Indo-US Nuclear Deal

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Nuclear Energy

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Some facts about nuclear energy:
  • Independent studies carried in various parts of globe indicate that despite tall claims of nuclear energy industry and its strong lobby, this energy is much costlier compared to other traditional sources, including coal and gas based. During the last 20 years, the costs of coal have fallen gradually whereas after 2004, cost of uranium has increased four-fold !
  • Australia has vast resources of uranium whereas it does not have a single nuclear reactor.
  • After 1970, not a single nuclear reactor has been raised in USA.
  • Oil and gas can be bought easily in international market whereas nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel business is badly in political grip. In this business, there is no purity of bilateral deals. India need not forget how Washington had stopped nuclear fuel to Tarapur reactor in 1978.
  • So far as nuclear research itself is concerned, France has surpassed USA in this field.
  • USA has become habitual of kicking international agreements and protocols by presenting its own arguments and definitions, ignoring international opinion - its words are no longer trustworthy.
  • Apart from nuclear proliferation regime, US interest now is to give life to its ailing nuclear energy industry by selling nuclear reactors to India.
  • India should utilize its own resources of thorium (India has reportedly 31 per cent of thorium available on earth) in producing nuclear energy.
  • India should also invest in solar energy research and wind-power, which provide carbon-emission free, pure energy.
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dndeswal said:
.
Some facts about nuclear energy:
  • Independent studies carried in various parts of globe indicate that despite tall claims of nuclear energy industry and its strong lobby, this energy is much costlier compared to other traditional sources, including coal and gas based. During the last 20 years, the costs of coal have fallen gradually whereas after 2004, cost of uranium has increased four-fold !
  • Australia has vast resources of uranium whereas it does not have a single nuclear reactor.
  • After 1970, not a single nuclear reactor has been raised in USA.
  • Oil and gas can be bought easily in international market whereas nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel business is badly in political grip. In this business, there is no purity of bilateral deals. India need not forget how Washington had stopped nuclear fuel to Tarapur reactor in 1978.
  • So far as nuclear research itself is concerned, France has surpassed USA in this field.
  • USA has become habitual of kicking international agreements and protocols by presenting its own arguments and definitions, ignoring international opinion - its words are no longer trustworthy.
  • Apart from nuclear proliferation regime, US interest now is to give life to its ailing nuclear energy industry by selling nuclear reactors to India.
  • India should utilize its own resources of thorium (India has reportedly 31 per cent of thorium available on earth) in producing nuclear energy.
  • India should also invest in solar energy research and wind-power, which provide carbon-emission free, pure energy.
.
Click to expand...

Deswal Sahab,

Most of these studies have a motive well before they are initiated. I would counter most of these conclusions;

1. Coal is cheaper beacuse its a source of green house gases. Let us look at the increase in demand of coal if it has increased world over significantly over the years.

2. Price of oil has gone up almost 5 folds during last 5 years. We don't know how much further it would increase.

3. Agreed, USA did not make any new Nuclear Reactor since 1970. Does it prove that Nuclear power is not safe or the power of future ? By this logic USAtopped all its moon missions also and most of the world thought that they are all useless. However, we know how many countries are falling over each other to land on Moon.

4. Cost is always high in the begining. Just to inform that in 8th centuary the cost of sugar was so high that only the very high ups could afford in in Europe. Today anyone can afford sugar. I am sure same is true with almost any technology and Nuclear power is no different. Computers used to cost fortune 20 years back and now one can get them in a month's salary even in India.

5. Nuclear deal should not be seen just as a electricity generation. Its much more than that. This deal would have given India access to all sorts of technologies which are denied at present. Our competitors are having edge over us. We have to break these shakles of technology denial.

RK^2
 
?

Indo-Us deal ka to jo hoga wo hoga...

...but i think if someone has to prepare a seminar on Indo-US deal he don't need to look out for google or other searching tools...
...as on our JatLand we have got ample amount of valuable contents.

We feel proud to be within an INTELLIGENTIA
 
The reason for appreciating Mr. Dahiya's input was that he brought some valid points to the discussion. Usually, there are no simple and clear cut answers to big questions like energy security. The beauty of this nuclear deal is that it makes the government confront their positions on a lot of policies- Energy, foreign policy, Climate change, Defense. Now, none of us are the experts of All these fields (that would awesome though!) but would like to increase our knowledge through each others respective inputs. Thats the point here, right?

Not nuclear scientist but how hard is it to understand that the following questions are pretty basic to the debate (taken from Mr. Dahiya's post or cut and paste- kindly confirm if these are your own views or somebody else's, one would assume they are the person's own views if no source is cited)-
- how much nuclear can contribute to India's future energy basket?
- what would it cost?
- what are other alternatives that might be more effective within the same cost?

