India Nuclear News And Discussion

[Sanku]

^^^ Yes, it is happening. Joe Cirincione on the other dhaga and some "Eurasia Review" crap on this. Pardon me for thinking I was on a Bharat "rakshak" forum. I can read this crap on hazaar NPA inspired websites.

The above statement is a unfounded allegation, this to my mind is trolling, disrupting serious conversations and in general damaging the forum.

[GuruPrabhu]

^^^ Hurts to be labeled "anti-India", don't it? Karma is a female dog.

[Sanku]

^^^ Hurts to be labeled "anti-India", don't it? Karma is a female dog.

From you? Dont flatter yourself, I am merely making sure that unsubstantiated and incorrect statements dont go unchallenged as far as I can help it!!

[somnath]

^^^ Yes, it is happening. Joe Cirincione on the other dhaga and some "Eurasia Review" crap on this. Pardon me for thinking I was on a Bharat "rakshak" forum. I can read this crap on hazaar NPA inspired websites.

Joe C really takes the cake...He is not just any NPA, he stands right up there with the most illustrious of them all, in the same league as Michael Krepon, Strobe Talbott..Above all, without any of the redeeming features of some of the others - Strobe Talbott is, for example a staunch advocate of stronger Indo-US ties, despite his NPA credentials..

[Amber G.]

Meanwhile:

Racing driver Simona De Silvestro, whose car carries the message "Nuclear Clean Air Energy", is currently lying in fifth place in the points standings of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar racing series in the USA after top ten finishes in the first two races of the season.

[Theo_Fidel]

http://www.forbes.com/2011/04/08/forbes ... print.html

Field of Fissures

Kotawadekar isn't describing a haunted lighthouse. Adjacent to it is the site for the proposed 9,900 MW nuclear power plant to be built by the French state-owned company Areva. In all, six 1,650 MWe (megawatt electrical) European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) will be installed by Areva in phases within the next 15 to 18 years, with the first two reactors expected to come into operation by 2018-19. At full capacity, this plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district will trump Japan's 8,200 MW Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant to become the world's largest nuclear power project.

But despite such assurances, safety remains the paramount concern given that EPR is an untested reactor the world over. "Why should the people of Jaitapur be subjected to the high risk of proving out an unknown reactor in their backyard?" asks Dr A. Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

More than anything else, the project is heavily criticised for being carried out under a shroud of secrecy. Several crucial technical questions about the project remain unanswered. One of them is whether NPCIL has devised a coherent strategy to deal with the spent fuel coming out of the plant?

In a statement to Forbes India, C.B. Jain clarified that NPCIL plans to initially store the spent fuel in an underwater storage facility adjoining the reactor building inside the plant premises. "The storage facility for spent fuel is adequate to store the spent fuel during 10 to 12 years of operation of the units," he says. "Whenever government of India decides to establish a reprocessing facility in any location in India, the above spent fuel will be transported to such a facility in a safe manner." Activists and independent experts say that accessing such information has been an arduous struggle. Many demand that NPCIL should appoint an ombudsman to make all technical information about the reactors available on demand for public scrutiny.

The lack of transparency has given rise to new suspicions about the government's motives. The chief among them is the concern among activists that the government might circumvent the Nuclear Liability Bill and secretly sign a contract to relinquish the right to seek damages from Areva in the event of a nuclear accident. NPCIL officials have not publicly acknowledged or denied such a claim.

"The AERB has no experience with evaluating EPRs and therefore there is a legitimate concern about whether safety of these reactors is assured," says Dr. M.V. Ramana, a research scholar with Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security. He recommends that NPCIL should emulate the model for transparency established by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which places all licence applications for new reactors on its Web site for public access (http:// www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/ col.html). These applications run into hundreds of pages and include minute technical details that are subject to unrestricted inspection. Citizens can raise questions about any aspect and NRC makes it mandatory for companies to respond to each one of them.

Return on Investment

Safety and environment aside, will this Rs. 1.12 lakh crore nuclear power plant be able to satiate Maharashtra's ravenous demand for electricity--and at what cost?

In Maharashtra, the total installed power generation capacity is between 12,000 MW and 15,000 MW, and the state faces a shortfall of over 4,000 MW. C.B. Jain says that JNPP "will definitely meet the deficit of power of Maharashtra in specific and other adjoining states of the country in general."

