Nuclear lies and obfuscation

The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010 is well on its way to become law. The Congress and the BJP have, between them decided to sell the Indian national interest to the multinational corporations, with a few crumbs that the Indian companies will pick up along the way. Here is a set of expert opinion that I wish had received greater attention:

1. Dr. A Gopalakrishnan - former Chairman AEC - and a consistent opponent of the legislation - explains why the preamble and object of the bill is a veil of lies. He clearly lays down the benefits to US companies.
2. A report in the Hindu - that illustrates the way the government is going to bulldoze the interests of the local population

3. My friend M V Ramana, a physicist currently at Princeton and Suvrat Raju explain the moral hazard in the legislation. At an estimated cost of Rs18cr megawatt, it still remains a wonder why the same effort is not spend on solar

4. Vardarajan - who had of late shifted to defending the government policy on nuclear power, is constrained to comment on weak bill that will let foreign suppliers off the hook in the eventuality of a nuclear holocaust

5. More by Ramana and Raju on the moral hazard of the policy being followed by the government.Given the effect we see on the world economy by the relatively benign "moral hazard" of unsupervised banking, I shudder at the effects that this moral hazard will eventually have on India.

Besides the cost of setting up the power plant @18crs per MW (estimated) other costs that need to be considered (and have been outlined in the discussions of the Parliamentary committee - but not quantified) are:
- Finance ministry - Insurance premium will be likely in the range of 1.8% - 2.7% of the 300mn SDR that is mandated
- Home ministry - Costs of damage arising out of conflict, hostilities, war, terrorism - need to add to security forces
- Ministry of Water resources - Ministry does not have facility for testing water quality from view point of nuclear contamination. Need to study impact of contamination on humans, crops, animals
- Ministry of environments and forest - what efforts are to be made to safeguard the environment around the nuclear facility
- Department of food - storage of foodgrains - distance and operating procedure
- Ministry of health and family welfare - Ministry is nowhere ready to meet emergency arising out of nuclear or radiological emergency. Hospitals not equipped - bill does not have a single clause on health care during nuclear emergencies - only compensation due to health effects of radiation.
- Ministry of Agriculture - Disaster Management system not aligned for radiological fallout.
- Ministry of defense - fool-proof protection of nuclear assets cannot be guaranteed

Assuming that these concerns are addressed, what would be the actual "cost" of nuclear power. And of course, we have not even taken into account the cost of storing the "spent fuel" over the next 100 years !

Ofcourse, the Prime Minster has committed to the US that India will pass this bill - and the Prime Minister is an honourable man. If Indian lives are lost, that is just "collateral damage".