By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI), has expressed serious apprehensions over the safety of nuclear power plants in the country in the backdrop of Japan’s nuclear disaster following catastrophic earthquake and tsunami there. It called upon the Central Government to have a relook over the nuclear plant policy for the safety of the people.
SDPI national general secretary Mr. A. Sayeed in a statement said that India has a lot of lessons to learn from Japan incidents. The nuclear
reactors planned in the country, especially in Jaitapur, Maharashtra need to be reviewed after the accident in Fukushima in Japan. None of the six untested reactors of the Jaitapur design is in commercial use anywhere in the world. It is also an earthquake prone zone, which the authorities are trying to downplay. When Japan with its advanced technology is struggling with the situation, imagine what could happen in India?
Mr. Sayeed said that according to media reports the people in Jaitapur don’t want this nuclear plant. The Commerzbank, the second largest bank in Germany, has refused to invest in the project. The government needs to know that people all across the country support those who oppose the nuclear plant in Jaitapur. However, Maharashtra government is committed to set up India’s largest nuclear power project at Jaitapur. This was announced by the state Governor K. Sankaranarayanan in his address to the joint sitting of the state Legislature on the first day of the budget session last Monday.
Mr. Sayeed said that nuclear energy is a gamble and the risks can be deadly. The Government needs to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency, that is not only environmentally sound but also affordable and reliable. Like the impact of the nuclear emergency in Japan can have impacts across borders, a nuclear accident in Jaitapur could also threaten Mumbai. We don’t need dangerous energy, he emphasized.
He said environmentalists have warned that the proposed 9,900-MW Jaitapur nuclear power plant that got environmental clearance on Sunday will destroy the fragile Konkan coast.
The statement said that an impact assessment report by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, (TISS), has come down heavily on the proposed nuclearpower plant at Jaitapur in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra stating that the project will have a “huge negative impact on social and environmental development” as it is sitting on a high to moderate severity earthquake zone. The TISS findings in ‘Perception Matter- People’s Report- Social Impact Assessment of Jaitapur Madban Nuclear Power Plant’ also suggested that the government subverted facts and called the fertile agricultural land as “barren”. The All India Kisan Sabha, (AIKS), has also demanded that the government should scrap the Jaitapur nuclear power project.
Mr. Sayeed pointed out that the projected electricity requirement of the nation in 2010 was 1,52,000 MW. Even if the project is ommissioned, the requirement of electricity will be met only by two per cent. The capital cost of the nuclear power project is Rs. 10 crore per MW, while that of coal-based thermal is Rs. 4 crore and hydro Rs. 5 crore. The wind power project is estimated at Rs. 6 crore and gas-based project costs Rs. 6 crore per MW.
The per unit production cost of electricity in hydro project is paise 20 to 60, gas – Rs. 2.50, wind power Rs. 2.60, coal – Rs. 2.65 as against Rs. 8 to Rs. 10 of nuclear energy.” There is no justification as to why such an expensive electricity production is being imposed on the nation, Mr. Sayeed added.
At the US atomic weapons plant at Rocky Flats, Colorado, there were numerous mishaps involving radioactive material which were kept secret over four decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s. In Russia, the province of Chelyabinsk, just east of the Urals, housed a major atomic weapons complex, which was the site of three major nuclear disasters: radioactive waste dumping and the explosion of a waste containment unit in the 1950s, and a vast escape of radioactive dust in 1967. It is estimated that about half a million people in the region were irradiated in one or more of the incidents, exposing them to as much as 20 times the radiation suffered by the Chernobyl victims. None of which, of course, was disclosed at the time, the statement added.
Mr. Sayeed has urged the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to have a relook at the nuclear power plants policy for the safety of the people of the country. The safety measures in the existing nuclear power plants should be overhauled totally and new nuclear plants projects including the one proposed at Jaitapur should be reviewed thoroughly weighing the pro and con of it from all angles. ([email protected])