NUCLEAR ENERGY NEEDS AND PROLIFERATION MISCONCEPTIONS
by R. Chidambaram
(This is the keynote speech given at the International Symposium
organised by Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, Tokyo, 7-8 March, 2001.
Reproduced with his permission)
Introduction
Per capita electricity consumption is an important measure of
development in a developing country (Chidambaram, 1993). It is
obviously related to per capita Gross National Product, but it also
correlates strongly with Life Expectancy in developing countries, as can
be seen from the central portion of Figure1. Per Capita GNP and Life
Expectancy are two of the three main parameters used by the U.N. in
defining the Human Development Index. While there are differences due to
ethnic and national factors, there is a definite trend of increasing life
expectancy from an increasing per capita electricity consumption. If any
electricity producing system is introduced in a developing country, a good
part of the electricity produced will be used up by the industry and
services sectors and a part will go for urban consumption but a part will
also go to fulfill the needs of small towns and villages, which will get
better health care and other amenities and this has an impact on all
health parameters including life expectancy which is the ultimate health
parameter. If the developing countries of Asia want to aim for a quality
of life comparable to that in the already-developed countries, their
electricity production must go up substantially.
Fuel Resources
Now, one can look at possible energy sources. Fossil fuels are
likely to run out sooner or later. India, for example, has a couple
of hundred billion tons of coal located mostly in the eastern part of the
country and, for the next two or three decades, most of its power sector
growth will indeed have to come from coal-based thermal plants. But,
after that, like the rest of the world, India will also begin to think of
conserving fossil fuel sources for carbon-based industries of the more
distant future. Hydroelectric systems use a renewable resource and,
in addition to electricity, provide water for irrigation but inevitably
they displace people and have also been criticised for disturbance of
ecology. Solar, wind, biomass and other renewable sources are very
important, but, at the present time, are not competitive, except in remote
areas, with hydroelectric, fossil fuel-based thermal or nuclear
power. It is in this context that one must see the increasingly
important role that nuclear energy is likely to play in satisfying the
future energy needs of the world (including India). In some
countries, which have no significant indigenous fossil fuel sources,
nuclear power is seen as providing energy security.
The Carbon-Di-Oxide Emissions Problem
The effect on climate change by greenhouse gas emissions has been a
matter of scientific debate for many years. In the recent (October
2000) COP6 Climate Change Conference at the Hague, the Chairman of the
UN's Inter-Governmental panel on Climate Change Robert Watson announced new
estimates of likely increases in global surface temperatures over the next
100 years (NUCNET, 14 November 2000). He said that, according to
revised scientific models, temperatures are now predicted to rise by
between 1.5 and 6 degrees Celsius, compared with an original projected
range of 1 to 3.5 degree Celsius. Even at the lower limits,
such changes in global climate could have alarming consequences.
Though the issue of atmospheric CO2 emissions as the principal
driver of climate variability has been recently contested by Jan Veizer et
al (2000), by interpreting the 18-0/16-0 oxygen isotope ratio variation
in marine fossils (there is some doubt about the validity of their proxy
CO2 concentration estimations), the general consensus among
scientists studying climate change makes out a strong case for reducing
fossil-fuel emissions by developed countries. The contribution of
nuclear energy in reducing CO2 emissions in the past, and
possibly in the future, if a rational attitude to this clean energy source
is adopted, has to be recognised.
Proliferation Misconception
John Ritch III (1999), the former U.S. Ambassador in Vienna and the
present Secretary-General of the Uranium Institute in London has said:
"The fear of nuclear proliferation is simply misplaced in the global
warming debate. Most current carbon consumption in countries which
already have nuclear weapons or which can be relied upon as good faith
parties to the NPT. And the largest growth markets in energy
consumption are China and India, both of which already have weapons
capabilities. In short, almost everywhere the reduction in carbon
emissions could yield important benefits for climate protection,
proliferation is not
even an issue."
The "full scope safeguards" system is specific to the NNWS and is
implemented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. In
its presently strengthened form, IAEA's verification activities seek
credible assurance not only of non-diversion of declared nuclear material
for weapons’ purposes but also of the absence of undeclared nuclear
activities (Obviously, therefore, other Treaties like CTBT and FMCT are
basically irrelevant to NNWS). The NWS, as designated by the NPT, accept
"voluntary safeguards" on a few of their civilian facilities.
