There is no doubt that electricity generation from nuclear power is the most efficient form of energy production for a largely energy-deficient country like India. But the ground reality is that it is also the riskiest.
A look at the accidents that have occurred in the history of nuclear power generation leads us to believe that nuclear power has led to a peaking of disasters. The graph seems to be warning us of things to come. First, there was Three Mile Island in the United States: an accident that triggered the dangers of nuclear power and sent us a strong signal that worse was to come. Then there was Chernobyl: an accident in the USSR that had claimed many lives but still did not lead to any deep introspection and alarm. But the third disaster, Fukushima, which happened due to a tsunami, shook the confidence in nuclear energy to the core, and has wider-ranging repercussions in the history of nuclear power. A chain-reaction of the nuclear reactors with uranium of 4-6 percent enrichment led to the death of around 3,000 people. It also rendered a large area with extremely high radiation levels, calling for mass evacuation of the people there. It was an accident that impacted the lives of tens of thousands of people in the vicinity, and it was even beyond the control of the world’s most disaster-ready system that Japan boasted of.
That extent of danger was unprecedented, and many countries decided to scale down the use of nuclear energy. Germany in particular, at the peak of the occurrence of the disaster, decided to close down all its nuclear reactor facilities.
It is noteworthy that companies involved in designing nuclear reactors have not yet built one that can be disabled, or one where radioactive fuel can be secured and made free of radiation risks within a few seconds of the first warning that predicts a natural calamity in the area of a nuclear reactor. In addition, climate change due to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases has led to even greater uncertainty in predicting the occurrences of natural disasters, which have become even more catastrophic.
India needs to introspect deeply. It should not be carried away by the opportunity to harness nuclear energy under treaties signed with the United States, Russia, Australia, France and Canada for supply of nuclear enriched materials without designing nuclear power plants with accident-prevention systems. Fukushima has shown us the dangers of nuclear power and should touch the sagacity of policy-makers and its large-scale proliferation to meet energy needs. Instead of nuclear energy being the only choice, other avenues such as hydro-electricity, thermal power, wind energy and solar energy should be implemented to drastically reduce the risk. It is better to be safe than sorry. A nuclear winter should be prevented at any cost.