P. Ramesh, the managing director of the energy division at the New Delhibased Feedback Ventures, says nuclear power from Jaitapur would not come cheap. At the current benchmark, the cost of power from Jaitapur is estimated to be about Rs. 20 crore per MWe of capacity, compared to Rs. 5 crore per MWe for coal, the main staple for energy supply in India.

To generate cheap power from Jaitapur, Ramesh says, the government will have to exclude some operational charges from the final bill. This is similar to a hydro power dam project, he says, where if the cost of running and maintaining the dam is absorbed by the exchequer, the price paid by the end consumers of power will be cheaper.

As the EPR is untested elsewhere, there are also concerns about hidden costs. There are currently four EPR reactors being set up globally, currently in various stages of construction--one in Finland, one in France and two in China. At least one of them--the EPR project in Finland--has witnessed a long delay in completion for undisclosed reasons and its costs have jumped from 3 billion euros to 7 billion euros. Areva did not respond to requests for comment on this issue.

So the costs are running at 32,000 Crore+ per 1,600 MW reactor. Essentially 2% of our GDP on just these 6 reactors. Isn't one of the lessons from Japan not to cluster so densely as one failure causes the others to destabilize. Just this one reactor complex when fully built will require 2000 tonnes of imported enriched Uranium annually. Note that the pip-squeak Australia has refused to supply us Uranium so at some point we will have to go on bended knees and beg for 'some more please'... Quite Nauseating...

[somnath]

So the costs are running at 32,000 Crore+ per 1,600 MW reactor. Essentially 2% of our GDP on just these 6 reactors. Isn't one of the lessons from Japan not to cluster so densely as one failure causes the others to destabilize. Just this one reactor complex when fully built will require 2000 tonnes of imported enriched Uranium annually. Note that the pip-squeak Australia has refused to supply us Uranium so at some point we will have to go on bended knees and beg for 'some more please'... Quite Nauseating

Theo-ji, bunch of old arguments presented again in the article...

1. No one knows what the costs of the EPR will be in India...Construction costs, which accounts for a significant part of an NPP costs, for example are much lower in India...I had posted some cost estimates of EPR power earlier...In Finland at least, the numbers estimated dont seem way out of wack to other base load sources...And one is not taking into account potential carbon credit revenues accruing to nuke power..It is a discussion that has gained momentum in the last few years, and Fukushima notwithstanding, it will be something to look forward to...
2. Its a bit facetious to talk of an investment running over at least 6-7 years and compare it against the GDP of 1 year...By that same logic, the akash contract recently signed (some 22k crores) is 1.5% of GDP!
3. Clustering of reactors in a "park"...Well, there are pros and cons, isnt it? Does India have so much land available to enable standalone reactors? If land for 1 is so much pain, what would land for 6 entail?
4. Australia isnt the only country exporting Uranium...And Australia will come around - the pressures on the govt there are increasing, and its only a matter of time...Regardless of that, by the time all 6 EPRs are ready and fully critical, we should have gone ahead and operationalised the full 3 stage cycle, isnt it?

[Theo_Fidel]

If they are old arguments the NPCIL has still not tackled them right.

I find it baffling that in case of accident only the NPCIL can sue suppliers. This is essentially a govt. guarantee not available to any other energy source or operation. And they really need to pass a law requiring the civil agency to open itself up for full public scrutiny.

[somnath]

I find it baffling that in case of accident only the NPCIL can sue suppliers. This is essentially a govt. guarantee not available to any other energy source or operation. And they really need to pass a law requiring the civil agency to open itself up for full public scrutiny.

How else can it work? Who else other than the operator can know whether the liability arising out of the accident has contribution from faulty design/workmanship of the supplier? Are you saying that in the Bhopal case, people have a right to sue the suppliers of the plant besides UCC?

The "govt g'tee" is simply because in our (nationalists') infinte wisdom, we decided to restrict operator moniopoly to the public sector...So given the standard "liability of the operator" - this is international standard, nothing specific to India - all liabilities fall upon the govt!

On EPR, dont think NPCIL has completed its negotiations with Areva, so dont see how they can be "more trasnparent" about something that is still under negotiation...They have been upfront in clarifying all the "India impact" points of Fukushima...Are they supposed to give out day-to-day details of their negotiating points in the media?

