A new dawn

The first of the twin 1000 MW reactor units of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project coming within a step of electricity generation is a landmark in more ways than one. To start with, no nuclear project in India has been put to the kind of public scrutiny that Kudankulam has, helped no doubt by a dose of local politics and religious sensibilities. It required the intervention of the Supreme Court which recently gave the go ahead, subject to the project authorities complying with certain safety and security guidelines. The commissioning of Kudankulam-1, which will be followed by the second 1000 MW unit by March, signals a revival of the country’s nuclear power programme. The importance of this, especially after the Fukushima Daiichi accident of March 2011 that gave a fresh impetus to anti-nuclear activism, cannot be underestimated.

But even the current revival has little meaning when one looks at projects under construction. These are limited, comprising only Kudankulam 2 and the four additional units of 700 MW each at Kakrapur and Rawatbhata. Even assuming that these are completed within the next three years, India’s nuclear power capacity will only double, to around 9,600 MW. This represents hardly 4.3 per cent of the country’s existing aggregate installed capacity. With the signing of Indo-US nuclear deal, which has opened up possibilities for import of reactors and enriched uranium supplies tied to these, the potential for raising the share of nuclear power no doubt exists.

But the challenge here is the Nuclear Liability Act that Parliament passed in 2010, exposing the reactor supplier to criminal liability or damage claims in the event of any nuclear accident. Placing liability on the reactor manufacturer (rather than the operator of the power plant) has not been taken kindly to. Those aggrieved are not just the likes of GE and Westinghouse but even the Russians, who had earlier contemplated building four additional units at Kudankulam. The equipment producers’ hesitation to assume liability is understandable, as there is no rational basis for evaluating risk and factoring this into their costs. In the circumstances, there is no option but for the State to assume the risk, subject, of course, to the exercise of due diligence on its part. This is akin to the State stepping in whenever there is a market failure in the supply of any good or service. The current liability provisions have queered the pitch for the addition of 25,000 MW of capacity through imported light water reactors, as projected during the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal. The irony is that the Government feels comfortable underwriting the risk of nuclear accidents with its own pressurised heavy water reactor technology. The commissioning of Kudankulam will certainly have an overall positive impact on public perception of nuclear energy. A truly independent nuclear energy regulator will help reinforce this.

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