Coal and nuclear both have immense weaknesses as their technologies stand now. Both also present great opportunities (clean coal technologies that are not yet commercially viable might provide some answers to energy problems in future...coal being most abundant and without the deadly radioactive properties of nuclear waste). It would be great to know what better technologies are available for disposing nuclear waste (that can remain radioactive for centuries) than dumping it under water or concretized landfill (Vivek, your link tp cosmos magazine doesn't work properly). At present, I can tell you that much that natural gas is cleaner, safer, cheaper and abundant. We are not talking about oil here...oil is a much much smaller part of electricity generation worldwide. What are the sources of natural gas near India- Iran and Russia.

I think the deal should go through on its merit of opening the channels of fuel and technology supply, agreeing with RKji that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. But the government should keep their channels open for other sources of energy.

History tells us that US has used its agreements as arm twisters...US has produced the Saddams and Osamas in the world, US has messed up Iraq. Any agreement with US should be carefully considered. Their motives should always be suspect. The 123 agreement is pretty clear...mentions non-interference in each others affairs...but what has the Bush government promised the US senate, please check the following link that provides the Act that was passed by the US Senate- clearly identifies this move as another tool for Alienation of Iran:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h5682enr.txt.pdf

A sample paragraph from the Act:

(G) A description and assessment of the specific measures
that India has taken to fully and actively participate
in United States and international efforts to dissuade, isolate,
and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its
efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including
a nuclear weapons capability and the capability to enrich
uranium or reprocess nuclear fuel and the means to deliver
weapons of mass destruction.​
vivek said:
Left is using the good old strategy about if you cannot persuade them with reason, confuse them with bullshit. I am certain that 99.9% of the Indian legislative people have no idea what nuclear technology is about and if what Mr. Dahiya cut and pasted makes sense from a scientific point of view or not. Similarly I suspect that people agreeing with Mr. Dahiya cut and paste(including Mr. Dahiya) have no idea if these concerns are valid or not because they are not nuclear scientist. Its amusing to see people agree with an argument that they have no idea is valid or not. Same thing goes with the legislative body...they will pretend to understand the objections for the fear of sounding ignorant.

Lets look at some of the tidbits.... The link below says that India is seeking to buy that technology from US.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL3045358520070330

Another link below tells us that this is really environmentally friendly and does not produce the deadly nuclear waste.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348

So if we are to believe the left, we should not sign the deal with the US, because they will not let us use a more environmentally friendly technology that they would sell to us. I read the 123 Agreement and I am no lawyer, but I did not see any prohibitive use of thorium. There is a long complicated paragraph objection by Left about dual use, and using thorium as part of the old style plutonium technology......why would you not phase that out as it produces the dreaded highly radioactive waste? Wouldn't most of the thorium be used in thorium based plants rather than these 'jerry rigged' hybrid plants?


What I do understand is that Iran and Pakistan would like nothing better than for India to be dependent on that pipeline for their energy needs, so they can blackmail India whenever they feel like it. I also understand is that demand for oil is increasing exponentially, and supply is finite. I also understand that Left has a reason to come up with objections...and they were opposed to it even before the deal was inked.
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Indo U S Nuclear Deal

Dear All

we had a seminar on Indo nuclear Deal about 20 days back from the plateform of Haryana Vigyan Manch. lot of dliberations were there . Whatever I could gather there I have put it up. We may not agree or we may agree . there is always a language of civic society debate.

Some more arguments are given in this article

http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky081007.htm

R.S.Dahiya
 
Continues to haunt me :)...

Seema's aptly answered your question about the BJP's 'opposition'

I do believe though that parties in opposition are much more true to their ideologies (at the time)....as mentioned by a friend of mine...political power and ideologies do not mix well together...especially in a democratic setup.


kabir said:
Sorry, Priti. I am afraid, this question will continue to haunt you. For, I bet, even the Left doesn't know why it is against the N-deal.

The only possible explanation I could come up with is: the real problem lies in the N-deal's prefix which says "Indo-US". Had it been "Iran" or for that matter "China" better still "Cuba" or "Venezuela" instead of the US, we, I am sure, wouldn't have been discussing the issue.

Now that I've, or so I believe, answered your query, can you or any one else help me understand why the BJP is opposed to the deal?
Click to expand...
 
So true! I have an answer here...but the devil is in details..

rameshlakra said:
It is true that it is US startegic need to have India on its side, and that is fair enough and dont have to be looked with suspicion. As long as country is getting benefitted, what we need to look is that how best we bargain in order to get "energy security" and thus an accelerated development to the country. There will be quantum jump in energy security if we have access to the fuel and technology. So it is in our interest and there's too and afterall no deal is done without mutual interest.
Click to expand...
 