[somnath]

On a different vein, benefits of the nuke deal keep flowing in..The Civil nuclear agreement with Kazakhstan to be signed now...

http://www.hindu.com/2011/04/16/stories ... 271400.htm

[chackojoseph]

India and Kazakhstan sign Civilian Nuclear Agreement for supply of uranium

[Pratyush]

I am making this post as a nubee on this thread, reading the forbs article posted above by Theo, I find it surprising that the Jaitpur plant is considered to be an unproven design.

Unproven in what respect exactly?

Cause from where I am looking at things, every NPP and every new design until implemented successfully is an unproven design. Then why is this particular plant a cause for concern and not other NPPs to be implemented across the country, as they will also be by and large unproven designs as seen from the eyes of a common man.

[somnath]

Unproven in what respect exactly?

Cause from where I am looking at things, every NPP and every new design until implemented successfully is an unproven design. Then why is this particular plant a cause for concern and not other NPPs to be implemented across the country, as they will also be by and large unproven designs as seen from the eyes of a common man.
I am making this post as a nubee on this thread, reading the forbs article posted above by Theo, I find it surprising that the Jaitpur plant is considered to be an unproven design.

that is basically the point..Barring the 220 MW PHWR, all other plants under construction are "new designs"...Which is what Srikumar Bannerjee also said...

[Theo_Fidel]

The GOI is not known for taking these kinds of leaps of bravery.

It is undoubtedly part of a backroom deal for getting the NPA waiver.

[Amber G.]

The GOI is not known for taking these kinds of leaps of bravery.

It is undoubtedly part of a backroom deal for getting the NPA waiver.

Not known? Really? by whom? /sigh/

[JwalaMukhi]

http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/ ... 64469.html

Global power generation by renewable energy sources outpaced that by nuclear energy for the first time in 2010, a recent report published by a U.S. think tank showed.

"In 2010, for the first time, worldwide cumulated installed capacity of wind turbines, biomass and waste-to-energy plants, and solar power reached 381 gigawatts, outpacing the installed nuclear capacity of 375 gigawatts," the report, "The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-2011," issued by Worldwatch Institute, noted.

Even before the nuclear disaster triggered at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant last month, "the international nuclear industry has been unable to stop the slow decline of nuclear energy," it said. "Not enough new units are coming online, and the world's reactor fleet is aging quickly. Moreover, it is now evident that nuclear power development cannot keep up with the pace of its renewable energy competitors."

New reactors can be sold to the importing countries, and old inventories can be designed into the system and sold to importers. All importers would have no choice, because if they had they would have started building spanking brand new designs themselves.

[Sanku]

So the costs are running at 32,000 Crore+ per 1,600 MW reactor. Essentially 2% of our GDP on just these 6 reactors. Isn't one of the lessons from Japan not to cluster so densely as one failure causes the others to destabilize. Just this one reactor complex when fully built will require 2000 tonnes of imported enriched Uranium annually. Note that the pip-squeak Australia has refused to supply us Uranium so at some point we will have to go on bended knees and beg for 'some more please'... Quite Nauseating...

And I bet despite all this, when the inevitable happens, we will still have people hiding behind "there was no way to know this would happen"

[JwalaMukhi]

That's what happens when there is no intent to even think of plan B for energy mix. A nuclear career professional can hedge all his/her career bets on the future nuclear technology. A nation needs to have not just plan A. But the pitch is: if plan A is not followed, the nation's plan B is doing nothing and journey back to stone age.
Import today, else there is no tomorrow seems to be the mantra.
A nation that does not have alternate routes to energy mix or indigenous development, is ripe for impoverishment. Such will be the perils of manufactured consent.

[Sanku]

JwalaMukhi-ji do cross post the article that you posted in the Japanese Tsunami thread, I think its pertinent here too.

[JwalaMukhi]

X-post from other thread.

same should hold true for nuclear energy. To date nuclear energy is still one of the most viable and clean method of generating electricity. That is why the Obama administration is steadfast in maintaining its commitment to nuclear energy as an integral part of its broader energy policy. More importantly, America isn’t alone in its position. Accelerated growth in Asia, has dramatically driven up energy consumption in this region. Asian tigers have no choice but to pursue an energy policy which incorporates nuclear energy. With all this in mind I would have to argue for a long term bullish stance on uranium. I still think Uranium has room to drop in the short term and at worst will bottom out at $33lb, from there I see a bounce back.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/259120- ... ces-bounce

( Drop in Uranium prices is good news for importing country like India)

Here is the sublink from the above link.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/18/news/in ... r.fortune/
There it is. The debate is settled. The import nuclear today advocacy group shouldn't have any worries. But still, there seems to be uneasiness amongst import today advocacy group. Could it possibly be because the below statements are not fit for a mature democracy but more for a banana republic.

