March 14, 2006
 

90% reactors under safeguards?

In a chat with Indian and Pakistani journalists, Assistant Sec. of State Richard Boucher reckoned that over a period of time, 90% of India's nuclear reactors would be placed under IAEA safeguards. The India-US civilian nuclear deal announced that 14 out of the 22 reactors would be placed under safeguards by 2014.

So if Boucher's claim is to be taken at face value, basic arithmetic tells us that each and every of the next 58 reactors that India builds will have to be put under IAEA safeguards. How do we get that number?

Solve for x:
(14+x)/(22+x)=.9
.1x=5.8
x=58

Now that calculation assumes that every new reactor built by India would be under safeguards. If the government decided that 80% of all future reactors would be placed under safeguards, India would need to build nearly 73 reactors before the magic number of 90% is reached. How?

(14+kx)/(22+kx)=.9, k is the %age of new reactors which will be under safeguards
Change values of k and get x

%age of new reactors under safeguards	# of new reactors to be built
50	116
55	106
60	97
65	90
70	83
75	78
80	73
85	69
90	65
95	61
100	58

Will India build 80-odd new reactors and put 75% of them under safeguards? Something tells me either the US have got the numbers wrong, or the Indian government has missed some finer details.

Labels: nuclear, nuclear agreement

Rambled @ 12:02 PM

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