Indian Nuclear issues - News and Discussion 16 july 2008

[sunilUpa]

Nukes: IAEA to question India

[Gerard]

None of the diplomats spoke publicly as they left the gathering Friday. But one diplomat inside the closed meeting described it as routine and factual. She demanded anonymity because the meeting was private.

[Arun_S]

Arun< SP party leaders MSY and AS had said that same thing. It could still be in this very thread. The strange thing is until ks mahesh posted it no one paid attention to it. And its dated July14th ie Monday. No rebuttal/vebuttal.

Yes, strange it is, that there is no rebuttal from any quarter on such an important matter.
More so interesting that the media reporting that went up 20dB in crescendo to sway public opinion by widely reporting and leaving no stone unturned on APJ Kalams pro-Deal stance, is very quite. In fact very very quite, when their poster boy Prof APJ Kalam has now listened to his inner voice and has turned hostile.

Just shows that the 10 x increase in number of media houses (print and electronic) in India, that large young body is listening to and serving "His Master's Voice" and not serving India as diligent fourth estate. Almost one year ago I was talking to a prominent member of "Operation Shakti" and he mentioned that the sudden mushrooming and economic viability of news/print media was not missed by Indian Intelligence & strategic community, in terms of who is behind these new media companies in India.

Pro-deal media Energizer Bunnies, energized by imported soft power. Sadly these EB media is exemplified by personalities like Karan Thapar (often eulogized as "Lord of the lies". Ironically he is son of Indian Army General). Sad degeneration of India.

----Edited---------
Thanks Rahul, yes I meant Karan Thapar. -Arun_S

[Rahul M]

perhaps you mean karan thapar ?

[Arun_S]

Thanks Rahul- Yes I meant Karan Thapar.

[svinayak]

Totally agree. The BJP opposition hasn't been totally consistent. Sometimes Advani and Yashwant Sinha/Arun Shourie speak in differnent voices. Would there have been any adverse impact if UPA agreed to BJP suggestion for domestic hyde act equivalent? Did they anticipate any trouble when the US congress takes up the final ratification if India had passed a domestic law?

The ruling govt has to ensure that it has the numbers to pass the deal in the first instance. Only after that they can talk about Opp parties.
Ruling party had to make sure that CPM their ruling partner was in this at every step. If not nobody else can do anything. Why get angry

What Opp is going to do in the future is hypothetical

[Rangudu]

So opposition can be hypocritical as long as ruling party has weak support? The fact is that the BJP's position is a joke. It serves a purpose in the sense that it gives India a bargaining chip in the future but the BJP leaders would have signed this deal in a heartbeat - Hyde or not.

[Katare]

Arun< SP party leaders MSY and AS had said that same thing. It could still be in this very thread. The strange thing is until ks mahesh posted it no one paid attention to it. And its dated July14th ie Monday. No rebuttal/vebuttal.

Yes, strange it is, that there is no rebuttal from any quarter on such an important matter.
More so interesting that the media reporting that went up 20dB in crescendo to sway public opinion by widely reporting and leaving no stone unturned on APJ Kalams pro-Deal stance, is very quite. In fact very very quite, when their poster boy Prof APJ Kalam has now listened to his inner voice and has turned hostile.

Just shows that the 10 x increase in number of media houses (print and electronic) in India, that large young body is listening to and serving "His Master's Voice" and not serving India as diligent fourth estate. Almost one year ago I was talking to a prominent member of "Operation Shakti" and he mentioned that the sudden mushrooming and economic viability of news/print media was not missed by Indian Intelligence & strategic community, in terms of who is behind these new media companies in India.

Pro-deal media Energizer Bunnies, energized by imported soft power. Sadly these EB media is exemplified by personalities like Karan Thapar (often eulogized as "Lord of the lies". Ironically he is son of Indian Army General). Sad degeneration of India.

----Edited---------
Thanks Rahul, yes I meant Karan Thapar. -Arun_S

I have not seen a single bit of news on Kalam's change of heart on TV which means that news is nothing but DDM BS.

[jash_p]

I have not seen a single bit of news on Kalam's change of heart on TV which means that news is nothing but DDM BS.

it was during press conf. with Sourie, DDM did not gave prominence on TV thats another matter.

[Tanay]

Hi guys, my first post here. Been lurking for some time now. The discussions here have been excellent. Having gone through earlier versions of this thread I noticed that the following news item has not been highlighted enough or just fell through.

Future of N-deal secure with Democrats: Clinton
http://sify.com/news/othernews/fullstor ... d=14622041

"The deal could have been stronger on the "non-proliferation side", Clinton replied when asked what portions of the deal he would have liked to change if he were the President.

"We did not want to give the Chinese an excuse to develop nuclear weapons," Clinton replied when asked why such a deal could not be reached during his tenure as the president between 1992 to 2000.

