can be broken is through political intervention at the highest level which will ensure a return to the principles enshrined in the July 18th 2005 Indo-US accord. In short, the negative effect of the various Non-Proliferation Treaty lobbies which contributed to the “shifting of the goal post” should be neutralized.

ENERGY THE KEY TO GROWTH
India with its advantageous demographic profile is a nation on the move. 35 Percent of the total population of our country is aged less than 15 years. It does not require a futurologist to imagine how a decade or less hence this huge and young generation will accelerate India’s economic growth. Courageous political decisions taken in time will make the future of these generations more secure and boost growth.

Growth is the key contributor to any Nation’s prosperity and for a country mired in antiquated structures of misplaced socialistic mindset, any movement in creating an atmosphere of job generation in preference to job protection is looked upon with alarm and suspicion. Against, such a background it was pleasing to notice that at last, the Government showed resolve to go ahead with the modernization (a euphemism for privatization) of airports in Delhi and in Mumbai by private parties. Growth requires, nay, demands infrastructure and in our country we want plenty of it.

One of the fundamental essentials for growth is energy and it does not require much intelligence to figure out that any country which has a sufficiency of this commodity along with the advantages of infrastructure and good industrial and skilled manpower will be an engine for global growth and a force to reckon with. It is not for nothing that India is seen to be emerging as a power in the comity of nations; various think tanks and institutions have rated India as a leading country to watch out for in terms of growth assuming of course that we will tackle our problems of energy security.

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Conventional sources of energy generation include fossil fuels (coal, naphtha, diesel, gasoline, kerosene, and oil), hydroelectricity and nuclear energy. Other sources of electricity generation include wind powered turbines and solar panels for power generation. Wind and solar energy as energy resources have the advantage of being clean and eco-friendly alternatives; but honestly these alone cannot satisfy the needs of power-hungry developing nations and mega-cities. Fossil fuels which are the basis of thermal power plants have the disadvantage of generating greenhouse gases which have hazardous consequences for the climactic health of the planet in the long run. Also, the coal available in India is not an efficient fuel for our coal-fired thermal power plants as it has high ash content. Additionally, oil dependency with the price of a 60$ plus per barrel of oil can prove tedious for the following reasons:-
• Valuable foreign exchange being utilized for huge oil bills.
• Contribution in a big way to global warming.
• Year by year, geopolitically evolving unstable and risky climate, more particularly in the middle-east.
Oil exploration in India is underway in a big way with newer deposits of oil being found in the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The initial signs do look optimistic but then the fact remains that these fuels are not eco-friendly, contribute to global warming and the road from exploration to actual production is still a long way off.

Hydroelectricity is cost-effective and promising on a big scale only when the projects involved are big such as Tehri, Narmada, or better still like the Three Gorges project in China. But undertaking such projects often involves displacement of populations, townships, villages; disturbance of ecosystems; inter-state riparian disputes, in an age where environmental activism is at its best or worst depending upon which side of the debate one’s opinions lie; the future for the construction of such big hydroelectric projects in our country appear difficult.

ADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
According to a report on India’s energy question prepared by an expert committee headed by Planning Commission Member Kirit Parikh, if in the next 25 years, coal continues to be the mainstay of India’s energy requirements. Then compared with a present consumption of 0.4 billion tonnes of coal a year, we could be somewhere between 1.1 and 2.5 billion tonnes in 2030. The report states that CO2 emissions will rise from 1 billion tonnes at present, to 4-6 billion tones due to this fossil fuel (coal) dependency. Which means, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions a coal based energy dependent India will add another United States, (the US presently emits 5.5 billion tonnes of CO2 per year to the planet). This will have an adverse effect on the global warming in a fashion that will impact India’s climate and thus agriculture. Global warming is one of the major factors that could dampen growth the world over due to its negative effect on environmental sustainability by way of natural disasters such as rising oceans, shrinking coastlines, dangerous and unstable weather systems, etc.