For other countries, the safeguards are specific to nuclear materials in
the facilities established through international cooperation and to
imported nuclear materials. In
the case of India, we have such "facility safeguards" agreements
with IAEA for the reactors at Tarapur (TAPS 1 and 2), Rajasthan (RAPS 1
& 2) and we will have them for the two VVER-1000 reactors being setup
in Kundankulum. Any reasonable world nuclear order can only expect
countries to fulfill their international safeguards commitment and no more
than that.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines, however, make demands
beyond genuine proliferation concerns and are obviously coercive in intent
and are slowing down the expansion of nuclear power capacity in the world.
In the case of India, given its large nuclear market, the present NSG
guidelines, which asks for "full-scope" safeguards as a
pre-condition for international cooperation in reactor construction, also
have negative consequences for the commercial interests of potential
supplier countries.
NPT is only one of many Treaties and Agreements in the world. It is a
Treaty to which many countries have become signatories voluntarily as
Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS) in the hope of achieving global nuclear
disarmament. Many others joined NPT, as NNWS, convinced that their
security concerns will be addressed by one or another State with Nuclear
Weapons, and that they will be sheltered under the so-called ‘Nuclear
Umbrella". The Treaty left the security concerns of India unaddressed.
India exercised self-restraint for a long time but had to finally
weaponise in the context of a sharply deteriorating security environment
in its neighbourhood. Clearly the only long-term solution of the problem
is to eliminate all nuclear weapons - meaning, universal nuclear
disarmament. Any lesser solution must still take into account the genuine
security concerns of all nations.
The NPT is an "inherently unfair" Treaty, as stated in the
writeup for Session I. It has an arbitrary cut-off date of January 1967,
for the carrying out of a nuclear explosive test, for designation as a NWS.
This is equivalent to saying: "You may have a postgraduate degree,
but if you got it after 1 January 1967, you will still be presumed to be
uneducated!" After the May 1998 nuclear tests, Prime Minister
Vajpayee has declared that India is a Nuclear Weapon State and that it
will maintain a credible minimum nuclear deterrent. In the article by
Paine and Mckinzie(1999), which discusses, among other things, sharing of
nuclear weapons knowledge in the world , it is clearly evident that India’s
nuclear weapon programme is based on self reliance. India also exercises
excellent physical protection on materials and strict export controls so
that no equipment, materials or technology from India has ever been
misused. One of my western friends once told me that India is considered
by them "a classical non-proliferator." This springs from the
Indian culture and ethos, the demands of its modern democratic set up and
its interest in a stable world order. Incidentally, these characteristics
of us (even if I be so immodest as to say so) - and not just our size -
that makes us such a credible candidate for the permanent membership of
the UN Security Council and also makes us a useful partner in any
endeavour to strengthen peace and stability in the world.
Today, in my opinion, Proliferation has a special connotation
in the context of countries which try to possess a nuclear weapon
capability through clandestine acquisition of weapon design, weapon
related technology, materials and equipment and of countries which
clandestinely help them in violation of their international commitments.
Such nuclear weapon capability, though not likely to be sustainable over a
period of time in the absence of self-reliant materials development,
equipment servicing and ageing management capabilities, could also lead to
further illicit trafficking, a matter of great international concern.
Asian Nuclear Power Expansion
While one hears a great deal about the flattening out of the nuclear
power growth in the United States and Western Europe, this is not a global
phenomenon. This is seen from Figure
2, which plots the growth of
the number of operating nuclear power reactors in the world, regionwise (Mourogov,
1998). While there is a slowdown in growth in North America and
Western Europe - driven, I think, by the fact that their levels of energy
consumption are already very high, and, therefore, there is no significant
demand for more energy and they are also now conscious about the need for
energy conservation - the number of reactors in Asia is continuously
growing. Nuclear power grows where there is an energy need and also
the necessary industrial and scientific infrastructure to support this
high technology. Asia (including India) always had the energy need
but the requisite infrastructure is growing only in recent years - of
course, Japan is an exception.