"The agreement should be supported. There's a strong level of trust between India and the US. The US would be willing should Indians wish to revisit some provisions of the deal," Clinton said when asked whether a Democratic Party administration would like to renegotiate the deal if they come to power next year.

[svinayak]

I have not seen a single bit of news on Kalam's change of heart on TV which means that news is nothing but DDM BS.

it was during press conf. with Sourie, DDM did not gave prominence on TV thats another matter.

It was a part of the psy ops plan to make sure that SP does not get much opposition from its MPs to support the deal. They want to give publicity to only that part where he supported the deal

[Arun_S]

Apparently the Left gave 202 page rebuttal of the Left-UPA coordination meetings. Can some one find it?
-
http://www.cpim.org/nuclear/2008_nuclear-notes.pdf

On the 40GWe . Page 25:

The Integrated Energy Policy had estimated (Page 22) that in one scenario, it would mean reaching 150,000 MW hydro and 63,000 MW nuclear by 2031-32. It had also indicated that this was the outside limit of what could be achieved for hydro and nuclear and stated, “These scenario assumptions in respect of hydro and nuclear may not be fully realised and are made here in order to characterise the boundaries of alternative choices.” The document also gives the figures for 2020 for nuclear as 29,000 MW as the optimistic scenario (Table 3.4, Page 37). With the above, it is difficult to understand the Government’s sudden estimate of needing to reach 40,000 MW nuclear power by 2021. These figures do not seem to have come out of any study done by either the Planning Commission or any other agency. So we would like to know on what basis has the Government identified that it needs to reach 40,000 MW by 2021-22 and therefore its need to import a large number of reactors for this purpose?

By all accounts,imported nuclear plants are the most expensive in terms of capital costs per MW. Therefore, any programme using imported reactors in large numbers would involve much larger outlays in capital terms than any other source. Has the Government done any exercise towards a perspective plan for the energy sector (apart from the Integrated Energy Policy already mentioned above), which factors in the high cost of capital and its implications for the Indian economy? How does the Government propose to raise this high amount of capital? It may be noted that the World Bank does not give any loans for nuclear power due to high cost and therefore, India will have to raise commercial loans in the international debt market for this purpose. Has any exercise been done in this regard? Has the Government done any study to see how it proposes to raise loans for the debt portion of these projects?

The Government has talked of a nuclear renaissance. Has the Government done a study regarding this “renaissance”? From all accounts, the situation regarding the nuclear industry has not materially changed internationally. Amongst the developed countries, the US, Germany, Italy, the UK, Sweden, etc., are all not building new plants or proposing to phase out their existing nuclear plants. The only exceptions are France and Japan. Even here, there is a slow down in investing in new plants. The main reasons given for moving away from nuclear plants is the high cost of nuclear power in spite of certain Governmental subsidies in terms of insurance and waste disposal. Has the Government done an exercise to evaluate the state of the nuclear industry in developed countries to support its claim of a nuclear renaissance?

On artificially created Uranium ore shortage by GOI and no body held responsible for the fiasco.
On Page-29:

India has uranium ores in its soil to sustain a total PHWR capacity of 10,000 We. We have so far installed only 4100 MWe of PHWRs, but already the uranium upplies are critically low and is well below the current demand. The PHWRs, which ere operating some six years ago at a healthy plant capacity factor close to 90 per ent, are today edging close to a 45 per cent capacity factor, merely due to shortage of natural uranium. In a country where enough uranium ore is present underground, this is inexcusable. No explanation has been given officially of how this has come about. At the same time, it appears that using the poor performance and slow growth of the PHWR programme as an excuse, the government is pushing for the import of much costlier foreign reactors through the Indo-US nuclear deal as a ubstitute to the indigenous PHWRs. The attempt seems to be only to highlight the need for uranium imports and therefore justify the Indo-US deal.

The current uranium shortage over the last ten years has occurred due to allocation of insufficient funds to the uranium-mining sector since 1990. The Government failed to address the grievances of the local community regarding the mining. The shortage of natural uranium alone is considerably slowing down the indigenous three-stage nuclear power programme, while creating a false impression that the PHWR programme under the first stage is failing to produce desired results due to technical deficiencies.

Government may clarify what it is doing to address the gap between demand for uranium and supply. Has the government fixed the responsibility for this serious deficiency? How long will it take before the plant capacity factors of current PHWRs start coming up and reaching close to 90 per cent once again? Abandoning the indigenous route for imported supplies

Here are some excerpt from Page 43, 44 and 45 of the report:

The developments since then, in terms of increase in the uranium prices internationally, increase in the overnight cost of nuclear power reactors, and offers received in response to coal based ultra mega projects have been reviewed. Results indicate a first year tariff of about 250 Paise/kWh in the year 2014-15, which is considered competitive with other sources, mainly coal. The norms of tariffs of nuclear power stations are periodically reviewed by the Government based on recommendations of a high level committee. These norms are notified through a Gazette notification.

