The announcement by the Prime Minister's Office that the government will soon create, through appropriate legislation, an independent and autonomous Nuclear Regulatory Authority that subsumes the existing Atomic Energy Regulatory Board will be widely welcomed. Those concerned with India's nuclear safety and regulatory issues have long been of the conviction that what needs to be done cannot be directed and implemented by a body that is under the authority of the very system it is mandated to oversee. The official assurances of complete transparency in the nuclear power domain, the promise to put the post-Fukushima reviews of nuclear safety in the public domain, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call to the atomic energy establishment to continuously engage with public opinion on safety are not without significance. Further, Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has taken the lead in this ‘new thinking' with his willingness to engage in public debate on a difficult issue and with his concrete proposals to assuage serious concerns. However, the government will be fooling itself if it does not recognise that public opinion remains apprehensive in light of what has happened at Fukushima. Reassuring words need to be backed with actions that demonstrate that the independence and the autonomy of the new authority as well as the promises of transparency will be real and substantive.
Against this background, what causes concern is the government's dogmatic insistence that it is not willing to take a fresh look at the Jaitapur power project. Reiterating its determination to go ahead, it has insensitively added that a comprehensive environmental review will be undertaken after the project's first phase of two 1650 MW reactors is completed by 2019. At stake is not merely compensation for those whose assets and livelihood will be affected by the project, though that is important. The crux of the disputation is related to fears regarding the long-term environmental impact of the project and the long-term safety of the reactor complex. The government would do well to address these issues directly and transparently, abandoning any fear that pressing the pause button would result in anti-nuclear-power groups running away with the agenda. Its assurance that it takes strengthening domestic nuclear capabilities seriously lacks credibility, considering that it has virtually ruled out the possibility of modifying the Jaitapur project in overall scale as well as the size, design, and make of the individual reactors. If the new policy outlook on nuclear safety is to win credibility among the people, the government must halt the work in progress at Jaitapur and talk sincerely with the protesters and the sceptics, keeping an open mind on the future of the project.
Keywords: Jaitapur power plant, nuclear safety, Jairam Ramesh
Nuclear Plants are silent Killers and I have authored a book on the subject in 1990 and i succeeded in stopping the location of a Nuclear Plant at Nagarjuna sagar with the help of an enlightened public in Andhra Pradesh during 1990's when the chief minister and union government were bent upon locating it at nagarjuna sagar project.The effort succeeded because the mass media in those days helped in publishing my articles in the edit page of a most popular daily known as 'EENADU' which took keen interest in projecting issues of serious public concern for the benefit of the public for several days and that led to formation of Anti-Nuclear societies in many villages and towns and even unibversity students organised public agitationa against Nuclear plants.There are nine web sites to highlight these issues under the title "Nuclear plants-The silent killers"see:http://tshivajirao.blogspot.com/2008/02/environmental-impact-of-nuclear-plant.html
http://sites.google.com/site/profshivajirao/nuclearsafety-3
http://tshivajirao.blogspot.com/2010/04/nuclear-plant-risks-srikakulam-district.html.
please see the other web sites also to get more details.
Though I believe that setting up of Nuclear plant is surely detrimental, but from development point of view it's essential as well. Considering rapid consumption of Fossil Fuels, we as a country desperately need Nuclear energy as an option to serve our energy need. But can it be done at the risk of human life? Answer is surely no. But by assuring international level of security we actually proceed further. Moreover, I think that the catastrophe of Chernobyl and Fukushima has already provided the list of Do's and Don'ts as far as safety issue of Nuclear plant is concerned. This list can be used as a base to built a highly reliable nuclear plant to give desired output .
Three mile island,Chernobyl,Fukushima are the stark reality of the darker side of the purpoted clean energy campaign.When only about 4% of the energy needs are to be met by Nuclear Power,why do politicians crave to set up virtual time bombs to the detriment of the safety of the people of the region.We have many alternate clean energy sources in Wind,Solar and less polluting Natural gas based energy generation options with us.We don't have a fool proof technology against natural disasters in operating any hazardous industry and so nuclear option for generation of power should be the last choice. Time and again it is proved that nuclear energy is not that clean,going by the experience.
In fact, it was the same USA which imposed sanctions when we conducted the Nuclear Test. But now when they need Indian Currency, they are advocating us to go for clean energy. Can present government tell us that if USA is not bothered about environmental issues (they did not agree to emission cut, they do not agree to per capita emission) then why India is so keen to make USA rich? Why India is not exploiting its own natural resources, making small dams, going for solar energy, wind energy and so on and so forth. I strongly feel that the Congress party should be told that we are free now, they should not behave like slaves!!! They can have our own independent policy, which is based on only one principal, that is 'national interest' and not American interest.
In the light of what has happened in Fukushima, governments have to be serious about the safety of Nuclear Plants. Indian people need 'Electrical energy at reasonable cost with no production risk as far as practicable'. Looking after the people of immediately affected by this project should be also taken into consideration in total. Safe design and looking after the people effected by the project can go hand in hand if the Government really means business. It will be difficult to see why Indian government will not be able to do this if it is serious about getting the projects done at reasonable costs. All stakeholders in this project should benefit from this project not only the company producing the Electricity and the Contactors who will be building this project. All interests icluding the would be rate payers and the people who may be displaced because of the project including its effect on near by production capacity of the land and water areas should be treated fairly. Hope Governments will do the right thing for the people. Otherwise why should you even have a democratic government?
