The questions I would have asked Anil Kakodkar ji if I knew him as a teacher and mentor are the following:
Why and how was the US/Holtec chosen as partner for SMRs? What are the risks? What alternatives exist ? What is best for Bharat?
There was no competitive process involving Westinghouse, GE & Holtec as far as we know.
When venturing into a new highly sensitive and highly restricted tech area like SMRs, the risks are compounded when you go with a partner who has never produced even a single working prototype or working product.
My guess is this: Holtec was perhaps the only company the US admin OKd to collaborate with India. We may not have had much of a choice. Since there is a strong intent to do something in this area, the GoI went ahead with a suboptimal partner. That its headed by a PIO may have had some weightage in the decision.
India doesnt have a printing press like the Americans do to throw money around. The best case scenario would be that we have our own indigenous SMR design on paper, we may be feeling confident of succeeding if we had a couple of areas supported by a videshi partner.
India has taken such risks before in other areas like LCA, Kaveri, early stages of ISRO etc. But the results as we all know are quite mixed. At the highest policy making levels, one can understand and perhaps even applaud the confidence shown by GoI leadership in giving a go ahead and green lighting the partnership.
However, the choice of partner, evaluating its credibility is mostly up to India's Atomic Energy Commission, BARC ityadi and the GoI PMO/Cabinet will go with their recommendation because there is a strong intent and they trust these institutions have done their homework.
Did we explore a Russian alternative? IMO we should. Since we collaborated with them in the past, like for ex the Arihant design (though not exactly the SMR we want for civilian power generation), and it worked out. Russians have a couple of working SMRs, the US has none.
Lastly the Holtec deal comes with some very unacceptable legal conditions regarding private ownership of the plants (if and when they are designed, built, proven and commissioned) and liability in case the plant ends up leaking radiation which can bee attributed to a design flaw (if we took the partner's design) or to a supplied component.
Here the Holtec website communiqué makes some vague reference to "global norms"
"We understand that the GOI is actively working on legislation to permit private sector investment in the nuclear sector and to align the suppliers’ financial exposure with global norms."
What are these global norms wrt widely deployed SMRs in dozens across a 1.4B population country? Which other countries have deployed SMRs widely and what experience they have had to establish these "global norms" ? Zilch, Nada.
What Holtec is asking for is a total liability waiver. Like Pfizer did for supplying vaccines and got booted by GoI, very rightly. On top it they have audaciously suggested Bharat should quickly mend its laws while adding some marketing language and motherhood bla bla statements.
Considering India’s similar breakthroughs in other cutting edge technology areas such as space, drone, semi-conductors, and jet engines in recent years, we are reasonably certain that the necessary laws will be passed this year to remove the barriers to enable the rise of nuclear power in the country. With the necessary legislation passed by Lok Sabha, we believe that the nuclear renaissance, now sweeping the world, will arrive in that vast land transforming its clean energy generation landscape.
This is looking like an oversell of a product (by a privately held company with accompanying opacity) they do not have, have never made one, while pressuring Bharat to quickly amend its laws and referring to our elected body of representatives. Such tactics IMVVHO smell like a rat, and make me suspicious of snake oil being peddled. Especially given the past history of collaborations with the US, and our own week-kneedneess in enforcing contractual obligations.
Posters who conflate my objections to this deal with Holtech with a total rejection of SMRs are not reading my posts, Kakodkar jis interview or SMR's statements carefully or critically. I'll leave it at that. I won't flatter them trying to justify I'm pro-india or pro-this or anti-that. Those who read my posts for what they are, are free to draw their own conclusions.
(joking)