The overnight costs of commercial nuclear power reactors in the world vary from 1200 to 2500 US $/ kWe. It is well known that the total costs depend on a number of factors.

Coal based capacity addition at pit heads locations is limited in view of the cooling water and environmental considerations. Using indigenous coal for 10,000 MW would mean about 150 coal trains from pit head to power stations. The total requirement of imported nuclear fuel for 10,000 MW nuclear power is 350 tonnes a year, as against an imported coal requirement for the same energy of 35 million tones. The cost of such a magnitude of imports in terms of infrastructure at ports and the hinterland in terms of handling & transportation and commercial pressure on international coal pricing would have to be taken into account.

Any exercise of comparative costing would also have to take into account the cost in the future of traditional sources of energy such as hydrocarbons, keeping in view

Pls note the 350 tonne imported fuel for 10,000MWe is for medium enrichned (~4.5%) Uranium for imported LWR. To get 350 tonnes of medium enrichment fuel the exporter country has to first buy and enrich ~3000 tonnes of natural urnaium. This figure tallies with my calculations posted earlier (viz. 1.5 million tonne Nat.U to run 50GWe LWR for 100 year).

A subsequent meeting the following is more damning to DAE/Kakodkar's power point .
No-clear FBR soo cheap.: Page 60:

Similarly, hydro plants in Kerala supply power at only Re. 0.03. This in no way can be used to argue that a hydro plant today will generate power at similar costs nor can current hydro tariffs be clubbed with older ones to arrive at an average cost. Therefore the statement that the average cost of generating electricity from existing nuclear plants in the country is Rs. 2.30 is misleading. The key issue is the cost of power from the latest nuclear and coal fired plants or estimated cost of nuclear and coal fired plants today. If we take the cost of the newer nuclear plants, per unit costs are Rs. 3.03 from Kaiga and Rs.2.85 from Tarapur. These need to be compared to the cost of generation from the same vintage of coal fired plants, which are around Rs.2.00 per unit even for non-pithead plants.

For future plants, the Government has referred to costs of electricity from a study “Economics of Light Water Reactors in India” to justify the figures of Rs. 2.50 per unit of electricity and the comparative advantage of nuclear power. As such a study is not in the public domain, it is difficult to comment on its calculations. However, the levellised tariff of Rs.1.14 per unit for nuclear is not in conformity even with the average tariff from nuclear plants that the UPA’s Note mentions, let alone the latest generation costs of plants such as Kaiga and Tarapur quoted above.

We have a study of the Nuclear Power Corporation “Light Water Reactors in India: an Economic Perspective”. This document also does not furnish any detailed calculations. However, it takes the capital cost per MW as Rs. 5.74 crore, which is lower than even the cost of domestic reactors. Even by UPA’s own admission, the figure of Rs.5.74 crore per MW corresponds to the lowest end of the capital cost band of $1200-2500 per KW as per the UPA Note. The figures used are from the original cost estimates of Koodankulam, where two Light Water Reactors are being supplied by the Russians. According to press reports, the current cost estimates of Koodankulam are already around $1,700 per KW. This is not surprising, as almost all nuclear plants including that of NPC have had large cost and time over runs. Therefore, the cost of electricity from nuclear plants by taking unrealistic capital cost is not very meaningful. It has been estimated that the cost of Koodankulam power is unlikely to be less than Rs.3.75 per unit, which is in consonance with the cost per unit from Kaiga and other such plants, factoring in time difference of installing these plants.

The UPA’s Note talks about imported reactors costing between $1200-2500 per KW. Again, the question posed in the Left Parties’ Note was, what are the studies on the basis of which comparative costs of different nuclear reactors and of the constructed nuclear plants have been arrived at? The wide range of prices of reactors quoted by the UPA’s Note appears to indicate that no serious study has indeed been made in this regard. In the absence of such a study, we then would need to follow existing costs of nuclear plants and various studies done by independent agencies for estimating the capital costs of nuclear plants. And all this points to $2,000 per KW as a reasonable cost: “the cheapest plants built recently, all outside the US, have cost more than $2,000 per kilowatt. (Nuclear Power’s Missing Fuel, 10-7-2006, Business Week magazine).

If we use the capital costs of Rs. 9 crore per MW for overnight costs (costs without taking interest during construction), the more commonly used figures internationally for Light Water Reactors, the cost of electricity from such plants is in the range of Rs. 4.75 per unit. As against this, the cost of electricity using imported coal in the Mundra project is Rs. 2.20. The Sasan project, which is at pithead and therefore has lower cost of fuel is around Rs. 1.19 per unit. Even gas-based units at much higher gas costs of $4-5 per million BTU would be Rs. 2.50-Rs.3.00 per unit of electricity. These are well below the cost of electricity from imported reactors.

As we have said in our Note, we do believe that the nuclear option must be kept open and the technology that we have developed indigenously as well as investments for the Fast Breeder and the thorium cycle need to be kept up. The question here is how do high cost imported reactors fit into such a programme and are we not endangering our economy and the power sector by making investments in such high cost power?

