India and the nuclear energy

DESARAJU SURYA
Hyderabad: India will produce 20,000 MW of nuclear power by the year 2020.
“We may as well exceed this target,” Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar has said.
Talking on the sidelines of the three-day international conference on Characterisation and Quality Control of Nuclear Fuels organized by the Nuclear Fuel Complex at the Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, Kakodkar said the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has started work on four 700 MW nuclear power plants for which the Government of India has given approval in principle. Each megawatt of nuclear power would cost Rs 6 crore.
He said plans were also afoot for another four 700 MW nuclear plants and fast breeder reactors. “We also will go in for some light water reactors that have a capacity of over 1000 MW each. We are in discussion with prospective vendors for constructing the light water plants and hope that very soon we will be able to actualize these projects,” Kakodkar said.
He said the Government of India gave in principle approval for development of sites at Jaithapur and Kudankulam. The initial work in this regard was on.
Replying to a question, the AEC chief said private players could be allowed into nuclear power business provided they had “prior experience in Indian conditions.”
“It’s important that whoever would enter into nuclear power business must have prior experience in Indian conditions. It is unlike other businesses because in nuclear business you have to run the facility whether or not you produce power. We have to ensure there is control on nuclear materials and so there are demands on such entities,” he said.
“It can’t be a vision driven by profit and loss. It’s also a vision which has to have long-term stability based on demands of nuclear energy business,” Kakodkar noted.
The Atomic Energy Act specified that the nuclear energy business could be carried out by a government company in which the Centre had a 51 per cent stake.
The Act also enabled both government and private entities to participate within this framework, he added.
NPCIL, the AEC chairman said, has the capability to take on new projects and deliver them within time and budget. NPCIL recently signed a MoU with NTPC for power generation and was also talking to others approaching it, he said.
Referring to the current economic recession across the world, Kakodkar pointed out: “Situation in India is not as bad as some other countries. But we can’t say it doesn’t affect our programmes.”
Stating that India required energy in increasing quantities, he added that the energy should be clean, which did not contribute to any green house gas emissions. This would, however, take quite some time because we are primarily dependent on coal. There were several drivers for growth of nuclear energy in India, he noted adding that this could in fact be one way of getting out of the economic slowdown problem. “NPCIL has its own strength to some extent. We should be in a position to carry on reasonably comfortably,” he observed.