UN's nuclear watchdog: Rajasthan reactors are among world's safest

[Agent_47]

Rawatbhatta: Good news for India from the UN nuclear watchdog that intensively audited over several weeks two reactors at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station for safety. It has concluded that the reactors are among the best in the world, the indigenously made 220 MW atomic plants can withstand a Fukushima type of accident, even suggesting that the "safety culture is strong in India".

After completing the first ever audit, speaking exclusively to NDTV, the head of the Operational Safety Division at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Miroslav Lipar, who has over 35 years of nuclear experience with more than a decade in the IAEA, said "improvements were necessary in fire protection and electrical cabling systems".

Mr Lipar said this was the 171st such nuclear audit in the world and the first of its kind for India. According to him, "India emerged a winner with a high global safety rank." (Watch: IAEA lauds safety of Rajasthan reactors)

When asked if the plant incorporated additional safety features necessitated after the accident at the Fukushima atomic reactors in Japan, Mr Lipar said "the emergency preparedness was optimal", with sufficient back-up power and cooling systems being in place.

But the big question is - will this calm the critics who oppose nuclear energy?

This international peer review was precipitated when the Indian nuclear establishment faced a deluge of questions on the safety of Indian nuclear reactors with fears sky-rocketing, especially after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan last year.

This was a first hint of transparency in the highly secretive Indian nuclear establishment. Interestingly and in comparison Pakistan subjected its atomic power reactors located at the Chashma site for a similar peer review as far back as 2004.

In an unprecedented step India agreed to allow for the very first time safety inspectors from the IAEA to thoroughly audit over a period of several weeks two nuclear reactors at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station, namely units 3 & 4, for their operational safety.

The international audit was a voluntary confidence-building measure initiated at the prodding of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, so the Department of Atomic Energy, for the very first time gathered the courage to subject its indigenously-made 220 MW atomic reactors to an international peer review of the safety procedures.


Speaking to NDTV, G. Nageshwar Rao, Director (Operations) at the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, Mumbai, said, "Here onwards people should not have apprehensions about Indian atomic reactors." (Watch: Nothing to worry about India's reactors)

Still not convinced, critics like former Atomic Energy Regulatory Board chairman Dr A Gopalakrishnan are urging India to subject the oldest reactors the country has at Tarapur, the two boiling water reactors made by General Electric, namely units 1&2 which have a vintage of 1969, to an open safety inspection.

Mr Gopalakrishnan says, "These two smaller Tarapur units are totally unsafe and should have been shut down long ago as they are of a similar kind like the atomic reactors that exploded one after another at the Fukushima site in Japan."

Countering this criticism, Mr Rao says, "We have no reservation of subjecting older reactors to a peer review and if the government wants Tarapur 1&2 these can also be audited by the IAEA safety team at a later date, but initially the thought was that learnings should flow to reactor types namely the Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors that are the mainstay for India and are now totally indigenously made, the benefits of a peer review could be best for these reactors that will last the country another half a century or more."

But will this thumbs up by the global nuclear watchdog really help allay fears of radiation leaks and accidents? The country has been witness to unparalleled protests in Tamil Nadu at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant where locals oppose the commissioning of the 1000 MW Russian made reactor dubbing it unsafe. Mr Rao feels this endorsement from the IAEA should help quell voices of dissent that vociferously oppose the country's desire to ramp up the installed capacity of atomic reactors to 63,000 MW in the next two decades from the 4800 MW installed capacity in 20 reactors that exist today.

UN's nuclear watchdog: Rajasthan reactors are among world's safest | NDTV.com

Interview Video- [video]http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/fromndtv/254860[/video]

 

[Abingdonboy]

atomic plants can withstand a Fukushima type of accident, even suggesting that the "safety culture is strong in India".

Should silence a few idiots!

Got all wet for nothing!!






And best part- "MADE IN INDIA"!!!!!!!

 

[BATMAN]

India has worst history of safety record and habits when it comes to work place.
Bhopal incident was one such example, where poisonous gas was leaked due to habitual negligence.

 

[Abingdonboy]

India has worst history of safety record and habits when it comes to work place.
Bhopal incident was one such example, where poisonous gas was leaked due to habitual negligence.

You're right that was ONE example (some 28 years ago IIRC)- care to give another? If you're going to label it as having the "WORST HISTORY OF SAFETY" there must be 100s of similar incidents.

 

[Gessler]

India has worst history of safety record and habits when it comes to work place.
Bhopal incident was one such example, where poisonous gas was leaked due to habitual negligence.

Pandemic Biological Warfare

There was a serious accident at a plant in China...hence, China was worst safety record of biological agents

ELITE Trolling.

 

[sancho]

Should silence a few idiots!

Why? Only because they are safe today, doesn't mean they will be safe throughout their whole life, because that requires credible and constant upgrades. Not to mention that the same was said about Japanese reactors too and we know what happend.
There is no way to guarantee 100% safety with nuclear reactors, a single incident is enough to effect a large area of the country and that for several decades. Also what most people ignore, nobody in the whole world has any clue what to do with the nuclear waste! It will be there for 100s of years, has to be safely stored and secured as well, with high costs that most people don't include in their cost/benefit calculations.