So I am not alone in saying that "Emperor is walking Naked".

[paramu]

So opposition can be hypocritical as long as ruling party has weak support? The fact is that the BJP's position is a joke. It serves a purpose in the sense that it gives India a bargaining chip in the future but the BJP leaders would have signed this deal in a heartbeat - Hyde or not.

Actually, BJP's opposition was something required by MMS and team to negotiate hard (Didn't US use NPA's anger to pass a tough domestic law?) to ensure that it is safe for India from every angle. What MMS did was not use that and make it a H&D issue.

If the govt. collapses it will provide BJP a shot in the arm to negotiate with US better. If the future POTUS is not guaranteed to support the deal, it is not a deal worth pursuing.

It becomes a different matter if MMS has put the deal in auto-pilot mode so that it passes even if the govt. collapses. Then it is a treachery, and hope it is not so.

[rajrang]

http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/16/stories ... 681200.htm


"The Lok Sabha secretariat made it clear on Tuesday that the motion to be moved under Rule 184 would not make a specific reference to any issue."


This way if the UPA loses the no-confidence motion, legally that loss cannot be easily connected to the nuclear deal. Then, as a caretaker government, UPA will be able to go ahead and complete the deal - by claiming that it was on an autopilot.

[putnanja]

As per this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_market

A large nuclear power station with a net electrical capacity of 1,300 MW requires about 25,000 kg of enriched uranium annually with a 235U concentration of 3.75%. This quantity is produced from about 210,000 kg of raw uranium using about 120,000 SWU. An enrichment plant with a capacity of 1,000 kSWU/year is, therefore, able to enrich the uranium needed to fuel about eight large nuclear power stations

The amount of Nat Uranium required for 10,000 MW works out to 1615.384 tons ( or 192.307 tons of enriched uranium based on figures above for 10,000 MW).

As per this link too http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/prog ... html#cohen :

Fueling a reactor for one year requires about 350,000 lb of raw uranium to produce about 1,000,000 KW of electricity for about 7500 hours.

The cost for 10,000 MW works out to 1590.90 tons of Natural Uranium.

Looks like the the article that the left brought out is almost double the amount used internationally.

[R_Kumar]

I am afraid my post may not be much relevant. I am against the deal because Congress is doing the deal(behind the close door). Going by congress government history(especially current), I am fully convinced that congress won't take any risk just for the nation building. I can't trust them. All their goals are centered around Raj-Mata and prince.
Let the nationalist government take these kind of decisions. People will have better sleep.

[NRao]

I thought that DAEwas proposing a cluster of 500 MW - some 4 per cluster. (Since 500 is the current goal, I would think that would make good sense.)

[NRao]

Our dear friend Henry Sokolski in this document states:

50. India plans a series of “FBR parks,” each of which will have two to four FBRs, a dedicated reprocessing plant and a fuel fabrication plant, including at Kalpakkam; T. S. Subramanian, “A Milestone at Kalpakkam,” Frontline, November 6, 2004.

So, I googled and found that article in The Hindu (NOT Frontline)!!! However, that article has no "FBR parks"!!!!!!! No "FBR parks" anywhere that I could find.

[amit]

Apparently the Left gave 202 page rebuttal of the Left-UPA coordination meetings. Can some one find it?
-
http://www.cpim.org/nuclear/2008_nuclear-notes.pdf

On the 40GWe 'Castel in the Air' pipe dream of DAE/Kakodkar. Page 25:

etc...

Arun_S you seem to find the "calculations" given out by Prakash Karat and Co much more believable than those put out by the Atomic Energy Commission of India (surely AK did not pen his PPT presentation sitting in a dark narrow corner while sipping chai mixed with something even stronger?).

Given this and given the fact that there should be a degree of consistency, do we take it that you also subscribe to the original meta objective of Left's current contortions against the deal? It is important to know this point because several junior members of this forum, including myself, look up to you and your views to form our own views of what is good or bad regarding several topics, including the N-deal.

My understanding of Left's overall objective of this whole exercise is to prevent any official dealings with the US of A (off course knowing many prominent Left leaders in West Bengal and their lifestyle, official does not include dealings with US based NRIs or funding institutions which provide a lot of money to selected proletariat leaders in India).

And also Left feels that Nuclear power is not good for India and Nuclear bombs are absolutely haram, since Panda might get displeased?

I would tend to think cherry picking only things (in this case numbers) we like and ignoring or opposing things we don't like isn't really not on.

The Left uses the same numbers to show nuclear power is bad for India and I really wonder who supports all the protests against urnaium mining, the lack of which is being criticised in the document?

Hence, just curious to know why you give credence to Left's diatribe and dish something put out by the AEC, through its chairman.

[putnanja]

I thought that DAEwas proposing a cluster of 500 MW - some 4 per cluster. (Since 500 is the current goal, I would think that would make good sense.)

