Is India courting nuclear disaster?

The News International, June 9, 2007

We South Asians treat World Environment Day, June 5, as a mere ritual, to pay lip service to the cause of environmental protection while promoting ecologically unsound policies and activities.

Take India. At the G-8 summit, the Indian government couldn’t even formulate a response to the question the world is asking: what does India intend to do, as one of the globe’s fastest growing economies and its fifth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, to cut its emissions? How long will its elite hide behind its poor to resist demands for limiting its contribution to global warming?

In recent years, the government has sanctioned countless hazardous industrial and mining projects, promoted profligate luxury consumption by the rich, allowed extensive deforestation and pollution of rivers, diluted environmental clearance norms, and failed to remedy the human and ecological effects of large dams, chemical factories, and a host of harmful activities along the coast.

In 1994, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) instituted Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for major projects, including public hearings—as a token of “transparency†.

However, this has been subverted and become a farce. A whole industry of “consultants†has mushroomed, who will do appallingly bad reports extolling hazardous projects. Public hearings are conducted with cynical collusion between state pollution control boards (PCBs), project sponsors and the district authorities.

Typically, the hearings’ organisers ensure that the projects’ opponents are not informed or heard. The District Collector’s report usually recommends approval even when most participants register their strong opposition.

I witnessed this last week at a public hearing for four new Russian-designed reactors (each of 1,000 MW capacity) at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Station (KNPS), proposed to be built by the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) at India’s Southern tip.

Ironically, Units 1 & 2, (also 1,000 MW each), and costing a huge Rs 13,171 crores, are already three-fourths of the way through construction—without even an EIA, leave alone public hearing.

If approved, KNPS will be India’s biggest nuclear power centre, 10 times bigger than other nuclear stations (barring one).

It’s certainly one of India’s most hated electricity-generating facilities. The June 2 public hearing at Tirunelveli bore testimony to this. More than 2,000 people from three coastal districts (Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari) attended it—which speaks to the strength of the anti-project sentiment.

The hearing took place in intimidating conditions—tight security barriers, a police posse of 1,500, nasty riot gear, and water-cannon vehicles. Yet, hundreds of people vociferously demanded they be allowed to speak. Under MoEF guidelines, the EIA report summary must be widely publicised in the local language. This didn’t happen.

The Collector claimed a Tamil translation was made available at designated offices. But he couldn’t produce a copy. None among the thousands present at the hearing had seen it. Many said they found nothing available in these offices during.

The Collector, say the MoEF rules, must conduct the hearing in “a systematic, time-bound and transparent manner, ensuring widest possible public participation district-wise… Every person present… shall be granted the opportunity to seek information or clarifications… The … proceedings accurately reflecting all the views and concerns expressed shall be recorded… and read over to the audience… explaining the contents in the vernacular language.â€

None of this happened. Two hours into the process, after ten people had spoken, the Collector abruptly closed the hearing—although there was no violence or any other provocation. The people were simply not given a chance.

This gross violation of due process further enraged the people, who overwhelmingly oppose the project. They want the hearing to be resumed after MoEF requirements are fulfilled, including wide circulation of the EIA in Tamil.

The people hate KNPS—out of ignorance, but because they are literate, worldly-wise and aware of the hazards of nuclear power. The project is being foisted upon them without even an acknowledgement that nuclear power is fraught with radioactive wastes, routine releases of radioactivity, and the possibility of catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl.

It’s one thing to claim that steps can be taken to overcome the hazards; it’s another to deny their existence altogether.

Koodankulam concentrates all the classical problems associated with nuclear power—in a magnified form. It will generate large amounts of highly radioactive spent fuel. But the EIA doesn’t mention this. The EIA greatly underestimates the routine releases of radioisotopes like iodine-131 and noble gases, and also the certain exposure of hundreds of occupational workers to high doses of radiation—a silent, invisible poison that causes cancers and genetic deformities.

Like all reactor types—and Koodankulam is a Russian design, as was Chernobyl—KNPS can undergo a core meltdown, with devastating consequences for Tamil Nadu and Kerala, even Sri Lanka.

The KNPS poses four additional problems. First, it’s being built at the edge of the Gulf of Mannar, one of the world’s richest marine biodiversity areas, with 3,600 species of flora and fauna. Thermal discharges from the plant are liable to adversely affect this vulnerable, yet precious, reserve. Available data suggest that the plant will discharge seawater at a much higher temperature than the 70C (above the incoming water) norm.

Second, three large settlements lie within a 5-km radius of the plant: Koodankulam (pop. 20,000), Idinthakarai (pop. 12,000), and a new Tsunami (rehabilitation) Colony (pop. 2,000-plus). Its location violates the Department of Atomic Energy’s siting norms and a Tamil Nadu government Order of May 1988, which declares a 1.6 km radius around the plant “prohibited†.

The next zone, a 5 km radius, is a “sterilised area†, where “the density of population should be small so that rehabilitation will be easier.†Finally, “in the outlying area of 16 km, the population should not exceed 10,000.â€

Koodankulam and Idinthakarai are just 2 to 4 km from the plant as the crow flies. And the Tsunami Colony is even closer, its last row of houses less than one km from the reactors.

So either NPC will violate its own norms, or thousands of families will be uprooted—and separated from their livelihood as fisherfolk. This is altogether too disgusting even to contemplate.

Third, KNPS is being built in a seriously water-stressed area. It originally planned to bring fresh water from the nearest source, Pechipparai dam, 65 km away. But in the face of popular resistance, the idea was dropped. It will now daily desalinate 48 million litres of seawater—an exorbitantly expensive, unproven technology. This will send the electricity costs through the roof.

Finally, even without this additional expense, the conservatively estimated cost of Koodankulam’s power is Rs 3.08 per unit. But the cost of power from the nearby Neyveli thermal power station will be Rs 1.66 to 1.74. The Koodankulam estimate excludes the costs of decommissioning reactors (which are one-third to one-half their capital costs).

This is a rotten bargain, especially because Southern Tamil Nadu has become India’s wind energy capital—with hundreds of megawatts of this renewable, cheap and safe energy.

Koodankulam was always a political bargain, signed during the last days of the USSR, to symbolically reaffirm Indo-Soviet friendship. It remains just that. But there are less toxic and expensive ways of expressing friendship. Koodankulam must be scrapped