(Dr R K Chadha)
Mr. Prime Minister Sir, your bold announcements at COP26 to take India’s installed capacity of non-fossil fuels to 500 GW and reduce the projected carbon emission by one billion tonnes by 2030, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 are highly commendable and show your vision that is in tune with our Indian tradition and concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
The phrase has its origin in the shloka in Maha Upanishad (VI.72) where it translates to This is mine that is his, says the small-minded, The wise believe that the entire world is a family The world believes you Mr. Prime Minister as a man of both, words and deeds from your track record since you took over the reins of India in 2014. You promised to increase the installed capacity of non-fossil fuel to 175 GW during the period 2015-2022. As we enter into 2023 India’s installed capacity stands at 173 GW (as of 31st Dec 2022; www.npp.gov.in) from renewables that include a minor component of nuclear. A remarkable success rate of 98.95% can easily fetch an A++ Grade for the country! Congratulations on this count.
But Sir, we need to be pragmatic and be aware of the limitations of energy mixes that are optimum for the growth of our country. While the present thinking of the government in favor of renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, and biomass is laudable, it is also fraught with dangers and pitfalls that need to be addressed. If a healthy balance is to be maintained for the country’s economic growth and the concerns for world climate to be addressed simultaneously, then we need to look for an alternative non-polluting energy source that is reliable.
Let us first examine the major promises you made under your Panchamrita (amalgamation of five natural foods used in Hindu and Jain worship rituals) solution to the world climate. The promise to achieve an installed capacity of 500 GW from renewables by 2030 looks ambitious but knowing your track record as a taskmaster, we may perform reasonably well vis-à-vis other countries in the world.
Data from 2015 to 2022 shows that India has registered a growth of 100(+)% in the installed capacity of renewables, going from 80 GW to 173 GW during this period. This amounts to an average annual addition of about 13 GW. Going by this rate we may add another 104GW in the next 8 years to the existing 173 GW adding up to 277 GW in 2030. To be more optimistic we reach a maximum of up to 300 GW if there is an extraordinary push from the government, but we will still fall short of 500 GW as promised. This is perfectly understandable knowing the problems involved with solar, wind, and hydro renewables. There are issues related to acquiring a large expanse of land required for solar and wind parks and environmental resistance in the case of hydro. Over and above the Covid19 pandemic had an impact on the progress to achieve the targets. But these problems will continue to stay with us and we have to make allowances for force de Majeure. Two other promises in yourPanchamritasolution are interlinked, that is to meet 50% of India’s energy needs from renewable sources by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2070. may again fall short of expectations and require a course correction to succeed. Here is why! The data of the total installed capacity of power generation in India for the period 2015 to 2022 shows that while we have gone strong on building up renewables capacity from 80 GW to 173 GW we have also increased our installed capacity of thermal power plants using fossil fuel, mainly coal, in parallel. From 189 GW in 2015, it has gone up to 239 GW in 2022 indicating our dependence on coal as our prime fuel for energy generation. Though, it looks in conflict with the promise of carbon neutrality by 2070 the details show that while there is a 9% growth in energy generation from coal-fired thermal plants in 2021, in reality, the growth has slowed down because of increased growth in solar and wind power, and the government decision to reduce coal imports, otherwise it would have been over 12%. This leads us to a question, why do we have to depend so much on coal for our power generation? The reasons are two: Firstly, our energy demand is much more than what can be met from renewables and we need to depend on coal. This is not going to change in near future, too. Our peak demand for the country in 2021 varied between 180 to 200 GW and we could not meet our demand fully, falling short of anything between 3 to 8 GW, which is not very bad. But, the negative side is that 80% of this came from thermal plants using coal that pollute the environment. In the future, the power demand will grow exponentially as India looks towards an annual 8% GDP growth.
The second reason is that renewable energy sources like solar, wind, or hydro are not 100% reliable and intermittent under their dependence on nature’s vagaries. If the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing or there are consecutive monsoon failures, power generation stops but we need continuous power so we switch to thermal power plants for our energy needs and hence, dependence on coal.
Of course, there are other reasons too. The availability of coal deposits in the country and a well-developed infrastructure and network of thermal plants could be a few other reasons. It is not wise to completely shut down and start building new infrastructure; it will surely be an economic disaster. This is also the reason that all major economies depend on coal and are reluctant to discontinue its use in their thermal power plants. Not only this, but they also have huge reserves of coal, which they export, generate revenue for themselves, and improve their economy. So, what is the solution to keep our promise of a carbon-neutral world while maintaining sustainable development? There may be several solutions offered in terms of improvement in technology or smart grids, plugging transmission leakages, and blah…blah. But these will remain as just cosmetic responses and will not have any major impact in solving energy issues of the country. In my opinion, a straightforward solution is to kick-start our serious efforts toward Nuclear energy as an alternative to coal. We are already late, but with the solid foundation laid by the teams lead by the likes of Bhaba, Raja Ramanna, and others immediately after our independence, we can still make it to be front liners. The need of the hour is to give the required push that can boost our energies in this direction and this can only happen if there is a political will at the top.
Again I would like to quote data for the period 2015-2022 for consistency of analysis. It is of great concern that Indian efforts toward Nuclear energy have remained stagnant.
