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NSG approves nuclear commerce with India
On Saturday, the NSG, whose raison d'être, was the 1974 nuclear test by India, approved the India-specific exemption in its guidelines for transfer of fuel & technology for usage in India's civilian nuclear programme despite having a strategic programme and not being a signatory to the NPT or the CTBT.
Read the NSG statement.
In 2006, the NPT was made irrelevant by North Korea. What's the chance that in a few years from now, India will be listed among the list of members given India's Thorium resources?
Manmohan Singh staked his government after the Loony Left withdrew support. His risk has been rewarded.
The actual impact of the deal on the power shortage will only be seen over the few years. In the short term, we can source fuel from various suppliers. But as for new reactors, we probably won't be able to import the first few ones for 4-5 years at least. A huge amount of investment will be needed to build new reactors.
In March 2006, Richard Boucher said that 90% of India's reactors would be placed under safeguards over a period of time. We're initially commiting to 14 out of 22 reactors under safeguards. As the calculation in that post indicates, to get to that 90% mark, we'll need to build or import 80-odd reactors.
The cost of a typical reactor is around $2000 per KW. India needs around 1000 GW by 2030. So we're talking of an investment of the order of hundreds of billions of US dollars, assuming that the target is to have 10% of power requirements met through nuclear energy. Private participation & investment is obviously needed. For that to happen, an effective regulatory environment that allows a fair return on investment is required (Nitin's words!).
There're some aspects of the deal that are still unclear though.
Firstly, what is the sequence of events? When does India need to publish the list of plants that will be placed under safeguards?
As for the fuel, it isn't as though Uranium, Thorium etc. are unlimited resources. They're certainly not replenishable. So you can't actually rely on them forever. Also, when they are fairly (or become) ubiquitous, naturally the usage (mining) increases significantly. But that also means that the resources will diminish more rapidly, which is a fairly vicious cycle (similar to coal), resulting in them becoming costlier.
From what I've read, electricity generated from nuclear reactors is around 20-30% cheaper compared to coal & 40-50% cheaper compared to gas based plants. But this needs to be offset with increasing technology (& fuel) costs. There are social costs too, as I pointed out regarding the water requirements for nuclear plants.
PS: With impeccable timing, the Governor General of New Zealand is visiting India this week. Time to read out the list of charges and the penalties, even if he's only a ceremonial head of state?
Ho ho. Australia's Foreign Minister is also visiting, as is China's Foreign Minister.
Labels: india, manmohan singh, nuclear, nuclear agreement, usa
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How things could develop on/before July 22
After the Left withdrew support to the UPA government last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that his government would seek a vote of confidence from the Lok Sabha on July 22.
Since the arithmetic still doesn't work out too well for the UPA, jokers like Shibu Soren (JMM) and Chandrasekhar Rao (TRS) are trying to extract whatever they can (minister posts & a Union cabinet decision in favour of a separate Telengana state) from the Congress (I).
Then there's a huge debate on whether Speaker Somnath Chatterjee should vote with his CPI (M) comrades on July 22 or not. If my understanding of the Constitution is right, the speaker cannot do so ordinarily. The only situation under which the speaker can vote is if his vote is the casting vote (Article 100). So if the scores are tied, Somnath Chatterjee only then has the duty to vote.
There're a total of 543 members. Remove Somnath Chatterjee and the government needs to get 272 out of the 542 votes in its favour to stay in power. The Left has 59 seats. The Left is majorly pissed off with Manmohan Singh for going ahead with the nuclear agreement despite its protests and despite the UPA-Left committee not having come to a decision.
At the same time, the Left does not want to be seen as co-operating with the BJP during the vote of confidence. So I think this is what could happen:
- The Left abstains from the vote. The new total vote count becomes 484 since you now subtract 59 Left votes from 543 seats. So now the UPA only needs to ensure it gets 243 votes in favour of the government. That it already has, with the support of the Samajwadi Party. So the government will survive.
- The casualty will be Manmohan Singh. He'll resign. Sonia Gandhi will have to find a new Prime Minister. The Left will resume outside 'support' to the government.
- Preparations for general elections will start. Assuming that the deal does go through the IAEA and the NSG, I'm not sure about the exact next steps if the US Congress okays the agreement. Does it come back to the Indian Parliament? If so, then the Left could block the deal then. If not, in any case, the Indian & US governments will be lame duck administrations. So they'd be wary of closing the deal. The next government can deal with the headache.
- Contrary to the Left's expectation that their magnanimity in ensuring survival of the government (by abstaining) will be appreciated, the fact remains that they caused havoc in political circles. The price they could pay would be in terms of the number of seats they win in the next general election.