India is not nearly as dependent on nuclear energy, but both countries have so many deals in the pipeline that each would stand to lose a fair amount of money if plans stalled. India in particular, which just signed multi-billion dollar agreements with the U.S., has little choice but to continue.

{throw irrevocable resources into a venture, where it will not be possible to divest if situation warrants.}

Politics remains a veritable obstacle right now for the global nuclear industry, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. But Asian governments -- specifically those that tolerate less public debate than in the West -- can be counted on to move ahead as planned.

Do not know if it is flattering or a telling commentary.

[Amber G.]

On a different vein, benefits of the nuke deal keep flowing in..The Civil nuclear agreement with Kazakhstan to be signed now...

http://www.hindu.com/2011/04/16/stories ... 271400.htm

Also:Despite Fukushima, Manmohan bats for nuclear energy

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was convinced that nuclear energy would remain one of the “essential options” which all countries must keep in order to deal with problems such as climate change and energy security.

Asked during a meet with journalists, who had accompanied him to China and Kazakhstan, why the government was still keen on going ahead with nuclear power plants despite the Fukushima incident, the Prime Minister said that despite the nervousness over extensive use of nuclear energy even for peaceful purposes, “I am convinced that when all is said and done, when cool headed discussions take place about the future of energy, what are the problems with coal, what are the problems of with other hydrocarbons, in terms of their impact on climate change,” there would be no reconsideration about the role of nuclear energy.

[amit]

http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/ ... 64469.html

Global power generation by renewable energy sources outpaced that by nuclear energy for the first time in 2010, a recent report published by a U.S. think tank showed.

"In 2010, for the first time, worldwide cumulated installed capacity of wind turbines, biomass and waste-to-energy plants, and solar power reached 381 gigawatts, outpacing the installed nuclear capacity of 375 gigawatts," the report, "The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-2011," issued by Worldwatch Institute, noted.

Even before the nuclear disaster triggered at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant last month, "the international nuclear industry has been unable to stop the slow decline of nuclear energy," it said. "Not enough new units are coming online, and the world's reactor fleet is aging quickly. Moreover, it is now evident that nuclear power development cannot keep up with the pace of its renewable energy competitors."

New reactors can be sold to the importing countries, and old inventories can be designed into the system and sold to importers. All importers would have no choice, because if they had they would have started building spanking brand new designs themselves.

JwalaMukhi,

New reactors have not come online because Chernobyl halted reactor building because of the kind mass hysteria it generated. Besides, most of the western nations at that point of time were power surplus (they still are, more or less) so there was really no incentive for building.

Now the so-called new and planned nuclear power plants are almost all in what is known as the developing nations. I suggest you look at some sites which have the figures of proposed new builds.

But choro, that's one issue. But the more important problem with the report above is that while it pulls out numbers it does not address the main issue which policy planners, who don't have the luxury of arm chair generalizations which journalists and columnists can do, have to grapple with the more fundamental issue of planning for a mix of high base load generation and peak load generation for a grid.

Even taking all those numbers to be true, wind, biomass (which is the TFTA name for our SDRE gobar gas type plants) and solar, cannot generate base load. And its doesn't matter a wit if you have all those peak load generation capacity but don't have the base load to run the grid.

And this is not even taking into consideration per KwH generation cost of wind, solar and biomass. I'm sure (hope) you've seen all those comparison charts done by MIT and others which have been produced on this thread.

Sorry to prick bubbles that may be floating but as of now only coal and nuclear are the most economic way to produce high base load generation. So if you want to compare or look at vis a vis situations with regard to nuclear you'll have to compare coal and nuclear.

I know folks want to shy away from that because then the hidden cost of pollution (and long term effects) would have to be taken into consideration. But such is life.

IMHO comparing renewables with nuclear is just a red herring. But I reiterate lest it cause swollen arteries, it my humble opinion onlee.

[somnath]

The GOI is not known for taking these kinds of leaps of bravery.