All these are reasons why I am highly against nuclear power, but I am also not naive to think that an emerging country like India with such a huge population could do it without. However, people must know about the risks and the costs and we have to put more focus on renewable energy, to limit the ammount of nuclear reactos = limit the risks.

When Germany and now Japan, 2 of the most technically developed countries in the world say, we can't control this energy and must develop ways without it, people in other countries should start thinking too!!!

 

[madooxno9]

Why? Only because they are safe today, doesn't mean they will be safe throughout their whole life, because that requires credible and constant upgrades. Not to mention that the same was said about Japanese reactors too and we know what happend.
There is no way to guarantee 100% safety with nuclear reactors, a single incident is enough to effect a large area of the country and that for several decades. Also what most people ignore, nobody in the whole world has any clue what to do with the nuclear waste! It will be there for 100s of years, has to be safely stored and secured as well, with high costs that most people don't include in their cost/benefit calculations.

All these are reasons why I am highly against nuclear power, but I am also not naive to think that an emerging country like India with such a huge population could do it without. However, people must know about the risks and the costs and we have to put more focus on renewable energy, to limit the ammount of nuclear reactos = limit the risks.

When Germany and now Japan, 2 of the most technically developed countries in the world say, we can't control this energy and must develop ways without it, people in other countries should start thinking too!!!

Though i kind of agree with you , as it also made me think when germany and japan started to loose their cool with Nuclear energy . But on the other side we must see that India is by far larger in land mass and population , and we all know the situation of energy in India is not at all adequate . If we stick to a good standards and keep these nuclear plants running for some foreseeable time . who knows we will have some kind of energy derivative. We got to take this risk anyways and hope your fission reactor comes up too. We must also take France into considerations as they have clean history and they running 70% of their energy needs with nuclear. I personally feel AREVA the french company is best out there for nuclear plants. We should have given larger share to French .

 

[Abingdonboy]

Why? Only because they are safe today, doesn't mean they will be safe throughout their whole life, because that requires credible and constant upgrades. Not to mention that the same was said about Japanese reactors too and we know what happend.
There is no way to guarantee 100% safety with nuclear reactors, a single incident is enough to effect a large area of the country and that for several decades. Also what most people ignore, nobody in the whole world has any clue what to do with the nuclear waste! It will be there for 100s of years, has to be safely stored and secured as well, with high costs that most people don't include in their cost/benefit calculations.

All these are reasons why I am highly against nuclear power, but I am also not naive to think that an emerging country like India with such a huge population could do it without. However, people must know about the risks and the costs and we have to put more focus on renewable energy, to limit the ammount of nuclear reactos = limit the risks.

When Germany and now Japan, 2 of the most technically developed countries in the world say, we can't control this energy and must develop ways without it, people in other countries should start thinking too!!!

Fair enough, it is of course far from ideal but needs must- for India it has very little alternatives.

But by "silence a few people" I meant that all those idiots saying India was prone to the a Fukishima like incident should be silenced by this because I have always said that simply isn't the case and now there is yet more evidence of this.

 

[kam83]

You're right that was ONE example (some 28 years ago IIRC)- care to give another? If you're going to label it as having the "WORST HISTORY OF SAFETY" there must be 100s of similar incidents.

Ignore him..he is just royally piss*d coz there another dream of Indian reactors being "sub-standard and dangerous" has been shattered......its a cry from a broken heart.....

This will put mud in the mouth of many ppl on this forum

 

[arp2041]

Why? Only because they are safe today, doesn't mean they will be safe throughout their whole life, because that requires credible and constant upgrades. Not to mention that the same was said about Japanese reactors too and we know what happend.
There is no way to guarantee 100% safety with nuclear reactors, a single incident is enough to effect a large area of the country and that for several decades. Also what most people ignore, nobody in the whole world has any clue what to do with the nuclear waste! It will be there for 100s of years, has to be safely stored and secured as well, with high costs that most people don't include in their cost/benefit calculations.

All these are reasons why I am highly against nuclear power, but I am also not naive to think that an emerging country like India with such a huge population could do it without. However, people must know about the risks and the costs and we have to put more focus on renewable energy, to limit the ammount of nuclear reactos = limit the risks.

When Germany and now Japan, 2 of the most technically developed countries in the world say, we can't control this energy and must develop ways without it, people in other countries should start thinking too!!!

Sancho, i totally agree with u, that nuclear energy carries a lot of risk, but so does any other set up that can be said to be a hallmark of a developed country. Look at what happened in Bhopal, an industrial set-up released a toxic gas that killed thousands of people around Bhopal, does that mean we shouldn't have any industry across India?? NO. The answer to risks can only be to minimize it, not just do away with the development.