The Australian Parliament commissioned a study on the water requirements of nuclear power stations. The results corroborated an earlier study by the US-based Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) which suggests that nuclear power stations use up more water (Table S-1) and also produce less electricity per pound of circulating steam compared to other energy sources like fossil fuels, biomass or natural gas. The Australian Parliament report's conclusion is:
Per megawatt existing nuclear power stations use and consume more water than power stations using other fuel sources. Depending on the cooling technology utilised, the water requirements for a nuclear power station can varyKeeping in mind that fresh water is preferred for these power plants and the fact that we live in times when water leads to inter-state and inter-country disputes, it seems to me that a nuclear power plant is not a sound option. Of course, if there was a cost-effective way to use desalination plants to convert saline water from the sea and then route it to the power plant, that could be an ideal solution.
between 20 to 83 per cent more than for other power stations.
Labels: congress (i), crazy commies, lok sabha, loony left, manmohan singh, nuclear agreement, politics, prime minister, sonia gandhi, speaker
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The Karat approach hasn't worked, time for the stick approach
Yesterday, the Left parties announced withdrawal of support to the UPA government, a little over 4 years after they had first supported it from 'outside'.
Although it has been apparent for a while that the 'Loony Left' will pull the plug soon over the civilian nuclear energy agreement with the USA, Prakash Karat now indicates that inflation was a huge factor as well behind the decision. In fact, the UPA government today requested the IAEA secretariat to circulate a draft safeguards agreement to the IAEA Board of Governors.
As a result, the Manmohan Singh government is in a minority and now has sought support from reliable folks like the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (S) & the Trinamool Congress to ensure it gets past the half-way mark of 272 seats. The current arithmetic has 226 seats for the UPA constituents and 39 from the Samajwadi Party. Even if you add up those fringe parties and some independents, the number just about crosses 272. That's a huge risk to take given that the government could fall if one of those chaps called in sick or had a brainwave that he shouldn't be supporting a government that he'd opposed for 4 years!
Also, the political price that the Congress (especially) will pay is huge. It is very obvious that support from the Samajwadi Party will require the Congress to reduce the number of seats they will contest in the next elections. In addition, there's a definite corporate agenda as well. The SP's leadership is extremely close to 2 major business groups: Anil Ambani's ADAG & Subrata Roy's Sahara India Pariwar.
Sahara is currently fighting 2 battles: the RBI has prohibited it from accepting new deposits from the public and the UP Government was demolishing part of the Sahara Shahar for alleged encroachment and plan violations.
The Ambani's are at each other's throats again. Anil Ambani's attempts to engage MTN (South Africa) in merger discussions has allegedly been thwarted by Mukesh Ambani's RIL. RIL is obviously making a lot of money from exploration and refining, especially now when crude prices are increasing every day. The Samajwadi Party has asked for extra taxation of 'windfall profits' made by such firms.
With 39 MPs, the SP will ask for Chidambaram & Murli Deora's resignation as well as 4-5 ministries for their MPs. What stops parties with 1 or 2 MPs from also having their own set of demands.
The more honourable thing for the UPA government to do is to resign and call for elections. During the campaign, they can point out why they were right and why the Left wasn't right!
Labels: communist, congress (i), crazy commies, elections, india, left, loony left, nuclear agreement, politics
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Where's the vision, Mr. Prime Minister?
Petrol, diesel and LPG prices were hiked yesterday by Rs. 5 per litre, Rs. 3 per litre and Rs. 50 per cylinder. The Left parties are up in arms, and as usual, will be forcing general strikes across the country on behalf of the people of India they claim to represent.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suddenly realized that he had a responsibility to address the country's citizens and explain the rationale behind the drastic increase.
The saddest part of the PM's speech is the lip-service given to investing in the exploration & tapping of alternate non-crude sources of fuel, such as the sun, water, winds. There was no mention of the budget allocation for these efforts. Of course, this was too good an opportunity for him to let go. So he made sure he referred to the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy deal when he said 'We have to develop renewable sources of energy, including nuclear energy.'
But really, I was keenly looking forward to the PM presenting his vision of how India would move away from its reliance on crude. Surely, if global crude price increase is such a significant contributor to inflation & has the potential to drag down economic growth, it makes sense to gradually switch to alternate sources of energy. Yet, there was no such vision on display.
There's very little chance that crude oil prices will dip, given the instability associated with Iran and Iraq. So will the government keep issuing oil bonds to be paid for by a future generation? Will the government do something about the oil marketing PSUs? Does India really need three of these (Indian Oil, Bharat Petroluem & Hindustan Petrolem)?
