‘NSG has nothing to do with N-Energy’

Perhaps Prime Minister Narendra Modi should lend ears to expert voices within the country be fore attempting to coax international players to win a place in the elite NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) league. Meet Harvard educated physicist Suvrat Raju with the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace based in Bengaluru who calls Modi’s NSG bid as a propaganda tool and it means nothing to India. He answered questions of DTNext on a wide range of topics.

You have been criticising the Westinghouse project deal with US. From what you have written, it would have become a major scam in any other industry. Why not in this? There has been no tender or competitive bidding process. Westinghouse is a loss-making company. Not even one reactor of this type is functioning anywhere in the world. The basis on which the government decided to spend 60 billion dollars without competitive bidding is a debatable point. 

Then why did it not face public scrutiny? We have been raising this point. If it turns out be something like Enron, in retrospect, after 10 or 15 years, people will ask why scrutiny was not done at the time of the project. Also, there has been consistent support from both the Congress and BJP governments at the PM level and there was no significant opposition. Only safety concerns were raised. Left parties mentioned it. But significant Opposition parties did not raise it. Opposition does not want to be seen as opposing electricity. 

You have campaigned for nuclear disarmament. Where does the public discourse start? We tried to raise awareness. Most important is the movement on the ground. Udayakumar is doing it in Kudankulam and so does the movement in Jaitapur. The movements are organising people directly affected by the projects. But, in the end, there is so much political pressure. They are unable to overcome the pressure. People are only raising safety concerns, but no one talks about the economy of the deals? In Jaitapur, they are doing it. The movement has many parts. Economics has been scrutinised. It is true that people who are directly affected are most concerned about safety. In Kudankulam, the issue was different. 

Movement was long standing. It erupted after Fukushima. It was a question of whether it should be commissioned or not. TN state may be affected very seriously if the cost is high. The question to be asked is if there is a fixed power purchase agreement. The cost of US reactor AP1000 will work out at Rs 25 per unit. By cost-cutting we may reduce it by 10 or 20%. But we cannot make it Rs 5 per unit in India. 

Any likelihood of cost coming down over years as the plant goes on? Tariff varies with lifetime. It will certainly be more expensive than other sources. Fuel is not a major part. Largest part is capital investment. That will not change. Interest is very important for capital-intensive projects. 

That can be said about all industrial investments, not just nuclear reactors. How much return a reactor is giving should be calculated. If it is not making returns, the investment should be made elsewhere. We did a detailed calculation. These are just first year tariffs, including transmission and distribution costs. These tariffs vary over years. They will never come down to Rs 5 or 6 per unit of electricity. They change. They come down a little down and go up due to inflation. These sources of power are so expensive that there is no chance they will be competitive. 

Whether Rs 25 or 17 or 18, it is irrelevant because other sources give you power at Rs 5 or 6 per unit. So this is many times more expensive and hence it is not competitive. In Jaitapur Shiv Sena opposed. But Fadnavis does not stop. The Centre goes ahead. Can nobody prevent? In West Bengal they were not able to do because the state did not want it. Lack of political will allows them. If CM Jayalalithaa seriously does not want KKNPP, she can stop, at least the third and fourth reactors. The State government has a role. Without its cooperation, a plant cannot be established.

It took time for people to understand what 2G is. Will people understand the nuclear power subject too? Is it too complicated to educate people? People reacted to the individual corruption. In reactors, there is no evidence of such policies made under the influence of corruption. It is likely. There could be. But this is more an anti-national policy. 

Corruption is something people are able to understand and associate. Then there is the larger problem of loss to the exchequer. People react more due to the issue of corruption than the issue of loss to exchequer. Similarly, nuke projects cause loss to exchequer. To make people react to that is harder than making people react to direct corruption. 

India signed nuclear deal with US in return for diplomatic benefits. India got a waiver in 2008. The actual benefit, which is purchasing enriched uranimum, from the waiver obtained by Manmohan Singh is minimal. The total impact of it on electricity production is very minimal. Actual tangible impact of the waiver is less than one per cent of country’s actual electricity production, but the country is paying a heavy price for it. 

What is the use of spending so much money for recognition by someone?  The NSG is not all-important. The purchase of enriched uranium is of no use because we have heavy water reactors. If the waiver allows us to buy, why push for NSG? India does not use enriched uranium. Then why enriched uranium? You cannot say India can export reactors, because there is no demand for Indian reactors. NSG has nothing to do with nuclear energy. 

The issue was not even brought to the Atomic Energy Commission. It is a diplomatic thing. One of its selling points. If India had got into NSG, they would have claimed that they made it great. I don’t see any other tangible benefit from NSG membership. Even if India becomes NSG member, it is still not clear if it can buy because it has not signed the non-proliferation treaty.