It is undoubtedly part of a backroom deal for getting the NPA waiver.

???When the GE BWRs were ordered, was a "leap" at that point, no? When the CANDUs were ordered, it was also a "leap of bravery"? About NSG (I guess thats what you meant, not NPA) waiver, there would be an element of truth to that as well...But there is nothing fundamentally wrong in that - we leveraged our buying power to break the global nuke consensus against us!

Jwalamukhi-ji,

besides what Amit posted, almost ALL renewables have much higher carbon footprints than nuke (the data is referenced in this very thread)...And second, barrign the fact that none of them are baseload sources, scalability of the same is also an issue...In the US, the recent Economist reports that the median size of solar plants is expeted to be 20 MW! And remember, solar generates PLFs of 15%...Now it might be ok for the US, with nearly saturated demand, but not a material option for India...

[Theo_Fidel]

Yes NSG waiver.

The CANDU were essentially given to us as free, a gift from Canada. GOI accepted. Also note we may have bought but have yet to pay and pay we surely will. This is garbage about leveraging buying power. If we had leveraged our power we would have some control over the designs.

Instead we are forced to accept 5 separate mutually incompatible designs and form factors and foreign suppliers to keep various aspects of the deal satisfied. The only thing Nuclear has going for it is convenience. Not only that I predict it will be 10+ years before we see a single MW out of these plants. There will almost certainly be a couple of plants permanently abandoned in that time period. Who knows where technology will be at that point.

[vina]

Yes NSG waiver.

The CANDU were essentially given to us as free, a gift from Canada. GOI accepted. Also note we may have bought but have yet to pay and pay we surely will. This is garbage about leveraging buying power. If we had leveraged our power we would have some control over the designs.

Err. Today, CANDU is touted as the next best thing to sliced bread and the former AERB dude says we know CANDU onree, so we CAN-Do.

And of course, "shath pratishat indigenous onree" boosters will say, all indigenous onree. So go with CANDU based AHWR and we have patent falsehoods such as CANDU cannot have a LOCA,meltdown , etc, etc is peddled about.

Err. Candu was originally CAN-DOO onree. Please google for NRX incident and that will knock the bottom out of the No can LOCA, No can Meltdown dudes!. In fact CAN-DOO became a dignified CANDU only after the NRX incident and the fixes from the learning of that.

Yes. Old adage. YinJin Ear Ring improves only by experience and actual doing and knowledge base build up. The Fukushima disaster is a fundamental lesson in Nuke Engineering. I think we will see totally failsafe designs like Pebble Bed and other brand new ones see increased importance and investments and not putting more lipstick on legacy pigs like BWR/PHWR etc.

[somnath]

Yes NSG waiver.

The CANDU were essentially given to us as free, a gift from Canada. GOI accepted. Also note we may have bought but have yet to pay and pay we surely will. This is garbage about leveraging buying power. If we had leveraged our power we would have some control over the designs.

Instead we are forced to accept 5 separate mutually incompatible designs and form factors and foreign suppliers to keep various aspects of the deal satisfied. The only thing Nuclear has going for it is convenience. Not only that I predict it will be 10+ years before we see a single MW out of these plants. There will almost certainly be a couple of plants permanently abandoned in that time period. Who knows where technology will be at that point.

A bunch of bid leaps of faith and facts here...

1. CANDUs were not given for free, not were the GE PWRs..the financing was liberal, but that was de rigeur for most large projects in developing countires then (btw, the steel plants or the dams also were "free" by that definition)...And gift? there was a full review of multiple designs from various people that was done before closing in on CANDE and BWR - the ones rejected included a Russian offer and one from General Atomics...For the financiang and other details on both BWR and CANDU, look no further than GP (George Perkovich, not GuruPrabhu ) for the details..

2. "Control" over designs? What exactly do you mean by that? AREVA gives us the blueprint, and we do some of our own "value add" on it? Even if that were to be possible, given that we supposedly dont have "expertise" in LWR, how do we do value add? And how much time would it take?

3. What are the 5 "mutually incompatble" designs in question? Last count, we know of the Russian VVER and the French AREVA....And how is "compatibility" a factor? Are all nuke reactors supposed to "talk" to each other for some reason?

