Nuke Flop

CAN generation from non-conventional energy sources like nuclear, wind, and industrial cogeneration from waste like bagasse at sugar mills provide succour to power-starved India? Unlikely, going by past experience.

Wind energy potential in India stands at 20,000 MW, but barely a fraction of this has been tapped. Though the first windfarms were installed in 1986 in coastal Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Orissa, by the end of March 1994, only 114 MW of grid-connected windfarms were operational, of which 74 MW had been installed by the private sector.

Cogeneration is the simultaneous production of power, either electrical or mechanical, and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source. For instance, about 30 per cent of the electricity used in the pulp and paper industry is cogenerated from the steam produced in paper mills. TERI estimates that cogeneration capacity could increase to 9,427 MW by 2001. But the State Electricity Boards have no regulations for cogeneration. Only three of the SEBs have taken steps in this direction, mainly for bagasse-based cogeneration.

For real tragedy, one has to turn to nuclear power. Of the 10 nuclear plants in the country, half are closed. Nuclear power contributed just 2,225 MW of the total 81,164 MW generated in fiscal 1994-95, against 58,110 MW by thermal and 20,829 MW by hydel. The picture won't change in a hurry. Probably, not at all. Two of the five out-of-operation plantswon't be opened again and two more plants are on their way to being closed. With funds for new plants nowhere in sight, it's no go. Concedes Y.S.R. Prasad, chairman, Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC): "We produce barely 2 per cent of the total energy requirement."

Twenty-five years after the first Indian nuclear plant went on stream, average capacity utilisation stands way below 50 per cent against 90-95 per cent in Japan and 75 per cent everywhere else. Of the 20,730 MW of new generation capacity added during the Eighth Plan period (1992-97), nuclear power accounts for just 880 MW. It will contribute half that during the Ninth Plan period.

The NPC blames it all on poor funding, escalating costs and the NPT. India's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it says, has deprived it of crucial spare parts. Repairs are long and costly. A confidential report says better time control with streamlined shutdown and repair management will work wonders. But old, outdated plants, poor maintenance, huge cost overruns, and gross disregard for public safety can't be wished away.

 Instead of setting up smaller, manageable reactors which make funding, accountability and maintenance easier, the NPC has gone in for huge plants. Strapped of funds—it's got only Rs 400 crore of the Rs 5,000 crore it wanted in the Eighth Plan—it cuts a sorry figure. And, says a top source at the Atomic Energy Commission: "Unless the NPC does a thorough convincing job, no government's attitude towards it is likely to change."