When there are so many reasons against something, two thoughts come to mind.
Either, it is completely bad, or the opponents are throwing the kitchen sink at
it.
The sad thing about this pact is that it increases the production of energy.
Though, nuclear is among the cleanest and least destructive energy production
technologies, apart from solar.
If we are doing nuclear, collaborating with the US is not a bad thing per se.
Perhaps there is some fine-print that could be construed as a sell-out, and
that is something that would be good to agitate about.
The article talks about constraints on Indian technology development. That is
news to me. Would like to hear more about it.
The article talks about sharing Indian expertise with the US. That is a good
thing. Knowledge is a terrible thing to keep locked up.
-rd
--- On Tue, 7/22/08, Jogesh Motwani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Jogesh Motwani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [ZESTAlternative] The Nuclear Deal
To: "zest" <zestalternative@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 22, 2008, 8:29 PM
Important details
- ZADesk
Nuclear Deal should be scrapped forthwith
Leo
Rebello
The nuclear deal, over which the
Left is shouting hoarse while the politically agile Dr. Amar Singh tries to
shore up a dilapidated Congress, should be scrapped forthwith. India needs
electricity for its citizens, not nuclear power. We must dispassionately
examine
why the nuclear deal is not good for India and the world; sadly, so far the
debate has been one-dimensional.
Confidentiality: On the one hand, the Government
is going ga-ga over bringing in the Right to Information Act to help
citizens expose corrupt officialdom. On the other hand, truth is dangerously
concealed, even from people's representatives in Parliament, on the issue of
the
N-deal, which will affect Indians for generations to come. A bogus agreement
promising illusory energy security, the deal will prove to be the death-knell
to
our sovereignty, non-aligned movement, SAARC progressing into Asian Economic
Council, and all that we have built over the years.
Context: Dr. A.N. Prasad, former director
of the Bhabha Atomic Research Council (BARC), hit the nail on the head when he
pointed out that all talk regarding "uninterrupted fuel supplies" and
"corrective measures" if they fail, are mentioned only in the preamble
references of the text, and do not form part of the operative portion of the
agreement. In other words, they are meaningless in reality. A preamble is
only an expression of pious intent. When it comes to legal niceties, it is the
operative part of the agreement that counts. And here, Prasad points out:
"There
is no exit clause." This means India can never walk away from the clutches of
America. Prasad adds that the "corrective measures" seem limited going from one
source of fuel to another, this is absurd since the Nuclear Suppliers Group
functions as a cartel: "all for one and one for all". That means there are NO
corrective measures at all.
The
Lobby:
American Nuclear Energy plant manufacturers have a strong and rich lobby, which
is on the verge of extinction as it has had no market for the last 20 years.
Hence
India is being cajoled; if India succumbs, it may spur more demand from other
countries, raise the lobby from imminent extinction to thriving business. It is
pertinent that once the obsolete nuclear plants are sold to India and the US
companies enriched, they will hide behind the Hyde Act. This means the
thorium-cycle based technology independently developed by Indian scientists
would be abandoned due to change in the power-cycle and under one or the other
pretext, much like the manipulation of oil prices. America will also increase
the costs and further increase India's debt burden.
Thorium
v/s Uranium:
Energy experts know America lacks thorium-cycle technology, and is adamant that
India not only gives them these secrets, but that India does not make any
further progress in its independent technological areas. USA is trying to kill
many birds with one stone. Sadly, the Indian establishment comprising major
political parties and pro-US media are hiding these facts from the Indian
people.
Plutonium and Thorium
Economies: The fuel (low enriched
uranium for the common commercial light water reactors) that will be imported
will cost about $1000 billion, for some 30 odd reactors. This
will kill India's pioneering
efforts in plutonium and thorium economies envisioned by Homi
Bhabha. And when India is down
on this, the US and Western advances in them will force a second cycle of
dependence.
Control:
The Hyde Act will
exert control over India's scientific progress; undermine India's foreign
policy
by forcing India to indirectly support USA against Iran; reduce India to an
unwilling partner in the likely attack on Iran, and thereby unleash Islamic
fury
against us. And
what of control of US navy on Indian waters? Far from emerging a strong nation
by 2020, India would be reduced to play second fiddle to America by stunting
our
growth and international profile.
Destabilise: Once the N-deal agreement is
formalised, the sinister CIA and FBI will seek a free run in India. America
will
seek military bases in India, and the world knows that once America occupies a
space, it hardly ever leaves, witness the situation in Japan, the Philippines,
Somalia, South Korea, et al.
Technology
transfer: We don't need uranium; we don't need bombs; we don't need 123
agreement. India's
energy output can be doubled by using technology to raise the current
efficiency of 50% in
production to 95%.