4. About the time for execution...Well, biggest non sequitor if I may..What are DAE/NPCIL's current timelines on setting up 220MW (or the new 700MW) reactors? For that matter, what is the timelines of NTPCs (or our SEB's) thermal plants? HOw is it that we missed the power capacity setup target for the current plan by a whopping 25%? As for tech, we still have various gencos setting up subcritical boiler based thermal plants, when tech has already moved on to supercritical...Why are they doing that?

[JwalaMukhi]

Not saying India should shun nuclear.
But import today mantra is bad. It limits nimbleness needed to diversify.

Nuclear power plants are slated to have 12 to 20 years to actually break even (?). i.e., in terms of energy input (most of it fossil fuel) to build the plants and plant breaks even and starts actually producing energy than that was used to build it.

Has Germany gone cuckoo? Are they committing to turn the clock back and make a grand entrance into stone age?

If soviet style centralized planning is adopted, then the situation in India looks overwhelming. Germany is approx 1/10th the size of India, and probably 1/15th in terms of population.

If Germany could be administered without any nuclear route, even philosophically what is preventing decentralized energy administration in India to emulate Germany. Surely, states can and should be thinking about that. Or is soviet style centralized governing and planning the best way simply because India is used to it.
Is the pitch for nuclear route just hiding behind jumbo numbers by taking whole of India as one big puzzle to solve?

[somnath]

But import today mantra is bad. It limits nimbleness needed to diversify

Not sure how "not importing" is linked to "nimbleness"..Are you sayign that our 220 MW designs are all that we should stick to?

If Germany could be administered without any nuclear route, even philosophically what is preventing decentralized energy administration in India to emulate Germany.

Germany already has 17% of its electricity coming from nuclear...So all the CYA happening there will still retain a much larger % of nuke there than India will have even in 10-15 years time...

Nuclear power plants are slated to have 12 to 20 years to actually break even (?). i.e., in terms of energy input (most of it fossil fuel) to build the plants and plant breaks even and starts actually producing energy than that was used to build it.

Sorry, this is another of those urban legends periodically dug up by the Greens and NPAs....In terms of most measureable variables - carbon emissions being the most prominent, nuke power trumps all other alternatvie sources - there have been lots of studies rreferenced in this thread itself...

[Sanku]

Not only that I predict it will be 10+ years before we see a single MW out of these plants.

10 is too conservative I think!! It will probably be more like 20. If at all.

[Amber G.]

Now from an eminent Indian columnist:

What do social scientists Romila Thapar and Ramachandra Guha, dancers Leela Samson and Malavika Sarukkai, former bureaucrats-diplomats S.P. Shukla and Nirupam Sen, retired Navy chief L. Ramdas, writers Arundhati Roy and Nayantara Sahgal, scientists M.V. Ramana and P.M. Bhargava, artists Krishen Khanna and Vivan Sundaram, and former vice-chancellors Mushirul Hasan and Deepak Nayyar, have in common?

Also a few Brf postors who will brand any body, who as much as question their point of view, as anti-indian?

he answer is, concern about the safety of nuclear power, highlighted by the still-unfolding disaster at Fukushima in Japan. This impelled these eminent individuals to sign a statement demanding a thorough, independent review of India's nuclear power programme, and pending it, a moratorium on further nuclear projects.

The statement (available at cndpindia.org, sacw.net) saw people of different ideological persuasion coming together, including former Atomic Energy Regulatory Board Chairman A. Gopalakrishnan and Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace activists (including myself). Even Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) director Prof. P. Balaram signed up, a rare thing for a top scientist to do.

This appeal comes just as two workers at Fukushima have died. {Described as dead men walking, perhaps?} Nuclear power zealots had predicted that the accidents wouldn't harm plant employees, leave alone the public. {Not only that, they have dined the postors here with 1000 mSv dose, perhaps, according to one }

Fukushima's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), admits that three other employees have suffered severe (? ? ) radiation burns { all that with some radiation dose!!} and many others have been exposed to radiation. The public is at risk. Radionuclides have contaminated milk, vegetables and fish in Fukushima and nearby. {And 100,0000,000,000 have died in Cashemer alone }

Radiation levels at the plant are 1,000 millisieverts an hour { }, whereas the highest annual permissible dose for employees is 30 millisieverts. { I am sure, these guys also think that Bq is a banana from Uranus} Water and steam have been released, containing iodine-131, caesium-137 and strontium-90. These have been detected thousands of kilometres away. { And cosmic rays billions of light years can be detected here on earth }

Iodine-31 concentrates in the thyroid, caesium-137 in many other tissues, and strontium-90 in bones.