I believe DAE is now proposing 700 MW nuclear plants. I had posted a link a few days back where some senior DAE official had mentioned that they were now going in for 700 MW reactors.

[Added later]
Found the links for 700 MW reactors...

India plans to build eight 700-MW nuclear plants

India plans to build eight 700-MW nuclear plants

PTI
Bangalore: The country plans to build eight 700-MW nuclear plants to boost its nuclear power generation capacity to about 10,000 MW and is stepping up exploration to uncover new uranium mines, a top Atomic Energy Commission official has said.
At present, the country has a nuclear power generation capacity of 4,000 MW but its reactors are facing a crunch in uranium, which is used as fuel for power generation. Existing plants are now operating at around 50% capacity due to the lack of fuel.
Existing nuclear plants are operating at around 50% capacity due to shortage of fuel.
With the known sources of uranium, the country could generate only around 10,000 MW, the official said, adding that the emphasis is now on expanding the uranium inventory by opening new mines and mineral processing, so that the current shortage could be overcome.
“With new mines getting ready and quantity of uranium produced being increased, we have a plan to go for eight new generation 700-MW reactors, for which the design is ready. We will start construction soon and are just awaiting for the fuel linkage,” director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Srikumar Banerjee, told PTI here in an interview.
He said eight reactors of 700 MW would add a capacity of 5,600 MW, taking the overall figure to 9,600 MW.
“We are hopeful that we will be able to get fresh mines, because the geological formation of the country is such that there is good expectation of new uranium mines,“ Banerjee, who is also member of the Atomic Energy Commission, said.
He mentioned Rajasthan and Karnataka as probable sites where uranium could be found.
According to him, geological exploration is being extended in a major way now. “We will be surveying deep underground. So far, survey has been done mostly on the surface. Now with new techniques, we should be able to survey much deeper and see whether there is any possibility of new uranimum mines.”
Banerjee expressed the view that raising the nuclear power generation capacity to 10,000 MW was not a problem at all. But for going beyond that and increasing the capacity much faster, India needs to have uranium “from other places”.

[sugriva]

Arun_S you seem to find the "calculations" given out by Prakash Karat and Co much more believable than those put out by the Atomic Energy Commission of India (surely AK did not pen his PPT presentation sitting in a dark narrow corner while sipping chai mixed with something even stronger?).

How do calculations given out by say, Karat lose credence only because Karat gave them out
and calculations given out by, AK have supreme credibility because they were given out by AK.
Bliss to eggsplain Lahori Logic behind your assertion? I think that we should look at both sets of
figures and analyze each of them objectively without looking at who gave out what figures.You
agree?

[sugriva]

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jul/18guest1.htm

"The nuclear deal has already fled the shores of India. And India does not have an Extradition
Treaty with Austria to bring it back."

[Katare]

I have not seen a single bit of news on Kalam's change of heart on TV which means that news is nothing but DDM BS.

it was during press conf. with Sourie, DDM did not gave prominence on TV thats another matter.

Have you seen the news conference? Why is Shouri's telling what Kalam sahib thinks about deal now? Why no one in media went to Kalam to clarify?

[Katare]

it was during press conf. with Sourie, DDM did not gave prominence on TV thats another matter.

It was a part of the psy ops plan to make sure that SP does not get much opposition from its MPs to support the deal. They want to give publicity to only that part where he supported the deal

Psyop plan by who? There is no dearth of nuke opposing journalists infact they are in majority. read the news item posted in this thread and its previous avatar's to see how many of them are anti-deal.

One can come and make any claim without any evidance but one should not.

[Katare]

Here we are seeing hypocrisy of highest order by BRFites. Initially when Kakodkar had some reservations against some provisions of the deal everyone was swearing by him and calling him the true patriot and savior of the nation. Suddenly when all his concerns are addressed and he is happy with the deal he has fallen from the favor of the same folks.

[Katare]

Arun_S you seem to find the "calculations" given out by Prakash Karat and Co much more believable than those put out by the Atomic Energy Commission of India (surely AK did not pen his PPT presentation sitting in a dark narrow corner while sipping chai mixed with something even stronger?).

How do calculations given out by say, Karat lose credence only because Karat gave them out
and calculations given out by, AK have supreme credibility because they were given out by AK.
Bliss to eggsplain Lahori Logic behind your assertion? I think that we should look at both sets of
figures and analyze each of them objectively without looking at who gave out what figures.You
agree?

Why does calculation given by GoI looses credibility and you have get credible figures from opposition political parties? Would you believe the figures given by a subject matter expert and head of the DAE or a political leader who is ideologically opposed (self confessed)to a certain way of life or certain countries?

[Arun_S]

Hi Arun_S.. Any comments on my query (Sorry if I missed your response).