Alternative
technologies and Self-sufficiency: There are small Hydel,
Wind-Energy, Sea-back-water Energy, Solar Energy, and other indigenously
developed technologies waiting to be deployed to make India self-sufficient in
energy sector. There is simply no need to turn towards discarded, unsafe
nuclear
energy. With adequate investments, alternative technologies will become the
main
technologies in less than 10 years.
Ram-Setu: We have enough raw material on our
southern sea-banks, mixed with sand and vast reserves of thorium. In fact, the
Ram-setu conspiracy should be viewed in this light, or this rich resource
will be lost forever due to greed, ignorance or connivance of a few puny
leaders, who rather than helping the country progress, further American
interests.
Accidents:
Nuclear Energy is
neither clean, nor cheap, nor safe as is made out. Nuclear Plants are very
costly and dangerous - Chernobyl, 3-Mile and Japanese nuclear accidents, for
instance.
N-utilization: India's current nuclear energy
capacity utilization is less than 30%, yet we are going for additional nuclear
plants which will take minimum seven years to start producing nuclear energy.
Nuclear plants process uranium and plutonium, which are used to produce bombs.
India has enough uranium, which could last another 50 years. An unstated aspect
of the nuclear deal is the safety management of nuclear-waste whose half-life
is
over 28,000 years. This is a multi-million dollar industry in its own right,
and
we have not been told which American firm will secure these
rights!
Old,
Costly and Unsafe Technology: When Europe, Japan, Australia,
Russia and the USA itself have stopped commissioning new nuclear plants for
over
two decades, why is India running after old, discarded and unsafe technology?
Is
there a scam here – we have the right to know?
Dr.
David Victor,
Director, Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, Stanford University,
testifying before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on 17
July 2006, noted inter alia that India has vast options to meet its
energy needs in Hydroelectricity, Renewables, Natural Gas, Coal and Nuclear
energy. He did not make a case for shifting to Nuclear energy. Briefly this is
what Dr. Victor said:-
On
Hydroelectric:
Official Indian
plans call for much greater use of hydro…. [there are] possibilities of hydro
imports from Bhutan and Nepal…. That means no shortage on energy front. On
Renewables: India makes extensive
use of biomass digesters in rural areas and wind and solar energy in a few
states. On Natural Gas: Most
analyses of the Indian power sector envisioned that gas would play a much
larger
role in the future. Gas is the cleanest of fossil fuels and the capital cost of
gas plants much lower than nuclear, coal, and hydro. Gas plants have been
especially attractive to private investors who are wary of sinking large
amounts
of capital into projects where regulatory rules are in flux. Nearly all
foreign-owned private power plants in India are fired with gas.
On
Nuclear: Until now, nuclear power has been
controlled by the central government, mainly for non-energy purposes (weapons),
and not exposed to commercial accountability…. So long as India's nuclear
industry remains isolated, it is hard to see that India will build more than
the
occasional reactor as the cost basis for nuclear equipment will be too high and
fuel needed for such reactors will not be available….
On
Coal: In the
foreseeable future coal is expected to provide most of India's electricity. In
fact, coal has not met its full market potential in the last decade… India
has
(therefore) begun to encourage private investment into coalmines and pithead
power plants that will send the coal "by wire" to the national electric grid
rather than via railcars. India has adopted favourable rules to encourage
investment in the inter-state power grid, enabling movement of much larger
quantities of electricity. Changes in import tariffs are making it easier to
import high quality coal, and also inducing India's domestic coal industry to
perform better. India is soliciting bids for five new 4 GW coal-fired power
projects ("ultra mega power projects") – two of which will produce
electricity
at coal pitheads in the interiors and three coastal plants that will import
foreign coal supplies.
Dr.
David Victor concluded: "The question for India's energy
future centers on the rivals to coal…. On the one hand, high prices have
discouraged (but not stopped) investment in plants that use gas. Indeed, some
investors who would have built gas-fired power plants are now looking closely
at
coal. On the other hand, barely a month passes without the announcement of new
gas discoveries in India (in particular the large resources discovered off the
country's east coast). These new gas supplies may eventually help to lower the
price of gas, which in turn will allow for a much larger gas-fired generation
capacity".
The UPA's eagerness to
finalize the nuclear deal is intriguing to say the least, especially as
nuclear energy would meet only a small fraction of the country's energy needs.
India should improve its energy
production regime using currently available technologies and take the
production
efficiency to a minimum of 95%. In
concert with SAARC nations, India must invest heavily in non-conventional
technologies and change the energy scenario within the decade.
Many experts who have studied the
cloak-and-dagger Indo-US nuclear deal call it "No Clear Deal". After
Nagasaki-Hiroshima, three nuclear accidents, the Bhopal gas tragedy, and global
warming, neither India nor the world needs to dabble with unsafe technologies
and the destruction of civilization itself. I conclude with a remark of late
Indira Gandhi, who in the early 1970s
said: "At present 97% of the world's research is not relevant to us
because it is earmarked for the priorities and to the induced appetites of
technological leaders". Will someone heed this profundity?