Fukushima's health damage will be revealed not through early deaths, but through slow, virtually endless low-radiation exposure, which produces cancers. Thanks to early evacuation, the Fukushima death-toll won't be as high as Chernobyl's (estimated at 34,000 to 70,000 deaths). { Not 985,000? - lower number estimated is less than 100, BTW by some}

However, the reactors contain 40 times the caesium inventory of Chernobyl. If only a tenth of this is released, its impact would be four times greater than Chernobyl's. {We know math!! }

According to estimates {of course, estimated by XXXX} based on data from a UN agency, Fukushima has already released iodine-131 equal to 20% of that released from Chernobyl and half as much caesium-137. { Really ??}

Fukushima happened not because of the earthquake and tsunami, but because these triggered mishaps in reactors already vulnerable to catastrophic accidents. All reactor designs can undergo core meltdowns. {described by some here as "almost virgin"} Natural calamities only make these more likely.

Fukushima's reactors weren't designed for high-magnitude earthquakes and tsunamis. Their primary containment, the vessel holding the reactor, was weak.

Besides, spent fuel was stored in the reactor building. Unlike reactors, spent-fuel pools don't have reinforced structures. The roof of Reactor 4 spent-fuel pool was blown off. The spent-fuel got heated and the water boiled off, releasing radioactivity. India's Tarapur reactors have the same spent-fuel storage design.

The Fukushima crisis still remains uncontrolled. Three reactors suffered a partial core meltdown, one to the extent of 70%. Four of the six reactors, poisoned by seawater, must be scrapped.

The immediate challenge is to keep the reactors cool and seal the cracks that water is leaking through. TEPCO claims its sealing efforts have finally succeeded. How reliable the seals are remains to be seen.

Seawater radiation levels near Fukushima were millions of times higher than permissible. If the Fukushima staff is evacuated, the reactors could undergo a full meltdown.

..... Its denials are unconvincing.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ordered a thorough review of India's nuclear installations, especially on their capacity to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis. But Nuclear Power Corporation Chairman S.K. Jain boasts: "We have got total knowledge and design of the seismic activities" and DAE reactors are planned for "[the] worst seismic activities and tsunamis."

However, Dr. Singh said ....

This was a slap in the face of the DAE, now the laughing-stock of the global scientific community.....

India must abandon plans for multiple-reactor ...., such as Areva's European Pressurised Reactors, planned for Jaitapur in Maharashtra.

....

<snip>.

From: India must put nuclear power on hold
By Praful Bidwai

[Amber G.]

The above is also available (as the article said) on scaw.net
Some other items there:

Burqa got a befitting French kiss
by Marvi Sirmed 16 April


Report by Human Rights Forum on March 2011 violence in villages of Dantewada, Chhattisgarh

A brief report by a two member fact-finding team of Human Rights Forum, Andhra Pradesh looking into the alleged arson, rape and killings in the Dantewada area in the second week of March 2011.


The most recent articles
The ska vengers with delhi sultanate sing for the free binayak sen campaign (6 April 2011)
14 April

Are India’s nuclear weapons facilities safe?
by Dr A Gopalakrishnan, 13 April


Whither Justice (Karnataka Church Attacks)
by Teesta Setalvad, 10 April

[GuruPrabhu]

Nuclear power plants are slated to have 12 to 20 years to actually break even (?). i.e., in terms of energy input (most of it fossil fuel) to build the plants and plant breaks even and starts actually producing energy than that was used to build it.

Please stay India specific, not some Gora estimate. In Indian terms, NPPs will have *two* outputs: energy and neutrons (for everyone's favorite "3-cycle"). So, how do you calculate "break even"?

[Amber G.]

Please stay India specific, not some Gora estimate

The trouble is that there are so many fake experts and neem-hakims and so many people who will believe their estimates and/or do a == with real experts. In reality it is easy to differentiate the really fake with good ones.. all you do is ask a couple of question which any first year student in the field should know or calculate.

Here are two sample question, if any one wants to test the expertness of an expert. I sure would be interested in knowing the answers from resident experts here.