For query 1 “Inconsistency in significant digits” – Believe me, I am not nit-picking. A first-year physics (or Engineering student for that matter) will get pretty close to zero if (s)he does not understand the difference in 68 and, say 68.00, Nothing to do with “don't have meticulous scientists temper” .. its simple and accepted way to present data and computation. The figure you got, is, to put how professors often tell their students: “ it, is worse than “wrong”, it is absurd.

Amber Jee, You do have a Scientist's temper but perhaps not Scientific temper which is perhaps what you intended to convey here (Lurker mode on)

Najunamar: My stomach is aching from laughter !

[Katare]

Since Arun-S has conveniently ignored all requests to back his own calculations let me at least put an independent view as counter on record - (just a back of the envelop calculation)

World has 430 commercial nuclear reactors operating today with installed capacity of 373 GWe.

World uranium consumption for these plants is 67,000Tons

67,000/363 = 179.2 Tons of uranium consumption/GWe

IAEA, world-nuclear.org and US energy department provide ~162 tons of uranium/year as the rule of thumb for 1GWe installed capacity for 90% PL factor.

Lets take the actual world average figure of 179.2 tons/year/GWe, which is more conservative -
For 40GWe we would need
40*179.2 = 7185 tons of uranium/year

A nuclear (or any other power plant) project has life of 40 years, which is based on current depreciation rates and tax laws. This is what IAEA draft and GoI refers to as lifetime of the reactor/project. This is what Banks would use to finance the projects and this is the lifetime over which entire expenses would be depreciated and paid for.

So to stock lifetime of natural uranium for 40GWe of installed capacity we would need to make a strategic reserve of
40*7185 = 287399 Tons of natural uranium

The cost of this stock at $67/lb ($148/Kg or $148,888.00/ton) would be
287,399*148,888 = $42,790,517777.00

$42 Billion is 1/5th of annual federal budget or ~4% of our GDP

Those 40GWe of plants would generate revenue worth $756 Billion dollars at Rs2.4/unit

We are building strategic reserves for crude oil and natural gas similarly we should build strategic reserves for natural uranium too.

What would be the added cost for funding that extra ~40Billion dollar of cost over the life time of the reactors -

Per unit cost would go up from Rs2.4/unit to Rs 2.55/unit.

Cost of reprocessing is operating expanse and would be bourn as per demand and supply. There would not a strategic reserve of reprocessed/enriched uranium.

Also such large purchases would mean Indian companies buying strategic equities in mines and getting those supplies at much cheaper rate than the market rates.

[Prabu]

The legitimacy of this deal and whether future governments will seriously consider abroagting it are two different issues.

Given the shady wheeling and dealings, the legitimacy of the government that passes this deal and therefore the deal itself is suspect. However, the most likely future government that does not involve Congress will be a BJP led government. I bet that other than passing an Indian equivalent of a Hyde Act, BJP will NOT mess with this deal. BJP's opposition to this deal is largely a political necessity and not based on substance, unlike the Commies who are bound to their masters to scuttle this deal.

Should this deal go through and the UPA govt survives, I'll bet my salary that the next BJP govt will be glad to move forward with the deal.

Rangudu garu, With due respect to you, Its ok . The BJP's prime objecton is on two counts.
one is the great Hyde act and (our counter act) the second one is the NNWS ststus, unlike promised J18 as equal rights and responsibilities such as USA..... etc

But, let us please think and explain why Kalamji should change his stand on the deal ?

[Prabu]

The objections from PKI,AGK & ANP

Three top scientists caution on deal

[Rahul M]

in all this confusion on to support the deal or not to, I'm happy to follow a simple thumb rule among other more high brow analyses.

as someone had said, "If you want to take India forward, do the opposite of what the CPM asks you to do !! ". you get the drift.

[joshvajohn]

Comments:
Though UPA did not spin very well from its beginning like CPIM in favour of the deal, their political spin at the last minutes seems to work for them either way even if there is an election. This has revealed NDA's antinational sentiments by allying with all those who are against national interest. Also if there is a win for congress there will be a win for them even aftern the election. Even otherwise if they loose they will have numbers as Mulayam will bring more from UP in alliance with Cong. New small new joiners too have a great impact on the next election which NDA will certainly loose. The congress will trumpet on anti national interest of BJP in the election which will certainly help them in many ways but also new strange alliances will enable the non-NDA government to be in the power after the next election. To be frank NDA has lost its considerable borderliners who wished to shift from UPA to Congress by their negation to nuclear deal. NDA on the one hand and CPIM on the other hand are with the support of anti-national groups.