Priti

You asked three valid questions
-how much nuclear can contribute to India's future energy basket?
- what would it cost?
- what are other alternatives that might be more effective within the same cost

To the first question, France gets over 75% of its energy from Nuclear Fuel. Theirs was a decision to go nuclear in order to be self reliant, and not be affected by Geo-Political situations. Here's a link that is informative about the French alternative. I am not sure what the barriers are for India to not achieve the same in long term. Sure, the initial thrust of the program is going to be small, but as we learn from it, it can be expanded.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm

The current cost that the French Nuclear power produces is about 3 cents per Kilowatt. I am sure this can be achieved in light of improved technology. I am not sure what the cost would be, but fossil fuel based cost is only going to get higher, and the opportunity cost for converting into a Nuclear based energy is also going to get higher.

Here's an interesting article on Thorium based nuclear plants.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348

India has abundant supply of Thorium. The intruiging part about this is that Thorium isn't vulnerable to out of control chain reaction, and the waste produced is much safer....enough for it to be called 'green.'

I am all for coal based power plants, but your global warming crowd is against it. You cannot get away from Carbon Di-Oxide as an end product.

You mentioned Natural gas Pipeline. I wouldn't build any infrastructure around any pipeline through Pakistan, and I also tend to be suspicious of Iran. Just like a drug dealer, they will try to get India dependent on their product, and then once dependent, ask exhorbitant prices, or try to do extracct other costs..

Self Reliance is the way to go as far as energy goes. Its a given that Fuel prices are going to go up exponentially if recent past is any indication. It does everyone good, if everyone consumes less fuel, as all petroleum products are ultimately derieved from crude oil....not to mention that transportation cost are hidden in every product we consume.
 
dahiyars said:
Dear All

we had a seminar on Indo nuclear Deal about 20 days back from the plateform of Haryana Vigyan Manch. lot of dliberations were there . Whatever I could gather there I have put it up. We may not agree or we may agree . there is always a language of civic society debate.

Some more arguments are given in this article

http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky081007.htm

R.S.Dahiya
Click to expand...

I wouldn't waste my time reading from Chomsky. He a strict devotee of socialism, and virulently anticapitalistic to the point of becoming a loon.
 
Nice Vivek, you seem to know quite a bit about this stuff...thanks for the writeup. France is definitely much ahead of everyone in exploiting nuclear energy. They seem to have a good hold of the waste recovery/disposal methods for the future too. Wonder why India cant collaborate with them too!

I know, those global warming freaks ;), never seem to consider whats practical...oops, i said it...look at the biofuel issue...rocketing the food prices high...these kind of things really make me think that there are no straightforward solutions as are presented in the public sphere...I dont particularly like the discussions terming something good or bad...its really what is being done to improve it that is more interesting...coal is a case in point...i dont consider it completely bad...some coal companies, governments are working towards clean coal technologies (capturing carbon...liquidifying coal etc.) but its a work in progress...these technologies are said not to be commercially feasible till 2020...some demos are going on but no electric utility company has been able to adopt these yet...As compared to nuclear..these are more costly in process but less in capital input...but no use talking about these at this point...

self-reliance is the way to go...nice to know interesting qualities of Thorium.

you're bang on target about the transportation costs...might be a surprise to many but sometimes upto thirty percent of cost of metals is transportation (ofcourse, depending on the geography, fuel prices, fleet efficiency etc.)

Good discussion. Thanks!

vivek said:
Priti

You asked three valid questions
-how much nuclear can contribute to India's future energy basket?
- what would it cost?
- what are other alternatives that might be more effective within the same cost

To the first question, France gets over 75% of its energy from Nuclear Fuel. Theirs was a decision to go nuclear in order to be self reliant, and not be affected by Geo-Political situations. Here's a link that is informative about the French alternative. I am not sure what the barriers are for India to not achieve the same in long term. Sure, the initial thrust of the program is going to be small, but as we learn from it, it can be expanded.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm

The current cost that the French Nuclear power produces is about 3 cents per Kilowatt. I am sure this can be achieved in light of improved technology. I am not sure what the cost would be, but fossil fuel based cost is only going to get higher, and the opportunity cost for converting into a Nuclear based energy is also going to get higher.

Here's an interesting article on Thorium based nuclear plants.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348

India has abundant supply of Thorium. The intruiging part about this is that Thorium isn't vulnerable to out of control chain reaction, and the waste produced is much safer....enough for it to be called 'green.'

I am all for coal based power plants, but your global warming crowd is against it. You cannot get away from Carbon Di-Oxide as an end product.

You mentioned Natural gas Pipeline. I wouldn't build any infrastructure around any pipeline through Pakistan, and I also tend to be suspicious of Iran. Just like a drug dealer, they will try to get India dependent on their product, and then once dependent, ask exhorbitant prices, or try to do extracct other costs..

Self Reliance is the way to go as far as energy goes. Its a given that Fuel prices are going to go up exponentially if recent past is any indication. It does everyone good, if everyone consumes less fuel, as all petroleum products are ultimately derieved from crude oil....not to mention that transportation cost are hidden in every product we consume.
Click to expand...
 
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