In 2015 the installed capacity of nuclear power in India was 5.7 GW which increased to 6.7 GW in 2016 and since then it has remained stagnant till now for reasons unknown. Let us hope the New Year 2023 brings necessary changes in government policy toward Nuclear energy to benefit the country and the world. In the growing worldwide chorus calling for reduction in greenhouse gases during COP meetings for more than two and a half decades, without much success, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called the bluff of these torchbearers of global climate change cheerleaders, by announcing radical commitments by India that will make a difference towards a carbon-free world. But somewhere, there is inertia that needs to be overcome. In the following, I intend to clear a few misconceptions for the benefit of the decision-makers at the highest political level so that they make the right policy decisions in the interests of the country in the long run. Let us see a comparison of renewables vs nuclear energy to combat climate change without compromising on sustainable development. In this battle, the aim is to replace greenhouse gases with emissions-free green energy sources. Nuclear energy comes in as the most viable and dependable green energy option as it is environmentally friendly in terms of CO2, SO2, and NOx emissions that impact climate change, lead to global warming and cause acid rains. If it is so, then why is there hesitation to go ahead with a nuclear option? The answer is the fear factor concerning safety issues and repercussions in case of an accident as in Fukushima or Chornobyl. The second and most valid concern that comes to mind is the disposal of radioactive nuclear waste.
Let me address these issues with available data. Since, the operation of nuclear reactors worldwide in the 1960s there had been 3 notable nuclear accidents, namely, 1)The Three Mile Island in the USA, 2) Chornobyl in the former Soviet Union (now in Ukraine) and 3) Fukushima in Japan. In these three cases, only Chornobyl stands out as 32 deaths were reported immediately after the accident and later a few hundred were affected due to radiation effects in the contaminated zone of a 30 km radius where some people could not be timely evacuated for different reasons. In the other two cases, no death was reported due to nuclear accidents as effective countermeasures were taken post disaster. I am a witness to the efficient and effective way the Fukushima nuclear disaster was handled as I visited the nearby regions as a part of the tsunami disaster survey team. Even, I had the opportunity to visit Chornobyl years after the nuclear disaster that happened in 1986 and had a feel of the place from outside the contaminated zone.
So, while there is no denying that there are risks involved with nuclear power plants but our experience shows that the probability of such a risk is at a much lower level in nuclear reactors than in any other industrial disaster like the Bhopal Gas tragedy in India or any other recent accidents of avalanches and dam failures or landslides. It has been demonstrated in all these three cases that such disasters can be managed with minimal impact, even in long run. There is always an element of risk in our daily lives and the probability of an accident always exists even when we travel by airplanes, cars, buses, or trains. The second point is nuclear waste disposal which is at present a genuine concern. But again, look at the countermeasures being taken by countries where nuclear energy is the main source of power generation like France or any other Scandinavian country. In France, the nuclear waste is transported to a facility at La Hague, where they are kept in a storage pool and then a major portion of it is recycled to use it again as fuel. Finland is set to open the world’s first permanent repository at Onkalo, for high-level nuclear waste disposal in steel containers that will be buried in underground tunnels 430 meters below the ground in certain ideal geological conditions suitable for long periods of storage.
So, the pace of finding solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste is at a fervent speed and new solutions are in the offing in near future. The vision of Dr. Homi Bhabha during the 1960s was to develop a 3-stage indigenous Nuclear Power Program based on limited uranium but vast thorium resources in India to minimize nuclear waste. This expertise exists in India and can be made use of in the future. It is also possible that countries with vast lands like Russia, Australia, China, or even USA and Canada create underground nuclear waste parking slots for the world to deposit their nuclear waste at a cost, a la car park. Once the nuclear waste is buried in appropriate containers and sealed in the womb of mother earth it will render ineffective after a few thousand years with the decay of radioactivity. The other comparison of nuclear with renewables is the cost factor. Due to the initial construction costs, nuclear power is more expensive at the beginning. But if you factor in the lower fuel cost of uranium and its high energy density and the life span of a nuclear reactor, which is 40 to 60 years in comparison to solar which is 30 years, and windmills less than 25 years, nuclear power will turn out to be cheaper. For example, a 1GW Nuclear power station needs 30 tons of nuclear fuel in one year of operation in comparison to a similar capacity thermal plant that will need 2.6 million tons of coal or 2.0 million tons in case of oil. Nuclear energy has several advantages over renewables in terms of reliability, Green House Gas emissions, land use, and waste. It is far more reliable than renewables like solar, hydro, and wind as it keeps churning out energy even when the wind is not blowing, the sun is not shining or there is monsoon failure.
If India has to grow, that it will, and beat Germany and Japan to become the third largest economy in the world by 2030 and further threaten China for the second position, it will need the 24×7 reliable clean nuclear energy that will complement other renewables like solar, wind and hydro. We should not follow the path of China when America outsourced all its dirty work of cheap manufacturing to them and they senselessly depended on coal and became the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. Now that India is expected to take giant steps to become the next manufacturing hub, we should sidestep coal and opt for the nuclear option. Innovations in nuclear power are happening at a faster pace that could revolutionize the energy mix with the initial success achieved in fusion technology. The race is on and we should be active participants in this race rather than a spectator. India should plan nuclear infrastructure at an expedited pace and in parallel, we should make use of available CO2 removal technologies that include direct air capture and avail the expertise available in the country on carbon sequestration. The time is ripe for you Mr. Prime Minister to invoke Smiling Buddha once again, and this time for the entire world. It was 48 years back in 1974 when India tested its first successful nuclear fission device during the Pokharan I explosion. Dr. Raja Ramanna informed the then Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi that The Buddha has smiled. The mission was rightly nicknamed the Smiling Buddha as it was meant for the peaceful use of nuclear energy for mankind and not to bomb people.
Since then India has kept its promise.
This is your James Bond moment Mr. Prime Minister as believed by the world leaders where the fictional British Agent 007 saves the world from the forces bent upon ending some part of the world. The toughest part for you is that this is not a Hollywood movie and the climate threat is real. But people have great hopes because this time James Bond is real.
