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An astounding number of people — nearly 9,000—from the sea-faring villages of Idinthakarai and Kudankulamin Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu were charged with sedition for their peaceful protests in 2011. Back then, they were raising their voice against the nuclear power plant being constructed at Kudankulam. Many of them were spooked by the Fukushima reactor meltdown in Japan in March 2011, when radioactive material leaked into the surrounding areas after a devastating tsunami hit the plant located by the sea. Memories of the Indian Ocean tsunami striking Tamil Nadu in 2004 were still fresh at that time, and many were worried about a similar fate at Kudankulam, lest there be another black swan event. The cases against most of the people have since been withdrawn, but some 50 people are still living under the shadow of the charges, which activists say is “for a chilling effect” —to suppress them from speaking up. Fast forward to 2025. The Indian government is planning to lean big on nuclear energy—the aim is to produce 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047, a 12.5x increase from current levels. The government’s thinking, as articulated in a NITI Aayog white paper from 2023, is clear. “With the likely reduction in the capacity of fossil fuel-based electricity generation and increasing share of variable renewable energy, nuclear power can make a major contribution in terms of providing base load power and grid balancing,” it says. Add to that the shifts in geopolitics over the last decade and the trend towards energy independence, and the government has built quite a strong case for a return to nuclear energy. But nuclear energy has always been a difficult and divisive topic, with the bogey of reactor meltdowns, high capital investment, land acquisition, weaponisation and the case for alternatives like solar being a critical part of the discourse, along with the general social anxiety around nuclear energy. In fact, this anxiety has made some countries look at decommissioning their nuclear power facilities completely. The big nuclear debate is now back with a vengeance. There are differing points of views on the tech to bet on, the safety of reactors, the fuel to be used and on whether going back to nuclear fission is really the way of the future. The revivalNuclear energy has been the big bad boy of energy production—controversial and at times disastrous, as proven by the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. After Fukushima, many thought that its time was over. Germany, which until then, satiated a quarter of its power needs from nuclear energy, decided to abandon the ship altogether and shut down all nuclear plants right after the disaster. Even in the US, the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world, the rise of shale gas meant nuclear power was not being invested into for over a decade. Across the world, money instead went into renewables like solar and wind. That is now changing. There is a revival of interest in nuclear around the world, mainly due to the rise of power-hung r y use cases like data centres that run AI and crypto, and the buzz around small modular reactors (SMRs). 120437900In India, the budget in February sketched out the intent to invite private participation and outlined plans to replace some facilities of the National Thermal Power Corporation to SMRs. That announcement has set multiple things in motion. The country has since announced that it is working on three indigenous technologies to be rolled out through SMRs over the next decade. Jitendra Singh, minister of state (inde pendent charge), science and technology and earth sciences, has said three reactor technologies are being worked on by scientists—200 MW and 55 MW pressurised water reactors and 5 MW gas cooled reactors. A few days back, in an unusual development for a state, Maharashtra signed an MoU with Russia’s atomic energy corporation ROSATOM for the development of an SMR based on thorium. Back in 2008, the then prime minister Manmohan Singh staked his government’s survival on the IndiaUS nuclear deal. While India leveraged the deal t o acquire uranium supply, the current push for new reactors will be the first real impact of the deal on capacity. Even the Indian Railways is working with the Department of Atomic Energy and the power ministry for captive nuclear power. But when nuclear power is in the news, can disagreements be far behind? The right techMuch of the nuclear buzz globally is around the small modular reactor. Its name pretty much sums up what it is. It is smaller in size and can produce up to 300 MW. That is one-third of what conventional reactors produce. SMR is also factory-built and assembled on site, rather than built from scratch on site, which allows for costs to be kept in check and for faster execution, enabling reactors at multiple locations. That is in theory is true only on paper. There are zero operational SMRs in the world. The first one expected to be operational is in China, with most of the traditional nuclear energy behemoths like the US either in the design and licensing phase of SMRs or just about prepping for construction. Even as that unfolds, a key purported advantage of SMRs—lower costs—has come under scrutiny. In 2023, NuScale Power, a US-based SMR company said the target price for power, which was $55/megawatt-hour (MWh) in 2016, had increased substantially to $89/MWh. However, SMRs were supposed to bring costs down through economies of scale enab l e d by modular construction that w o u l d t h e n compensate for the loss of economies of scale from largescale production. That is the sort of thing that worries some veterans. Anil Kakodkar, nuclear physicist and former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), believes that while India should look at SMRs in the long term, it should instead focus on its expertise in proven technologies like PHWR— pressurised heavy water reactors. He warns against India putting all its bets on SMR, especially on tech that needs to be imported and not developed indigenously. “It will take a few decades for the technology to become competitive. India’s need for nuclear capacity is here and now,” says Kakodkar. According to him, existing tech needs to be leveraged now, while emerging nuclear technologies like SMRs, particularly reactors sourced from outside the country, should be given time to mature before the country invests in them. He says a lobby of SMR companies are pushing their tech into the country as India is among the few markets large enough and craving for additional power. “One or two reactors don’t make economic sense. So all these people, while they are developing SMRs, are looking for markets. You don’t have a better market than India, and they are all descending here.” KN Vyas, former chairman of AEC, says in the NITI Aayog white paper that the SMR industry needs to find its ways through “early challenges in technology demonstration, availability of special materials and manufacturing techniques and harmonisation of regulatory frameworks and licensing process”. Worries aplentyPerhaps one of the most potent arguments for an energy mix that leans more towards renewables like solar and wind comes from Vivek Bhardwaj, associate director at research firm RTI International, who says that a combination of renewables with battery storage to ensure delivery of power when the sun is down would work out significantly cheaper than relying on nuclear power. “Its commercial viability has already gone out of the window, due to its high price, cost overruns and hidden additional costs in safety, decommissioning and liabilities which no insurance company is willing to cover. At present, the cost of nuclear will be triple that of solar and wind which is a little less than $40/ MWh,” Bhardwaj says. What makes things complicated is that India doesn’t have an independent regulator for atomic energy. While the government claims that the current regulator—Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) —is functionally independent, this needs to be codified into legislation. A proposal for setting up a Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority was under consideration when the Nuclear Safety Re gulatory Authority Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha back in 2011. Transparency in decision-making is critical as well, especially to avoid instances like the allegations unfolding at Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh where former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her family are accused of embezzling $5 billion. Looking aheadSP Udayakumar, convenor of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, was among those who were charged with sedition back in 2011. “I am still facing lots of difficulties. They just removed the look-out notice against me,” he says. Udayakumar and fellow activist major general (retd) Sudhir Vombatkere are among those alarmed by the government’s plan to go big on nuclear energy. Is nuclear the way to go, they ask. The counter argument is that India’s power demand hit an alltime high of 250 GW last year and is expected to grow to 366 GW by 2032. Energy transition to low-carbon alternatives is critical while keeping costs low. While nuclear energy has its pros and cons, India’s energy policy needs to hold space for a broader conversation on these and the many other worries of those living in the many Kudankulams and Idinthakarais across India where reactors are likely to pop up if the government goes ahead with its plans.
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