Several countries have given a thought to reducing their dependency on fossil fuels. President George Bush recently spoke about the crying need for his country to curb oil addiction. In this respect the Swedish initiative has been particularly impressive. In recent times, the Swedes have cut their oil requirements during winter by more than half by making use of community biogas generators to keep their homes warm. Many countries are already awake to the idea of an oil-free world and research on hydrogen fuel cells as a means for running public transport has gathered pace. Estimates are being made that in 2 decades hence; there will be millions of automobiles and other transport utilities worldwide running on hydrogen.

Thus, what is needed globally is an energy that is scaleable, pollution-free and economical. Nuclear energy meets all these requirements perfectly. Additionally, as compared to fossil fuel based energy systems nuclear power is relatively free from price escalations and other variable costs and thus very competitive. Thus nuclear power is very relevant for our nation for meeting our long term energy needs economically and from the point of view of environmental sustenance.

INDIA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
The blueprint for India’s nuclear energy strategy was formulated by Dr. Homi Bhabha. He envisaged a three stage nuclear power programme with the ultimate objective of utilizing India’s vast reserves of thorium in the nuclear energy generating process. The three stages are: -
1. Stage 1 - Construction of Natural Uranium, Heavy Water Moderated and Cooled Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). Spent fuel from these reactors is reprocessed to obtain Plutonium. (power potential = 10,000 MWe)
2. Stage 2 - Construction of Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) fuelled by Plutonium produced in stage-I. These reactors would also breed U-233 from Thorium. (power potential = 530,000 MWe)
3. Stage 3 - Power reactors using U-233 / Thorium as fuel. (Large power potential)

Naturally, India has made fair amount of progress in stage 1, as for stage 2, India has a 40MWe test fast breeder reactor operating since 1985. The Government of India approved the construction of a 500 MWe fast breeder reactor in 2003, thus marking the launching of the second stage of the nuclear programme. As for stage 3, a 30 kWth experimental thorium based reactor is under operation and a 300MWe thorium based reactor is under development (An International Journal of Nuclear Power - Vol. 18 No. 2-3 (2004) 7-12).

INDO-US NUCLEAR DEAL
India’s progress in nuclear generation affected by nuclear sanctions in the wake of our nuclear device testing in 1974 and in 1998 has been a story of successful and praise-worthy struggle. Unfortunately, the gestation periods for each of the reactors in the three stages depends upon a multitude of factors some of which could be of an unanticipated nature and thus the period could be even stretched to well above a decade. Does the nation have the patience to sustain itself on indigenous nuclear efforts alone when we already see a huge energy deficit starring at us every day? Thanks to the state’s dilly-dallying policies in the energy sector, the day is not far off when even big cities like Mumbai will have to submit to load-shedding. India needs energy to grow and growth which is so essential for providing opportunities to lead fruitful and prosperous lives will be derailed in the face of an energy deficit. While the Department of Atomic Energy’s efforts have been laudable, they are not enough. In this light the July 18th 2005 Indo-US nuclear deal offers a big opportunity.

STRATEGIC INTEREST OF SECURITY OR STRATEGIC INTEREST OF ENERGY SECURITY
Unfortunately, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE, India) finds that the deal which requires India to separate its nuclear reactors into the civil and military domain so that the civilian ones can be brought under International Atomic Energy Association safeguards is now being used by the USA as an attempt to impinge upon India’s stage 2 reactors, namely the fast breeder reactor even before the technology has been proven and commercialized. The DAE feels that this could impact our indigenous efforts in the development of thorium based stage 3 reactors. Undoubtedly with accusations flying thick and fast between the supporters and detractors of this nuclear deal the whole arrangement has been converted into a toss-up between “the strategic interest of security or strategic interest of energy security”

Let us hope that, during the term of George Bush’s presidency, our negotiators on the strength of India’s flawless and impeccable nonproliferation record and our strategic importance in the Asian region buttress our negotiating position and close the deal on a win-win note for the benefit of India’s consumers. The best way this stillness in the negotiations about the deal can be broken is through political intervention at the highest level which will ensure a return to the principles enshrined in the July 18th 2005 Indo-US accord. In short, the negative effect of the various Non-Proliferation Treaty lobbies in the USA which contributed to the drifting away from the original accord by including extra clauses in the accord and thus “shifting the goal post” should be neutralized.
-Dr. V. R. Shenoy

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