In a meeting in Seoul, organised in 1997 by the Atlantic Council of USA
and in which I participated, the Asian commitment to nuclear power was
identified as being motivated by the following considerations: nuclear
power seen as an important option to satisfy rapidly growing energy needs,
energy security, non-uniform geographical location of coal and its future
exhaustion, air quality improvement and greenhouse gas benefits,
technological spin-offs of high technology and, in general, a supportive
public environment (see Balzhiser et al, 1997).
The Indian Nuclear Programme
In five decades of development, India has created a wide ranging
multi-disciplinary and self-reliant infrastructure in nuclear science and
technology. Initiated with Canadian collaboration, our own developments in
a Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor(PHWR) technology over three decades have
been so extensive that our PHWRs were referred to in a recent IAEA
document as INDU, rather than CANDU! Almost all the equipment and
component of PHWRs - both 220MWe and 500MWe - are manufactured by Indian
companies. The 14 reactors operating in India are currently running at an
average capacity factor of over 82 percent. Of these, 4 were commissioned
over a fourteen - month period during 1999-2000. For the last reactor in
Rajasthan, the period between first criticality and synchronisation to the
grid was just fourteen days. We are able to undertake major plant life
extension jobs like en-masse coolant channel replacement. Our track record
in safety is excellent, with 160 safe reactor years of operation. Thus the
PHWR technology in India has matured and has, in fact, enabled us to
develop the next generation Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (Kakodkar, Sinha
and Dhawan, 1999). The rapidly developing industrial infrastructure in
India synergises effectively with this nuclear capability.
We believe that the once-through open nuclear fuel cycle, with spent
fuel treated as nuclear waste, cannot sustain nuclear power development
over the long term and that closing the nuclear fuel cycle is important.
This must be done by using Mox fuel in conventional reactors, Plutonium
and Uranium-233 - based fuels and Thorium blankets in Advanced heavy Water
Reactors (AHWRs) and in Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs), and by finally going
over to a Thorium-Uranium 233 cycle. All this would, of course, require
tremendous R&D efforts in the future. The planning of reprocessing
capacity must be such that it facilitates the utilisation of plutonium and
thorium and reduces the input of natural uranium (in the process realising
the much higher energy potential of uranium). The fuel needs must be met
on "just in time" reprocessing basis, which is important both from
materials management and from radiation safety consideration (Chidambaram,
1999).
From the current modest nuclear installed capacity of a little under
3000 MWe, India plans to go to 20,000 MWe by the year 2020 which will
provide us a platform for future growth. This will be from a mix (see
Figure 3) of mostly PHWRs and some FBRs, based on indigenous technology,
and the remaining based on Advanced Light Water Reactor technology.
For the latter, we plan to start with two VVER-1000 reactors of advanced
design, to be built with Russian technical cooperation, for which a
Detailed Project Report is being prepared. This is only the beginning.
The Need For International Cooperation
The flattening out of nuclear power growth in the western developed
countries I referred to earlier - there are signs of a possible reversal
of this trend in the last couple of years - has the natural consequence of
stagnation of R&D efforts and of a reluctance of young people to take
up careers in this field. As the famous biologist Peter Medawar
(1979) has said, young students will be attracted to research in the field
only if they think they would be working on "important"
problems. Grimston and Beck (2000) from the Royal Institute of
International Affairs in London say : "Spending on longer-term
(nuclear) energy R&D has been falling in almost all developed
countries, with the exception of Japan, over the last decade or so.
Liberalisation of electricity supply markets has been accompanied, on the
one hand by governments taking the view that R&D is now the
responsibility of commercial companies, to be carried out on commercial
grounds, and on the other by a growing
unwillingness of private power utilities to spend shareholder' money on
speculative R&D projects." This is not a happy situation
because knowledge, when stifled, atrophies and the world's nuclear
heritage is too precious a resource to be allowed to dissipate.
Fortunately this is not happening in Asia.
The Nuclear R&D should be directed towards developing Advanced
Reactor Systems, which could be of evolutionary design with improvements
in existing plant designs or of developmental design based on existing
design philosophies but incorporating significant departures (like the
Indian Advanced Heavy Water Reactor) or of completely innovative design
incorporating radical changes to existing design. IAEA has an
important role to play in developing a strategic plan for an international
R&D project on Innovative Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Power Plants.
The Advanced Reactor design must have fault tolerance and enhanced level
of safety, including passive safety, so that they can be introduced widely
and economically, even in the small and medium size ranges, in developing
countries initiating a nuclear power programme, whether in Asia or
outside, even though the existing modern nuclear reactor designs and the
current strategies for nuclear waste management are, I think, technically
satisfactory from a safety point of view.
