Should the government revisit the energy mix policy?

The Japan shocked global nuclear energy industry heaved a sigh of relief last month when a senior government team, led by environment minister Jairam Ramesh, gave the go ahead to the controversial Jaitapur nuclear power project to be build by French nuclear energy major Areva. This has by far been the most profound signal from India to the big boys of the global nuclear industry.   

The nuclear energy industry has been at the receiving end after the Fukushima disaster with several countries making their intent to look beyond the nuclear option loud and clear. The nuclear energy debate is not new but what is alarming is that on latest empirical evidence the option appears to have lost it to the renewable.

India’s go ahead to Jaitapur, come to now symbolise the sharp divide on the nuclear energy issue, came ironically a week after a report by Worldwatch Institute, a global environment research institute, in collaboration with the Green EFA party in European Parliament, claimed the annual capacity additions in renewable energy had been outpacing the nuclear option for the last 15 years. 

Presenting a bleak scenario, the report said that as of April 1 there were 437 nuclear reactors operating in the world—seven fewer than in 2002 concluding that the role of nuclear power was
declining steadily and now accounted for merely about 13% of the world’s electricity generation and 5.5% of the commercial primary energy.

Did India act in haste? Or did it simply choose to ignore ground realities? Lead author of the Worldwatch report, Mycle Schneider, told this paper that especially considering the international context after the beginning of the Fukushima disaster the plans for the expansion of nuclear power in India had lost the very last bit of credibility.

His recipe for India is to embrace renewable energy given that the country has a phenomenal potential for intelligent, decentralised, efficient renewable energy based economy closely sticking to people’s needs. Drawing conclusions from empirical evidence from past Indian projections and promises, Schneider termed the nuclear energy story here as the big Indian fantasy.

Even if one were to discount his criticism and the Worldwatch report generally as a green lobby act it is hard to ignore some solid facts the report presents, especially in view of the rather ambitious target India has at hand on nuclear energy. The 2006 Planning Commission appointed Dr Kirit Parikh expert body on Integrated Energy Policy (IEP) estimated India to produce 63.000 mw of nuclear power by 2032 from the current level of 4,780 mw or about 3% of total power capacity. 

Parikh today is unfazed by the Japan shock save the safety aspect. He is keen to stay the nuclear course. His grouse though is against the government for the half hearted manner in which it has implemented his report, especially on the need for competitive pricing for all energy options. 

But is it the huge subsidy element that makes this option attractive to nuclear energy majors?  Dan Yurman, nuclear energy blogger at Nuke Notes, who said last year that the French and the Russians are all descending here in pursuit of business pegged at about $150 billion, says India must not abandon the course, but in terms of safety and costs it must strengthen its legal and regulatory framework to ensure there is an independent oversight function with enforcement powers to guide safe construction and operation of new nuclear reactors.

If one were to purely go by the Worldwatch outlook there is astounding empirical evidence on offer for the non-nuclear option. While India ranked pretty low, with an investment of just about $4 billion in 2010 as against $3.2 in 2009 in renewable energy, China was the world leader, investing $54.4 billion in renewable in 2010, followed by Germany at $41.2 billion and the US at $34 billion. Italy more than doubled its renewable energy investments in 2010, to $13.9 billion.

China, in particular, has become the global leader for new capacity in both nuclear and wind power. Even with a three to four times lower load factor, wind was likely to produce more electricity in China in 2011 than nuclear power. Consequently, according to the Worldwatch report,  for the first time the cumulative installed capacity of wind farm power, small hydro power and biomass and waste to energy and solar power reached 381 gw outpacing the installed nuclear energy capacity of 375 gw prior to the March disaster in Japan.

The tone ironically for the rather modest approach to the renewable option in India was actually set by the IEP Parikh committee report in August 2006, which said that even if India somehow succeeded in raising the contribution of renewable energy by over 40 times by 2031-32 inclusive of a renewable power capacity of 1,00,000 mw (compared with 6,161 MW as on March 2005), the contribution of renewable to India’s energy mix would not go beyond 5.6% of total energy required in 2031-32.
Is it not time to revisit the entire energy mix policy?

— The writer is editor-Zee Research Group (ZRG)