Nuclear Power Capable of Mitigating India’s Energy Crisis
Unless India moves towards sustainable and long-term energy sources, policy-makers see India facing a energy crisis in the future. In this nuclear energy emerges as an immediate and relatively sustainable solution to an impending energy crisis.
A successful organization of any nuclear power programme is hinged on an efficient strategy for nuclear waste management, and after 2009, India gained full sanction for being a part of the global nuclear energy market.
Since then, India’s nuclear capacity in the nuclear power programme has been growing exponentially. Globally, the share of nuclear power in electricity generation had witnessed a decline from 17 per cent to 11 per cent between 1995 and 2015 (R. Anderson, 2015). India however, plans to increase its nuclear power capacity to 14.6 GWe by 2024 and to 63 GWe by 2032, and has plans to have 25 per cent of its electricity supply to be supplied by nuclear power by 2050 (World Nuclear Association, WNA, 2016).
Until 2009, India’s exclusion from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its nuclear weapons programme hampered India’s full participation in the global nuclear market. It also harmed India’s efforts at developing civil nuclear energy. India possesses low reserves of uranium (a nuclear fuel). However, during this period India has developed a nuclear fuel cycle that utilizes its thorium reserves.
The highest amount of electricity from nuclear energy is utilized in India in the states of Maharashtra (690 MW) and Gujarat (559 MW) (CEA, 2013). India’s energy consumption grew to more than twice than that of 1990 to 25,000 PJ by 2011 (WNA, 2016). India’s dependence on imported energy sources and the slow pace of reform in the energy sector are hindrances to energy self-sufficiency in India.
One-third of the population is not connected to any electricity grid and 19 per cent of the population is without any electricity, while three-quarters of electricity supplied in India comes from coal (WNA, 2016), which is plentiful in India as a cheap source of energy but is a major contributor to greenhouse gases and overall pollution, other than being a perishable resource. As such, the trend in India is to look for other sources of energy for electricity generation that are cleaner, cost-effective and productive. India also needs to move forward in the long-term from its energy dependency on a perishable energy source.
Some Benefits of Nuclear Energy
Nuclear power as an energy source is a sustainable source of energy, whether it is evaluated from the point of view of impacts on the climate, waste disposal and safety (provided caution is exercised), land use and technology transfers. First of all, nuclear power plants do not produce greenhouse gases such as carbon di oxide, carbon monoxide, methane, etc, allowing nations to honour their commitments towards meeting emission targets under the various international conventions and domestic pollution control targets, while generating great amounts of energy at the same time.
Nuclear power plants are also a concentrated source of energy production, and lead to judicious land use. The abundance of uranium, the fuel for nuclear power plants, and the extremely high conversion rates allows long-term energy consumption with low amounts of fuel.
Nuclear power can also be a cost-effective form of energy production for developing economies, provided that they have access to nuclear technology. These allow nuclear technology to be utilized for the generation of a cost-effective and relatively sustainable form of energy without constantly harming the environment, unlike fossil fuels.
Nuclear Waste Management in India
However, nuclear power can cause problems the form of toxic radioactive material in the form of nuclear waste that is hard to dispose of.
Nuclear waste management is dependent on its properties, which can be radioactive, chemical, or physical properties. High-level radioactive wastes are made up of complex amalgamations of radionuclides (radioactive forms of elements) of about 30 to 40 different elements.
Most of these radionuclides are toxic and emit radioactive particles like alpha, beta or gamma rays during their decay. The disposal of high-level radioactive wastes requires their storage i.e. containment and concentration.
There are different time periods for which high-level radioactive wastes need to be isolated and stored, depending on the amount of time the radioactive wastes take to decay i.e. reach a level roughly equal to naturally occurring radiation levels i.e. to that of uranium ore for example. The time period required can sometimes extend up to more than 1,00,000 years and as this makes storage difficult, technologies are being developed in an effort to reduce the time period to about 1,000 to 10,000 years.
The nature and severity of the health effects of radiation exposure depends upon the amount of radiation and the time for which one is exposed to radiation. Radiation exposure in relation to human health can be chronic or acute exposure. Continuous or intermittent exposure to radiation over a long period of time leads to chronic exposure. In chronic exposure the health effects are observed a certain time period after exposure to radiation, and most commonly leads to cancer. Other health effects include genetic changes, cataracts, tumors, etc.
Acute exposure occurs when large parts of the human body are exposed to large amounts of radiation and can occur one time or multiple times over intervals of time (USEPA, 2017). Acute exposure leads to radiation sickness, which is a collection of health effects taking effect within 24 hours of acute exposure to radioactivity involving mainly cellular degradation and its various symptoms.
Smaller exposures can lead to gastrointestinal effects, nausea, vomiting and reduced blood counts. A larger exposure can lead to neurological effects and even death. As the cells of pregnant women and foetuses divide rapidly, providing greater opportunity for radiation to spread and cause cell damage, they are particularly at risk of exposure to radiation.
In terms of the governance of radioactive wastes, the first point is that radioactive wastes can only be handled by trained personnel who are specialists. They mostly work in among the 446 nuclear power plants operational in the world that produce radioactive wastes (IAEA, 2017).
However, other than the organizational aspect, the only legal policy to implement safety standards in managing radioactive wastes internationally is the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.
While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) manages nuclear safety in the international arena, in India the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) formulates policies and lays down safety standards concerning nuclear energy.
The AERB exercises regulation by laying down guidelines and a licensing system based on stage-based evaluation. India’s nuclear safety programme includes reactor design policies, radiation exposure targets, radioactive waste management, and preparedness for nuclear emergencies.
Nuclear scientists say that India is vigilant towards radioactive wastes as regards the environment and believes in containment and concentration of radionuclides rather than their eventual dispersal in the environment (U.C. Mishra, BARC, 2011).
In a bid to develop an efficient strategy for nuclear waste management, India has recently developed a method for nuclear waste immobilization of high-level nuclear waste using a sodium-barium-borosilicate glass matrix.
India is also trying to use the same matrix to manage nuclear wastes generated from the closed thorium fuel cycle method of producing nuclear energy.
Conventionally the hot wall induction furnace technology is used in the development of inert glass matrices. India has however recently been developing by itself cold crucible induction melters and Joule heated ceramic melters in developing inert glass matrices for nuclear waste management (Sengupta, Kaushik & Dey, 2017).
The geological immobilization of radioactive wastes, seen as among the most effective techniques, or a similarly effective storage technology effectively implemented would represent the best alternative to India in the disposal of nuclear waste.
One only needs to remember the Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island disasters to understand the horrific impacts radiation discharges can have on the environment and health. In such a scenario, a proper method and discipline of storing radioactive wastes, coupled with a regulative infrastructure that supports nuclear safety and an international regime that facilitates and ensures the presence of safety standards and infrastructure in case of deficiencies in India’s nuclear power programme is imperative.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.