Will the price of petrol ever be an easy-to-make-sense-of value? The prices in various cities are: Rs. 50.56, Rs.55.88, Rs.54.29 and Rs.55.07. Why can't the public be saved the torture of hunting around for small change? Just round-off the prices to the nearest 50 paise and spare us the torture!
Labels: communist, crazy commies, left, loony left, manmohan singh, nuclear agreement, petrol, prime minister
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Indo-US civilian nuclear energy deal agreement released
The full text of the civilian nuclear energy deal (which has always been called the 123 Agreement, despite the fact that India has no such act) is now in public domain at the Ministry of External Affairs website.
It's 22 pages long, and would make good weekend reading!
Labels: india, nuclear, nuclear agreement, usa
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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: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+x)/(22+x)=.9
.1x=5.8
x=58
(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 |
Labels: nuclear, nuclear agreement
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The nuclear deal and unclear opposition
The India-US nuclear deal signed last year has had its share of detractors. There has been a lot of talk about whether India was pressurized into twice siding with the US over the vote against Iran in the IAEA board meeting.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a 'suo motu' statement yesterday where he defended the deal and made it clear that India's military programme would not be compromised during the separation process. A column by Placid Rodriguez, former Director of the IGCAR, Kalpakkam, looks at the deal from an interestingly different perspective. He reckons that a stagnant US civilian nuclear programme stands to lose a lot more if the deal doesn't come through.
Meanwhile there is a lot of opposition to US President George Bush's visit to India tomorrow. Although my letter published in 'The Hindu' was in a different context, the gist still holds good. Protests, as long as peaceful, can be tolerated in a democracy. The moment they turn violent, regardless of the political affiliations of those involved, it is the duty [and right] of the government to protect citizens from law and order problems. Arundhati Roy is amongst the 'Go home' brigade.
I don't really care much for his visit. If he'd visited Bangalore, we may have at least seen some urgent filling of pot-holes etc. to make the city look better. Of course, I do wonder where all these protestors went when Pervez Musharraf came to India to watch a cricket match. So a dictator, responsible for Kargil & the problems in Jammu & Kashmir, is acceptable, but not George Bush? I find that hard to swallow!
Labels: iran, musharraf, nuclear, nuclear agreement, pakistan
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Prakash Karat, the general secretary of the CPI(M), in a press conference last Friday made it amply clear that the government's economic and foreign policies were not acceptable to the Loony Left and he thundered
We will ensure that it is not made possible for the Government to take a stand against Iran's interests.Err ... comrade Prakash, I thought the whole point was to bother about India's interests. I'm assuming, of course, that the "I" in CPI(M) stands for India rather than Iran. If your point is that Iran's interests are the same as India's interests, I have some news for you. Iran is a theocratic state, almost certainly possesses nuclear weapons supplied by Pakistan and Dr. AQ Khan and has threatened to use them. I can't quite see why we should be friends with them.
Iran's various acts of sponsoring, hosting, abstaining from or complying with resolutions pased by the Organization of the Islamic Conference certainly is no evidence that Iran is India's friend.
Deal or no-deal over nuclear energy with the US, India's stand should be to vote against Iran. A nuclear weapon armed Iran is the last thing India wants when it has the likes of Pakistan and Afghanistan to its west.
Labels: communist, crazy commies, iran, left, loony left, nuclear agreement
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The India-US deal: nuclear or unclear?
Two days ago, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations met to discuss the nuclear co-operation deal between India and the US. It does seem to me, reading the hearing proceedings, that there is a lot of ambivalence among the policy making and defence strategy analysts community in the US about the deal.
There is talk about how India must sign a more restrictive safeguards agreement with the IAEA compared to that signed by the 'official' nuclear powers: the US, UK, France, Russia and China. In addition, there are questions about whether nuclear energy is the way to go for India. Instead, shouldn't India be helped with sorting out inefficiency in its existing power generation and distribution?
The problem I see with this, as I pointed out in a comment on 'The Acorn', is that while the deal makes India commit to separating civilian and military nuclear facilities, continue with the moratorium on nuclear tests, prevent nuclear weapons from being sold in the bazaar, conform to the Proliferation Security Initiative, stop dealing with Iran etc., the US only commits itself to working with its allies on India's entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, consult partners on India joining the ITER (International Thermo-Nuclear Experimental Reactor) and convincing the US Congress to clear the deal.
Ironically though, Ashton Carter, co-director of the Preventive Defense Project at the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs, Harvard reckons that the deal spells out clearly what the US has committed to while remaining vague on India's commitments.
Labels: iran, nuclear, nuclear agreement
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