If in the nuclear reactors in Japan, a sizeable core-melt occurs, it could give rise to explosive metal-water reactions, which could disintegrate the reactor core, disperse radioactive substances, and breach the ultimate containment.

When that happens, dangerous species of radioactive fission products in the gaseous and micro-dust and droplet form could spread over large areas, depending on wind conditions. Even a millionth gram of some of these substances, if ingested or breathed in, could seriously raise the cancer risk for individuals, especially in children and infants.

The Japanese authorities are perhaps not able to approach the control rooms or other problem areas of these damaged reactors because of high radiation levels. This limits the physical steps they can take to control the events. The introduction of seawater into the reactor, which they are planning, will irretrievably damage the reactor, but they hope it will stop the worst scenario of a core meltdown. The full impact of the Fukushima incidents will only emerge slowly over the next day to two.

 Lessons for India

The Japanese are the world’s best experts in earthquake-resistant designs. They are also most knowledgeable in protective designs against tsunami impact. Japan is a country that has a superb disaster management organisation throughout their nation, and an often-rehearsed working team to handle such emergencies.

In contrast, in India, we are most disorganised and unprepared for the handling of emergencies of any kind of even much less severity. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board’s (AERB’s) disaster preparedness oversight is mostly on paper and the drills they once in a while conduct are half-hearted efforts which amount more to a sham.

In case of earthquake engineering, the Nuclear Power Corporation strategy is to have their favourite consultants cook up the kind of seismic data which suits them, and there is practically no independent verification of their data or design methodologies. A captive AERB, which reports to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), makes the overall nuclear safety management in India worthless.

There needs to be a total re-organisation of the AERB, making it totally independent of the DAE secretary and made technically much stronger with the recruitment of reputed senior specialists into that organisation. Today, the AERB merely serves as a lap dog of the DAE and the prime minister’s office (PMO).

It is true that it is unlikely that the kind of a devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan may strike any of the Indian nuclear plants. But the earthquake-resistant designs and tsunami abatement measures we have taken in our nuclear plants need a high-level, in-depth review by an independent expert group, predominantly consisting of non-DAE, non-NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited) experts.

Ever since the UPA government has taken over in 2004, the collusion between the PMO, the DAE, NPCIL and the various corporate houses in India and abroad has substantially increased.

This closeness was deliberately engineered by the PMO, initially to bring home the Indo-US nuclear deal, but afterwards the continuity of this closeness between the corporate business houses interested in nuclear power and the concerned supervisory government agencies is distorting and damaging independent government decisions to be taken in the public interest, whether it be in the choice of import of reactors and their cost, the environmental impact of such imported reactors, or their potential deficiencies and dangers.

This is certainly fast leading this country towards large economic losses and a sharp increase in the potential for hazardous reactor accidents in India. This trend must be immediately arrested, if necessary by parliament’s intervention.

India has built 18 Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) on our own. We have mastered the design through carefully learning from the mistakes of the past, and are currently moving on to build 700 MWe units of this type. We have three generations of Indian engineers who are familiar with the PHWR. If we need more nuclear power, the safest route is to consolidate and expand on our PHWR experience, import natural uranium, and build more PHWRs.

Instead, the government is scattering our energies and talent in getting imported reactors like the French EPRs in Jaitapur, of which neither Indians nor the French know much about. If, in a PHWR, a major accident occurs, we have Indian engineers and scientists who are totally familiar with the details, who can jump in and rapidly bring the situation to normal.

For Indian engineering teams to react in a similar timely and effective manner against an accident in one of the planned imported reactors will be next to impossible for at least few decades to come. Therefore, I urge the government to place all actions related to the import of reactors on hold and proceed gradually forward with building just the PHWRs.

 Implication of EPRs in Jaitapur

The first objection is that the Evolutionary Pressurized Reactors (EPRs) to be built in Jaitapur, having not been commissioned anywhere in the world, is a non-existent reactor whose potential problems are totally unknown even to Areva, its developer, let alone India’s Nuclear Power Corporation.

A reactor has to be physically built and then only it can be tested, and the EPR is therefore a totally untested reactor, even if Areva claims they have combined various best design features on paper in conceiving the EPR. The reliability and safety of EPR will be extremely low and unknown until, through different stages of operation and testing over years, all indicated problems are rectified.

Why should people of Jaitapur be subjected to the high risk of proving an unknown reactor in their backyard? This decision of the government is all the more perplexing when we know that India has already built about 18 PHWRs on its own over the last four decades and has perfected its design through extensive years of operation, and we can continue to expand nuclear power in India by setting up more 700 MWe PHWRs of our own design.

In view of the vast nuclear devastation we are observing in Japan, I would strongly urge the government not to proceed with the Jaitapur project with purchase of EPRs from France or any other import of nuclear reactors.

Secondly, the promoters (NPCIL & Areva) are totally silent about the serious problems that India, and especially the local community, has to face after operations start and the spent-fuel starts accumulating at the site. The higher burn-up spent fuel from EPRs has its own unique hazards at the storage and transportation stages, unlike in the case of current LWRs, which use lower burn-ups.

Besides, the reprocessing of such fuel will be extremely complex, the per MWh production of usable plutonium from this plant will be notably low, and these two reasons combined will make EPRs least useful as plutonium producers for India’s move through indigenous thorium-based fast breeders for the future.

Thirdly, we are buying into all these high risks at an enormous cost to the tax payers. An EPR will cost no less than Rs20 crore per MWe, if the government does not hide much of the costs through invisible subsidies. As against this, an Indian PHWR will cost at the most Rs8 crore per MWe. Why not purchase natural uranium alone from abroad and multiply the number of 700-1000 MWe PHWRs, for which India does not require any technology imports?

 Public’s lack of trust

Today, there is very little public trust in the various atomic energy institutions and their heads in the country, unlike the days of Indira Gandhi or Narasimha Rao as prime ministers and Sethna or Ramanna as AEC chairmen. The ethical standards in the PMO, DAE, NPCIL and the AERB have fallen considerably, especially since 2004, perhaps because of the current prime minister’s direct interference with these institutions to meet the political ends of getting the Indo-US nuclear deal passed through parliament.

All along, these nuclear agencies of the government have also colluded with, and were assisted by, large Indian and foreign corporate houses and their federations interested in the sizeable nuclear power market they are helping to create in India.

Even in the evaluations and negotiations of cost, the safety and liability of imported reactors, the official nuclear agencies today are operating hand-in-glove with their friends in the corporate houses and federations. Under the circumstances, these government agencies must be visibly de-linked from corporate influences first and made truly independent, before the public can be expected to believe any of their assertions.

It will be best if a high-level national review commission is appointed to review India’s nuclear power policies at the earliest. The members of this commission must be people of high ethical standards with expertise in matters of nuclear power, safety and economics, and preferably non-officials of the government and not connected with business houses or federations.

Dr A. Gopalakrishnan