[Marxistindia] Left parties statement on shortage of uranium fuel

[news from the cpi(m)]

23 May 2008

Left Parties Statement:

 

On Shortage of Uranium Fuel

 

The Government is currently conveying a picture that the Indian Nuclear Energy program is short of fuel and only the India US Nuclear Deal can bail India out of this shortage.  Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Convenor of the UPA-Left Committee on the nuclear deal, made such remarks while stating the case for seeking the IAEA Board's approval for the India-specific safeguards agreement. 

 

There is no doubt that India is currently experiencing a shortage of uranium compared to what its requirements are for running its PWR's. The question is, is this shortage due to actually running out of nuclear fuel as it is being projected or due to a temporary shortage, created either through a lack of proper planning or deliberately in order to push a high cost import based nuclear energy sector?

 

Since  the  days  of  Homi  Bhabha , it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  India  has  limited  resources  of  natural  uranium. India  has  61,000 tonnes of uranium  ores  in  its  soil,  which can  sustain  a  total  PHWR  capacity  of  10,000-15,000  MW, against our current installed capacity of only 4,100 MW.   We quote below the statement of  Shri B.Bhattacharjee,  the then Director, BARC (November, 2003, Issue No.238 of BARC Newsletter)

 

"Our  present generation  of PHWR utilizes only 0.5% of total uranium fuel and our modest uranium reserves may not support more than  15,000 MWe  installed capacity through the existing  PHWR route. That is why our committed nuclear power  of about 20,000 MWe  by the year 2020 calls for  induction of  Fast Breeder Reactors(FBRs) to contribute about 2000 MWe and Advanced Heavy Water Reactors to contribute about 3000 Mwe."

 

Neither  the  DAE  nor  the  Government has  given  the  nation  any  explanation  of  how  this  current shortage has  come  about, when we have known reserves in the country to sustain a nuclear energy programme of at least 10,000 MW. Knowledgeable  experts  feel  that  the  current  uranium  shortage  has been  created  through  allocation  of  insufficient  funds  to  the  uranium  mining  sector  by  the  Planning  Commission  and  the  Finance  Ministry  since  about  1990. Added  to  this  was the  lacklustre  management  of  the  Uranium  Corporation  in  the  past, working  uranium  mines  having  been  closed  down  and  actions  taken to  overcome  environmental  opposition  to  uranium  mining   being weak  and  ineffective.

 

It is  pertinent to note  that according to DAE, India's plan was to  raise the nuclear energy to 20,000 MW  by 2020  and  to 25% share of the country's needs by 2050 and all this was planned with indigenous fuel resources. Suddenly, we have a plan for changing the route of nuclear energy away from the one developed earlier, which calls for large-scale import of Light Water Reactors and import of uranium. It needs to made clear that such a plan that depends on imported fuel has neither been discussed nor been placed before the people. Even the Integrated Energy Plan produced by the Planning Commission envisages -- as a most optimistic scenario -- nuclear energy to reach 29,000 MW by adding a limited number of Light Water Reactors to the 20,000 MW envisaged earlier by DAE. For none of this, a serious shortage of nuclear fuel has been projected either by DAE or the Planning Commission. 

 

While the shortage of uranium is a serious issue for which the Government owes the country an explanation, what is disturbing is to paint the temporary shortage as a permanent scarcity in order to push the India US Nuclear Deal. That this shortage is a temporary one can be seen from the attached Press Release dated 20/08/07 of the Nuclear Power Corporation itself.  We understand that with opening of new mines and the new ore processing facility at Jaduguda, re-opening of the open cast mine there, this shortage is expected to be overcome by 2008. In case this is not true, the country would like to know what has gone wrong from the earlier estimates of the Nuclear Power Corporation as stated in its above Press Release?

 

Government may clarify what it is doing to address the gap between demand for uranium and supply. Has the government fixed the responsibility for this serious deficiency in government operations? How long will it take before the plant capacity factors of current PHWRs start coming up and reaching close to 90% once again? 

 

Government should also explain why the plan expenditure of the Department of Atomic Energy has been reduced by Rs. 188 crores between Budget Estimate 2007-08 and 2008-09?

 

The current shortage  of uranium is  certainly  NOT  because  the  India-US  deal  has  not  come  through, since  the  10,000  MW  plan  was  finalised  purely  on  the  basis  of  proven  Indian  uranium  reserves, long  before  any  deal  with  the  US  was  in  the  horizon! A temporary  mismatch  between  the    national  uranium  supply  and  demand  cannot  be  the  basis  to  plunge  the  country  into  an  India-US  deal  with  far  reaching  adverse  implications.       
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