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The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act has made nuclear electricity generated from imported uranium prohibitive in terms of cost, said B K Chaturvedi, former Member (Energy) Planning Commission.
“Cost of electricity from imported uranium is 1.5-2 times higher than that produced from locally sourced fuel. Nuclear power from locally sourced fuel is at around ₹ 4-5 a unit,” said Chaturvedi.
He added that it is important to keep the cost issues in mid while interpreting the liability law to ensure costs does not become prohibitive. “High unit costs will be a big set back to the nuclear programme,” said Chaturvedi.
India currently gets uranium supply from France, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and has total requirement of around 1,000 tonne a year.
Meanwhile, to ensure greater usage of locally available nuclear fuel in the form of thorium, Chaturvedi recommended increasing the pace of the fast breeder reactors.
“It is not important for other countries but for us it is important as we have large thorium resources,” said Chaturvedi.
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