'DNA' investigations: Kudankulam plant fails to meet safety regulations

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) had placed several conditions for fresh water requirements of the Kudankulam Power Nuclear Plant (KKNPP) but many of these conditions have not been met raising questions over the plant’s safety in case of a disaster.

As per AERB guidelines, there should be an alternative source of water all the time and storage of 60,000 cubic metres of water in the island should be built before KKNPP starts functioning. None of those conditions has been met. Fresh water is the primary coolant for nuclear reactors. Reactors cannot operate without it.

In Kudankulam there is no alternative source of water, which was one of the pre-requisites laid down by AERB in 1989 while sanctioning the project, as per documents in the possession of DNA. When the issue was raised by activists, government said that another source of water is not required as desalination plants are sufficient to meet requirements.

“Regarding other water sources desalination plants have been designed for sufficient capacity... Hence, the question of water utilisation from other sources, such as Pechiparai dam and Tamirabharani river, does not arise,” the expert committee report states.

“The dependence on a single source — desalination plant — would be fatal in case of any natural calamity like a tsunami. This was the exact case with Fukishima in Japan,” said EAS Sarma, former power secretary, Government of India. Moreover, desalination plants run on electricity which could be disrupted.

Further, dependence on a single source of water also raises concern on water requirement during seawater recession. During the 2004 tsunami, the maximum extent of ocean withdrawal was less than 5km, usually about 3km in the Indian Ocean, said Tad Murty, an Indian-Canadian oceanographer and expert on tsunamis.

He conducted a field survey on tsunami in Kanyakumari in 2008. “Every year, coastal Tamil Nadu has faced the issue of seawater withdrawal at least thrice a year,” said VT Padmanabhan, member of Peoples Movement Against Nuclear Energy expert panel. Though these events have been reported, no scientific study has been conducted by NPCIL so far, he said.

However, Arun Bapat, a Pune-based seismologist consultant, who accompanied Murty during the 2008 survey, said seawater recession is a precursor to a tsunami and not a permanent phenomenon.

Tsunami hazard manual released by United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March 2009 states that if seawater withdrawal is an issue at the site, then chances of the reactor going in for a dry intake should be studied thoroughly. But dry intake can cause damage to the turbines and reactors. Every minute a reactor needs thousands of cubic metres of seawater.  “During such episodes, the seawater intake for the reactors will be disrupted as instead of drawing water, the intake pipes would be drawing just air, and thus causing damage to the reactor,” said Padmanabhan.

Besides, the Environment Impact Assessment by National Environmental Engineering Research Institute prepared in 2003 for KKNPP 1&2 states that there will be a reservoir with a capacity of 60,000 cubic metres of water. However, currently, only 11,000 cubic metres is available in different storage tanks inside the plant, which is enough to meet the water requirement, according to the expert committee. DNA has a copy of the report.

“The provision of water storage and inventory available in various tanks is adequate for cooling requirements of reactor plant for at least 10 days, in case of power failure from the grid (even though the regulatory requirement is only seven days),” says the report. NPCIL did not respond to an e-mail sent to its official id.