1) Among the stable end products of U235 fission are Cs133 (formed from beta decay of Xe133) and the two isotopes Ce140 and Ce142. (formed by beta decay of corresponding lanthanum isotopes). How much Cs and how much Ce could you get after complete fission of 1.0 gm of U235?

2) The neutron flux in Druva was observed (or said to be) 4x10^10 neutrons/cm^2. How does this compare with the deuteron flux
in a 100-muamp cyclotron beam (say of IIT mumbai) that covers an area of 1.0 cm^2.

(Note that these do not need wiki searches, just basic understanding and about 10 minutes or less of calculations.. Such question are typically from an introductory nuclear reaction course)

[somnath]

Please stay India specific, not some Gora estimate. In Indian terms, NPPs will have *two* outputs: energy and neutrons (for everyone's favorite "3-cycle"). So, how do you calculate "break even"?

GP-ji, even "gora" estimates will testify in this case ..It stretches credulity to think that a power source with uch demostrably lower carbon footprint (as nuke) will somehow have huge "energy intensity"...In fact the latter is quite a latter-day urban legend created in recent times...Some data here..

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf100.html

For nuclear

The output of Forsmark is 7.47 TWh/yr per GWe. Over 40 years: 299 TWh or 3226 PJ (factor of 10.8 at 33% thermal efficiency).

Input is thus 1.35% of output.

For others,

It is difficult to compare these figures with coal, since so much of the coal energy input (beyond the fuel itself) is often in transport, which varies from very little to a lot, and figures of 3.5% to 14.0% are published. For natural gas the figures again depend on transport to point of use, and published figures range from 3.8% to 20%.

[Sanku]

Wiki-leaks on "paid experts"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/ ... PL20110418

Exclusive: U.S. nuclear regulator a policeman or salesman?

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party, shed light on the way in which U.S. embassies have pulled in the NRC when lobbying for the purchase of equipment made by Westinghouse and other domestic manufacturers.

While the use of diplomats to further American commercial interests is nothing new, it is far less common for regulators to be acting in even the appearance of a commercial capacity, braising concerns about a potential conflict of interest.

The subject is particularly sensitive at a time when there are concerns about whether the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, was designed by U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co., had been properly supervised by the NRC's equivalent in Japan.

[somnath]

Precisely the sort of unmitigated, uneducated balderdash that goes around as analysis in parts of the media..

ALL regulators act as salespeople for the industry that they regulate...There is no conflict of interest there, in fact it is one of the job objectives of the regulator..So SEBI works actively to promote Indian capital markets as an investment destination..TRAI works actively to propmote foreign investment in the telecom sector...

And in the report, this is what is said..

But the cables -- from 2006 to early 2010 -- show that the NRC's role in promoting its regulatory model around the world can easily turn it into an advocate for U.S. nuclear technology, whether its officials realize it or not.

For example, an unclassified January 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur noted that the Malaysian government, as it pursued a nuclear policy, preferred to work with contractors the NRC had already approved.

Why shouldnt the US nuke regulator actively market its regulatory standards? For most countries, US standards would be either a benchmark or a useful learning...If the US regulator is not confident enough to recommend US standards to the outside world, then it is merely not doing its own job well enough!

[Sanku]

ALL regulators act as salespeople for the industry that they regulate...

Quite incorrect simply speaking.

Edited on GP's valid criticism.

[GuruPrabhu]

I thought we were heeding ramana's advice and staying away from ROFL posts aimed at individuals. Who has cast the first stone this time?

edit: Thank you Sanku for withdrawing graciously.

[Sanku]

I thought we were heeding ramana's advice and staying away from ROFL posts aimed at individuals. Who has cast the first stone this time?

This person

Precisely the sort of unmitigated, uneducated balderdash that goes around as analysis in parts of the media..

BTW, that quote (I did not say it) was posted from Brahma Chellany. But hey its ok to call names as opposed to meaningful statements. In fact his exact quote was

New WikiLeaks' disclosures on how the U.S. government is using the national nuclear regulator, NRC, to export reactors

And yes, let me say that to it is less than honest to call the expectations that regulators dont act as salesmen otherwise its a conflict of interest as balderdash.

[GuruPrabhu]

Brahma Chillany is not a postor on BRF. Criticizing him is not the same as ROFLing at a member.

If someone here derides MMS (which happens everyday) and then someone ROFLs at that postor, how would that be viewed?