India to get special status with nuclear deal with USA
H.S.Hanspal Ex.M.P.
Friday, 18 July 2008
http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/view/11243/40/
After 60 years of independence, the country faces the challenge of ensuring sufficient power and electricity. Nuclear energy is the most efficient, environmentally cleanest and safe source of energy. The country has to meet demands of every village, town, city and state in a sustained and cost effective manner. Dr. Manmohan Singh government with its persistent diplomatic efforts has been successful in securing support of international community for nuclear agreement.
India’s nuclear agreement with US will give India a unique status of being recognized as a nuclear power without having signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is no small achievement for India as several powerful countries, including Pakistan, are critically unhappy at India being accorded a special status. The strong opinion being voiced against the deal in leading American Newspapers which say ‘US was giving far too much to India for too little in return.
A cursory reading of the draft safeguards agreement shows that the government has duly addressed most of the concerns, knowledgeable defence and nuclear experts have expressed about the nuclear deal. The UN nuclear watchdog will not be allowed to supervise our defence nuclear facilities. If at a future date India feels the need to go ahead for a nuclear test, it will be free to do so.
So far running the civilian nuclear reactors are concerned, India will be free to buy fuel from any source. India will be at liberty to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to safeguard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India’s reactors. This will allay the fear that some countries may exert extraneous pressure on India.
The government has taken sufficient care of addressing all major concerns expressed by political parties like the CPM and the BJP while preparing and negotiating the draft agreement which will enable the IAEA to “implement safeguards in a manner designed to avoid hampering India’s economic and technological development.”
Here are the provisions in the draft agreement which bestow special status on India:

• Paragraph 5 says that the safeguards agreement will be implemented in a manner “designed to avoid hampering India’s economic or technological development” and “not to hinder or otherwise interfere with any activities involving the use by India nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology produced, acquired or developed by India independent of this Agreement for its own purposes”. This non-hindrance clause is to ensure that India’s weapons programme is completely unaffected by this agreement.
• Paragraph 52(c) has a provision for India to make a ‘special report’ to the IAEA in case there is a disruption of operation in any of the safeguarded facilities “on account of material violation or breach of bilateral or multilateral arrangements to which India is a party”.
This reinforces the assurance of reliable and uninterrupted fuel supplies by providing for a grievance redressal mechanism in the event of a default by supplying countries.
• Paragraphs 71 to 75 recognise India’s need for maintaining a strategic reserve of fuel, a provision that is absent from every other safeguards agreement that the IAEA has with other countries. India has to keep the stockpiled fuel in a sealed storage capacity and agree not to remove it without informing the IAEA.
• Paragraphs 79 to 84 deal with India’s reprocessing rights, again a special provision made for this country. These paragraphs also make it clear that in case of reprocessing plants having both safeguarded as well as unsafeguarded nuclear material, IAEA “shall restrict its safeguards procedure to the area in which irradiated fuel is stored”.
• Paragraph 94 provides for similar arrangements in the case of enrichment plants.
Mr. Brijesh Mishra, NDA’s National Security Advisor congratulated the government on the IAEA safeguards agreement and cautioned against re-negotiating the deal and termed the agreement “very satisfactory.” Mr. Mishra said “The government had done a good job on the agreement and have my congratulations.”
Barack Obama, who is set to run for US President as the Democratic Party’s nominee has indicated that he has no problems with the deal in its present form.
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh received unequivocal support from Rahul Gandhi, who said : “Deal is necessary given the need for clean energy in the future.” He particularly appreciated that the country’s strategic programme would not be affected by this agreement. Rahul Gandhi further added it would be ‘bad luck’ if UPA loses the government in the process of pursuing the deal but felt the government has to act boldly in the national interest. There is no need for the party to be defensive on this deal. Rahul Gandhi said it should be show-cased as one of the major achievements of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government.
Yet the parties opposing the deal are doing so due to their political compulsions, overlooking the national interest. Otherwise most of these opposition M.P.’s are individually in favour of the Indo-US nuclear agreement.
The decision by Sikh / Punjabi MPs should be such that others may not think about us, that the Punjabis have myopic understanding of the current reality- national or global. Or Punjabis suffer from a terrible lack of vision be it political or community specific. Sikh community in particular unlike any other religious community is a very enterprising one having global interests despite its numerical size and strength.
It is heartening to note that they are one of the advanced communities in thinking and action amongst comity of world’s communities. By elevating a Sikh Dr. Manmohan Singh to the highest post, the Congress leadership under Mrs. Sonia Gandhi has shown its unbiased and visionary approach on how to steer India’s march into future and to make it one of the super powers. What else should be expected of a political party?
Will not the Punjabi M.P’s be happy if the country becomes self sufficient in terms of energy needs of their countrymen, which exactly is the logic behind the present nuclear deal. Akalis have to do more soul-searching as they claim to be the sole champions of Sikhs in particular and Punjabis in general.
Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal would do well to listen to the voice for the future interests of their brethren and their prosperity. I would like to caution senior and junior Badal that future politics will not be confined to the geographical domain of Punjab. They should rise to the occasion as it was done when Giani Zail Singh, the first Sikh President of the country was to be elected. History will remember Badals in that case only.

[Raju]

in all this confusion on to support the deal or not to, I'm happy to follow a simple thumb rule among other more high brow analyses.

as someone had said, "If you want to take India forward, do the opposite of what the CPM asks you to do !! ". you get the drift.

one cannot take any such thumb rules into strategic discussions.
Perpetual vigilence is the name of the game.

