Saviour or monster?

In  the  raging debate  on the Indo-US nuclear  deal,  a crucial aspect that has been  rendered cloudy due to exaggeration from both sides is the role that can be played by  nuclear energy in the future scenario of power generation  in  India.  

The supporters of the deal have painted nuclear power as a white knight that will save this country from a power-starved future. The antagonists characterise nuclear energy as a monster which will lay waste the environment  with  radioactivity and emphasise that  we would  be better off laying  our bets on non-conventional renewable energy sources like the sun, wind  and  biomass.  

Both are wrong.  The pro-nuclear group is grossly underestimating the difficulties of putting up nuclear power-generating capacity.  It  has  taken  India  over  40 years  to put up the current commercially operating nuclear  power   capacity  of  a mere 3,779 MWe .

Another 2,976  MWe  of  nuclear  power  capacity is  supposed to go  into  commercial   operation  towards the end of 2010 . 

Because of  safety  issues relating to  containing radioactivity,  the construction of a nuclear power  plant  is extremely complex  in terms of  materials, processes, safety standards, stipulations,  inspection,  and trials as compared with a coal or oil-based  thermal power plant.

Each of the initial lot of nuclear power plants in India took anywhere from 6 to 8 years to complete.  The pace has picked up a bit for the latter lot, but it still takes from 4 to 6 years for a plant to be put up now. 

And these are plants of 200 MWe capacities. In contrast, you can put up a 4000 MW coal-based thermal power plant in four to six years. As against this experience of putting up 7000 MWe  in 50  years,  the  UPA  government  is claiming that , provided the gates of international  supplies of fuel, equipment, expertise and funds are opened up following the ratification of the nuclear deal,  the nuclear power capacity can be ramped  up to  20,000 MWe  by 2020  and  another 20,000 MWe  can be  added by 2030. 

This is the height of optimism. These grandiose plans will most likely founder, in the first instance due to protracted delays in getting community approval at the proposed sites and, in the second instance, in getting adequately-skilled   manpower.

As of now, nuclear power represents a mere 3 per cent of the of total power generation capacity installed in India. Even  if, post the nuclear deal,  all the 40,000 MWe capacity  comes into being  by 2030 as projected by the nuclear lobby, which is highly unlikely,  it will still represent  just 10 per cent of the total  power-generating capacity of  4,00,000 MW expected  to be installed  by  2030.

Let us now turn our attention to the other end of the spectrum — the non-conventional, renewable energy sources. According to the ministry of new and renewable Energy (MNRE), as on March 31, 2008, a grand total of 12,632 MW, which includes everything from solar and wind to biomass-based power generation. Compare this to current total installed power-generating capacity of 1, 45,000 MW, and we get an idea of how pitiful is the contribution of these renewable energy sources.

The fundamental weakness of all these alternative energy resources is their distributed nature.  This means you cannot generate a large amount of power in a small area, using such resources. For example, India is supposed to have a total wind power potential of 65,000 MW.

But the MNRE has itself pointed out that wind-power farms require 12 hectares per megawatt. If we take into account the international practice of setting up grid-interactive wind power systems on sites having wind power density greater than 300 W/m2, the national potential would be only 5000 MW.

Or take deriving electrical energy from sunlight using photovoltaic panels, which is supposed to be the fastest-growing alternate energy industry in the world today. A recent housing project near Kolkota which used this technology deployed 16 square metres of photovoltaic panels per house for a capacity of 2 kilowatts. 

If we were to translate this to the requirement of panel area for a 1000 megawatt power plant, it would come to an impractical 9 million square metres! 

I am afraid the romantics will have to wait for the day when scientists crack the problem of extracting hydrogen from sea-water on a commercial scale at a cost cheaper than that of natural gas.  Till then,  India’s  power  demand will have to be met  largely  by coal  and  natural gas,  both  of which , unfortunately , are carbon dioxide emitters when combusted.  Perhaps the government of India needs to focus more on developing technologies to trap and store this carbon dioxide.  

The writer is a commentator on public affairs.