Selling Radioactive substances (capable of being weaponised and thereby also capable of bringing widespread destruction to life and property and making vast expanses of land radioactivefor maybe a 100 years or so) to any country be it India, Pakistan or any other country could never be productive and safety is the last thing that the writer of this column should speak of!!Safety could only be ensured in a nuclear free world!!I know most people would not agree and speak about Nuclear deterrence,no first use and all that. . . .to those people I would humbly request them to go and speak with the people of HIROSHIMA and NAGASAKI!!
While I agree on the safety aspect, India being a growing economy desperately needs to add power to continue on the growth path. Coal fired plants for electric power are at most a temporary solution as this is not a renewable source of energy.
The electricity sector in India has a present installed capacity of
202.98 Gigawatt (GW) , which is the world's fifth largest. Out of this, thermal power plants run by coal constitute 66% of the installed capacity, whereas nuclear power accounts for just
4.8 GW of installed electricity generation capacity using nuclear fuels.
However, India currently suffers from a major shortage of electricity generation capacity,
even though it is the world's fourth largest energy consumer after United States, China and Russia. The International Energy Agency estimates India needs an investment of at least
$135 billion to provide universal access of electricity to its population.
Where safety is concerned, India's nuclear power generation effort satisfies many safeguards and oversights, such as getting
ISO-14001 accreditation for environment management system and peer review by
World Association of Nuclear Operators including a pre-start up peer review.
And by the way, in 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported the discovery of uranium in a new mine in India, the country's largest ever.
The estimated reserves of 64,000 tonnes, could be as large as 150,000 tonnes (making the mine one of the world's largest). The new mine is expected to provide India with a fuel that it currently imports. Nuclear fuel supply constraints had limited India's ability to grow its nuclear power generation capacity. This mine is expected to commence operation in 2012.
Uranium enrichment is not an issue now. India has sufficient weapon grade Uranium to produce enough nukes keeping in tune with our nuclear doctrine. Therefore, this nuclear fuel will primarily be used to augment India's overall electricity production and not for making nuclear weapons!
Cheers!