Nuclear R&D areas that need to be looked into are not restricted to
Advanced Reactor Systems but include Advanced materials - both fuel and
structural; Non-destructive Testing, In-service inspection and Plant Life
Extension; Accelerator-based Systems both as an energy amplifier and for
nuclear waste transmutation; Environmental Safety-related technologies;
Fusion-Fission Hybrid Reactors; etc.
India has always placed great emphasis on human resource development in
nuclear science and engineering. The major source of the scientific and
engineering manpower in the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, for more
than four decades now, is a one-year Orientation Course for fresh
graduates (in engineering) and post-graduate (in Science) in all major
disciplines related to nuclear technology: physics, chemistry, biology,
environmental science, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering,
electronics, computers etc. We shall be happy to accept scientists and
engineers from developing countries in Asia (and elsewhere) in this
course, either through a bilateral arrangement or through the IAEA. It is
worth recalling that the Regional Cooperation Agreement (RCA) of IAEA, now
catalysing successfully cooperation among countries of this region in
peaceful uses of atomic energy, had its origin as the India-Philippines-IAEA
(IPA) Project in the sixties.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we must seek a nuclear world
order where, while moving towards global nuclear disarmament and taking
care of genuine proliferation concerns, the growth of safe nuclear power
is accelerated and the world’s nuclear heritage is preserved. And this
would be in the interest of all concerned countries, inside and outside
Asia.
References:
1. Balzhiser, R. Christian Gobert, Kun Mo Chung, H. W.
Paige, D. L. Guertin, W.J. Dircks & Joyce C. Dunkerley, "An
Appropriate Role for nuclear Energy in Asia's Power Sector", Policy
Paper, The Atlantic Council of the USA Washington D.C., December 1997
2. R. Chidambaram, Convocation Address entitled
"Education and National Development", Madras University (1993);
also article entitled "Measures of Development", The Sunday
Times of India, 12 September, 1993.
3. R. Chidambaram, Statement in the September 1999 IAEA
General Conference, Excerpts in CURRENT SCIENCE (India), Vol. 77, No. 9,
10 November 1999; also Chidambaram, R and Ganguly, C., "Plutonium and
Thorium in the Indian Nuclear Programme", CURRENT SCIENCE (India)
Vol. 70, No. 1,January 1996.
4. R. Chidambaram and R.K. Sinha, Business Times,
Washington D.C., Vol. XVIII No.3, Sept. 2000,p. 29-30.
5. Grimston, M.C. and Beck, P., Private
Communication(2000).
6. John Ritch III, "Nuclear Green",
Perspectives on Science, diplomacy & Atoms for Peace", IAEA
Bulletin, Vol. 41, no.2 June 1999.
7. Medawar, P.B. (ed.). "Advice to a young
Scientists", Harper & Raw, New York 1979.
8. V. Mourogov, deputy Director General, IAEA (1998);
See also the article "the Need for innovative nuclear reactor and
fuel cycle systems", Nuclear Energy, Vol. 39, No. 6, Dec. 2000,
pp.339-345
9. NUCNET, "Leading Climate Change Scientists
Addresses Nuclear Option", News No. 3732/00/A, 14 November 2000.
10. Paine Christopher and M. G. Mckinzie, "Does the
US Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program Pose a Proliferation
Threat?", Science and Global Security, 1998, Vol. 7, pp. 151-193.
11. A. Kakodkar, R.K. Sinha and M.L. Dhawan,
"General Description of Advanced Heavy Water Reactor",
Evolutionary Water Cooled Reactors: Strategic Issues,Technologies and
Economic Viability, IAEA, TECDOC 1117, International Atomic Energy Agency,
Vienna, December 1999.
12. Jan Veizer et al, nature, 7 Dec. 2000, Vol.408. pp
698-701
Figure 1. Correlation of Life Expectancy with Per Capita Electricity
Consumption
Figure 2. Regionwise Nuclear Power Growth in the World
Figure 3. Indian Nuclear Power Projection for the year 2020
(The writer is DAE-Homi Bhabha Chair Professor in
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and Former Chairman, Atomic Energy
Comission Of India)