CPI(M) could be fighting the right cause for the wrong reasons also.

[Rahul M]

one cannot take any such thumb rules into strategic discussions.
Perpetual vigilence is the name of the game.

may I remind you of occam's razor ?

[rajrang]

Well said - this matter involves not only science, but also economics, law and politics.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holn ... 191758.htm

[Raju]

one cannot take any such thumb rules into strategic discussions.
Perpetual vigilence is the name of the game.

may I remind you of occam's razor ?

It's a western concept. It is best applied there.
In matters relating to geo-politics and strategy, it is not necessarily a 'fix all' solution.
Case in point is war in Iraq .. what does Occam's razor suggest in that case to explain american motivations ?

[sugriva]

Since Arun-S has conveniently ignored all requests to back his own calculations let me at least put an independent view as counter on record - (just a back of the envelop calculation)

World has 430 commercial nuclear reactors operating today with installed capacity of 373 GWe.

World uranium consumption for these plants is 67,000Tons

67,000/363 = 179.2 Tons of uranium consumption/GWe

IAEA, world-nuclear.org and US energy department provide ~162 tons of uranium/year as the rule of thumb for 1GWe installed capacity for 90% PL factor.

Lets take the actual world average figure of 179.2 tons/year/GWe, which is more conservative -
For 40GWe we would need
40*179.2 = 7185 tons of uranium/year

A nuclear (or any other power plant) project has life of 40 years, which is based on current depreciation rates and tax laws. This is what IAEA draft and GoI refers to as lifetime of the reactor/project. This is what Banks would use to finance the projects and this is the lifetime over which entire expenses would be depreciated and paid for.

So to stock lifetime of natural uranium for 40GWe of installed capacity we would need to make a strategic reserve of
40*7185 = 287399 Tons of natural uranium

The cost of this stock at $67/lb ($148/Kg or $148,888.00/ton) would be
287,399*148,888 = $42,790,517777.00

$42 Billion is 1/5th of annual federal budget or ~4% of our GDP

Those 40GWe of plants would generate revenue worth $756 Billion dollars at Rs2.4/unit

We are building strategic reserves for crude oil and natural gas similarly we should build strategic reserves for natural uranium too.

What would be the added cost for funding that extra ~40Billion dollar of cost over the life time of the reactors -

Per unit cost would go up from Rs2.4/unit to Rs 2.55/unit.

Cost of reprocessing is operating expanse and would be bourn as per demand and supply. There would not a strategic reserve of reprocessed/enriched uranium.

Also such large purchases would mean Indian companies buying strategic equities in mines and getting those supplies at much cheaper rate than the market rates.

Katare,
Please also consider the costs of
(i) setting up the plant
(ii) shutting down the plant
I would think that per unit cost can only be calculated once you have figures for (i), (ii) and
the cost of the fuel

[CRamS]

Here we are seeing hypocrisy of highest order by BRFites. Initially when Kakodkar had some reservations against some provisions of the deal everyone was swearing by him and calling him the true patriot and savior of the nation. Suddenly when all his concerns are addressed and he is happy with the deal he has fallen from the favor of the same folks.

Its not hypocrisy just level headed thinking. No blind following, however iconic someone might be. Same thing with KalamJi. When he jumped on the pro-deal bandwagon, many of his admirers hee did not. Mercifully, KalamJi is seeing the light of the day and is back in the dump-the-deal camp.

[Rahul M]

It's a western concept. It is best applied there.

how so ? occam's razor is the name given to a class of logic, that does not automatically make it a western concept.
by the same logic, breathing is a western term, do you propose we avoid it and ....

In matters relating to geo-politics and strategy, it is not necessarily a 'fix all' solution.
Case in point is war in Iraq .. what does Occam's razor suggest in that case to explain american motivations ?

lust for oil may be ?

[enqyoob]

I knew it! Official Recognition!

Posted and Edited by Moderator Arun_S, Moderately Edited by Even-More Moderate Enlightened Moderator RahulM:

Pro-deal media Energizer Bunnies, energized by imported soft power. Sadly these EB media

I note very carefully that the term "Energizer Bunnies" (EB) is moderately officially halal on BRF (at least for moderate and even-more moderate (EMM) Enlightened Moderators to use after moderate editing.

COOL!

Also, from the context in which it is used, I suspect (only slightly of course) that said Moderator may have a very slight negative opinion of those who he moderately describes as Energizer Bunnies (EB). Also halal.

Thank you!

IOW, Dear Moderator Jagan and other kind and Moderate Enlightened Moderators: Pls kindly onlee note that using the term "Energizer Bunnies" or "EB" should please kindly not now be considered haraam or flamebait (fb) if used (inadvertently and with no disrespect, of course) by aam abduls imitating the Moderate Moderators.