The father of American Nuclear Submarines Rickover has said the nuclear power must be outlawed. See Three Mile Island-An accident that will occur again: http://threemileislandtofukushimamindfrozen.blogspot.com/
That is the crux of the matter. That is why the issue of nuclear debate is crucial- a referendum lasting at least five years: Going to each nook and corner of the country for the referendum will achieve two things- bring in awareness to people on corrupt ways of modern civilisation and secondly the government will be forced to be clean and adopt what people want is good for them through consensus. One must shudder at the way the truth about Fukushima and Chernobyl is being held back from the public. One must read the real dangers of such technology in the catastrophes of Chernobyl and Fukushima and ban nukes once and for all. It is easy to see that not only Jaitapurs but all nukes are to be banned: There will be always credible highly probable ways in which the nuclear power programmes will always fail to provide adequate safety as they increase in numbers as of even now. They say Jaitapur is an untested conglomoration of reactors. But the truth is no design can really be pretested for catastrophe. Its just too dangerous! And the whole thing is ideally Goedelian: There will always be a scenario of catastrophe which is left out of the designs! Specialists realise this or else! Even now a Fukushima or a Chernobyl is just round the corner which however is opaque to the greedy. Just have a sense or feel for how many hundreds of thousands of infants may be at risk of death because of Fukushima:
http://deathdealersnukes.blogspot.com/
Our government is still living in the dark ages. Nuclear energy is passe, it is DEAD as Germany,China, Russia and now U.S. are moving away from it. In the event of a disaster we taxpayers will have to pay as no insurance company will cover the scale of accident cost. The government has to first pay scientists to find a way of disposing the spent fuel rods without danger to earth and society. Since there is no known method for dealing with nuclear waste, the government is lying when it says nuclear is SAFE We are a democracy and the government, whether it likes it or nothas to listen to its people and expecially its scientists and not business and political babus. This is exactly why TEPCO is in deep trouble. It DID NOT listen to the advice of the scientists on the panel and the scientists resigned in protest. Tepco went ahead and now is literally in TEARS and heavily guarded with security as many young Japanese men have the officials on their Death list. If the govt tries to go ahead without a public hearing, India will have left the path of Democracy and entered the Path of Dictatorship in the event of which uprisings will occur and much death and violence will ensue. Indian people are fed up of the lies, deceit and conning by people in power and will want these Babus out just as the libyans want Gaddafi out and now the Syrians are following suit. However we have not yet survived Fukushima as the reactors will spew in Severts and not in milliseverts or microseverts for Nine months. 9 Severts will kill a person in a few hours. The radiation is accumulative and that is why Cesium in disturbing amounts is being found in tap water in California carried there by the jet stream and sea lions have already started washing up dead or floundering on the California coastline.We might not even be alive by the end of this year with all the spewing going on in Fukushima as there is no reliable way to cover 6 reactors as the Russians did at Chenoble. Even now the Russian cover has worn out and needs to be replaced to the tune of one billion dollars
All this unpleasantness coming from a government that has no love or sympathy for its people is distressing us to the maximum. So much stress laid on us when we are wondering if the air we breathe, water we drink and food we eat is irradiated or not (Can we rely on these mean people to give us the right readings on radiation levels in our country? NO. All this for 13% percent electricity when 30 percent is lost in faulty transmissions and faulty power lines. We lose many electricians because of the bad towers and there is a shortage of electricians as all the youngsters are funneled into the IT business.
The government would do well to understand that nuclear power and safety issues are not a zero sum game between for and against lobbies. What the public and the activists demand is an informed debate. Holding facts from coming into public domain is not the way serious decisions are taken in a democracy. Post Fukushima serious debates over India's program for energy security has become all the more important. The government would do well to welcome an extensive debate taking into account all the stakeholders for charting out the future plans before proceeding ahead with any nuclear projects. Its all the more disappointing that the government decision to go ahead came on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
The UPA government, it appears, is patently immune to the miseries of commonmen, who virtually suffer death and destruction at the anti-people policies. The government stand sentinel to the corporate interests of the world. Any sane government may understand the misgivings of the ordinary people in respect of the Jaitapur nuclear plant in the context of the recent Fukushima tragedy. Even the people in Japan organise movements to admonish their government to have retrospection and rethinking on nuclear policies. It is the bounden duty of our government to allay the fears of the people in an overt way to proceed with the nuclear plans, for all development policies are ultimately intended for the ordinary.
After the recent disaster in Japan, what is in question primarily is whether a nuclear power plant in its concept, design,installation, operation, waste management aspects etc is safe enough to be installed and operated,especially in a populated region? A nuclear safety regulatory authority can only ensure that stipulated safety norms are followed. It can do nothing about the inherent safety hazards if any in the system. The media should help debate this issue.
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