Rest assured that Indian nuclear reactors are one of the safest nuclear reactors in the world since they are directly operated by a govt. organisation NPCIL & no private sector player is allowed to have there hands on nuclear energy in India thus making nuclear power generation in India a highly regulated industry. The incidence that bothers everyone the world over can be attributed to many factors which are not present in India, like the Chernobyl disaster was a result of insufficiently trained staff operating a highly sophisticated reactor that can result only & only in a disaster but that's not the case with India since each & every person involved in operating nuclear reactors in India is highly trained & skilled person. Similarly the Japanese Fukushima disaster was a result of greed of the private player operating the plant who, if i am not wrong, din't took the necessary steps to make the reactor more safe by not going for more costly equipments, again this is not the case with India since as i said before plants are operated by the govt. player whose priority is the safety of the general public over there own greed.

India is the second fastest growing country in this world & the most important thing it needs is ENERGY above everything else, India needs to look at any source of energy generation it can harness since India is not blessed by hydrocarbons, so it will look to every source equally & whether we like it or not, nuclear energy is one of the best source of power generation anywhere in the world currently, India plans to increase the nuclear generation capacity from current 2.5% levels to 10% levels by 2030, so it has to dramatically increase the power generation capacity & these protests are just holding back the development of India as a whole.

I never believe anything blindly but for the case of Kundukulam reactor, i would happily like to go by the govt. version that these protests can be foreign sponsored since again those reactor are made to the safest standards possible in nuclear industry, ofcourse no one can guarantee 100% safety as that cannot be given for anything, but i doubt how come local villagers understand the technicalities of operating a nuclear reactors when even highly educated people don't completely understand those, maybe Americans working overtime to make a Russian project a non-starter.

 

[brahmin]

Its very near to Pakistan so safety includes proper military defence too

 

[sancho]

Though i kind of agree with you , as it also made me think when germany and japan started to loose their cool with Nuclear energy . But on the other side we must see that India is by far larger in land mass and population , and we all know the situation of energy in India is not at all adequate . If we stick to a good standards and keep these nuclear plants running for some foreseeable time . who knows we will have some kind of energy derivative. We got to take this risk anyways and hope your fission reactor comes up too. We must also take France into considerations as they have clean history and they running 70% of their energy needs with nuclear. I personally feel AREVA the french company is best out there for nuclear plants. We should have given larger share to French .

The problem is that many people believe nuclear energy is the biggest contributor to the energymix of a country, but that is not the case:

As you can see, it covers only a fraction of the global or even Indias energy and could simply be replaced with renewable energy forms, the problem is only, that the world is suffering from the climate change too and therefor it is more important to reduce the numbers of powerplants that just burns natural resources like Oil, coal and gas.
In comparison and with regard to emitting CO2, Nuclear energy is a clean energy and that's why many supporters wants to keep it, although the high risks.
Renewable energy on the other side is the only one that offers it all, clean energy, reduction of CO2 emissions and no risks, that's why this is the energyform of the future and why it is so important to focusing on it today!


P.S. Only because the French might have a good safty record, it doesn't mean that we are safe now, we have different standards then them, we have several none French nuclear powerplants and it doesn't matter which county you come from, when a human or technical error happens.

 

[sancho]

Fair enough, it is of course far from ideal but needs must- for India it has very little alternatives.

But by "silence a few people" I meant that all those idiots saying India was prone to the a Fukishima like incident should be silenced by this because I have always said that simply isn't the case and now there is yet more evidence of this.

Abingdonboy, you shouldn't say people are idiots only because they demonstrate for what they believe. That is a democratic right and we should be happy to have it!
Also, it's naive to believe that India is prone to a nuclear melt down, we have Tsunamis, Cyclones, or Earthquakes too, India lies in a conflict region and what if a civil aircraft will be hijeckt and hits one of the reactors? Correct me if I'm wrong please, but are Indian reactors upgraded with air defence systems? Germany thought about it after 9/11, but it would have been a costly upgrade and that's why it wasn't done. But can we rule out such things wouldn't happen and what are the results for India after such an incident?

Besides these that these protesters wants to show their point of view, they also want to inform the public about the risks, because there are so many things that are generally unknown and that are not discussed in a fair manner, because people call them simply stupid, or don't take them serious, BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS 2 SIDES OF THE STORY and we should look at both in an unbiased way and then take an opinion!

 

[sancho]

Sancho, i totally agree with u, that nuclear energy carries a lot of risk, but so does any other set up that can be said to be a hallmark of a developed country. Look at what happened in Bhopal, an industrial set-up released a toxic gas that killed thousands of people around Bhopal, does that mean we shouldn't have any industry across India??

That's a different industry and a different story itself, not to mention that it would have never effected even 1/4 of the people that could be effected by a nuclear accident.

For the rest, please check my the replies to madooxno9 and Abingdonboy.

 

[trinity]

Lets take a serious look at the facts. The UN wants to pass legislation allowing nuclear trade its a win win for many economies. The opposition to India;s reactors was fueled by the indigineous population not NGO or foeign influences. Rajasthan location is ideal but looking at Tamil Nadu it's the complete opposite. When the UN document describes how the Rajasthan nuclear reactors can withstand Fukushima type of accident, then I queston its data. how can we compare that incident in Japan to this? Look at the location itself. oone is located near seawater and in Rajasthan its located near rivers and dams. Come on......a document with more holes than swiss cheese. Im not saying Rajasthan reactors are not safe but look at a bunch of factors not one. How come they never exmined the possible locations in TN?