Nuclear Energy

[arvindiyer]

Assigning of 'nuclear-accident liability' has considerable political and foreign-policy implications and this issue has been broadly outlined in this overview article, which also links to an article conveying grave misgivings about the Civil Liabilities for Nuclear Damage Bill.

[arvindiyer]

Against the backdrop of recent events, distinct camps seem to be forming in the area of nuclear energy, with the naysayers presenting doomsday scenarios and pragmatists insisting that a return to a pre-nuclear past is not really an option.

[aquasanju]

i found this paper very interesting and is well presented, though one may not see the "balance" about the subject.http://www.indiafutureofchange.com/featureEssay_D0043.htm i found these two paras interesting:
"The MIT study showed that nuclear energy plants are more expensive and take longer to construct than coal or combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) (MIT, 2003). The initial cost of a nuclear energy plant is $2000 kilowatt of electrical energy (kWe) and estimated construction period is five years. The initial cost of coal plants is $1300/kWe and expected construction is four years. For CCGT plants initial cost is $500/kWe and expected construction is two years. Even with carbon taxes of $50/tC and $100/tC coal and CCGT plants are more economically advantageous than nuclear energy. The MIT study concludes that because of nuclear energy’s expense it is much more likely that the energy investors will rely on coal and gas as a primary energy resource (MIT, 2003). The study acknowledges that coal may be a legitimate option in countries whose governments are willing to invest in the high capital nuclear energy demands"
"Fast breeder reactors have proven to be fragile and unreliable. Conducting routine maintenance becomes a difficult task because sodium cannot interact with air (von Hippel, 2010). Removing fuel, draining sodium and completely flushing excess sodium from the reactor’s hardware can take months and drag into a years long process (von Hippel, 2010). France’s Superphenix’s fast breeder reactor was shut down more than half of its 10-year existence. Countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France have shuttered their fast breeder reactors after experiencing significant problems with hardware in their reactors immersed in sodium (von Hippel, 2010). " according to me going hi tech is always not necessarily a practical solution...! there may be still hope that in future we might get a cleaner/safer nuclear power, but in the present scenario it is not a viable option atleast to country like India where renewable sources can give far better result with much much lower investments than say nuclear...even China has only 3% T&D losses whereas there is 17%(in Karnataka) loss of which 5% is pilferage meaning technical losses is of the order of 9%! And at a conservative estimate of 100,000 MW installed capacity, this comes out to be 9000 MW a year! surely demand side management with incentives to solar/wind with dedicated grid to such renewable based energy sources, we can achieve a low carbon, higher penetration of electricity in India at lower cost

[LMC]

When we discuss the topic of nuclear energy in Indian context, there are three different sides of it and should be kept adequately apart:
International,national and regional(Koodan Kulam Nuclear Plant~Chennai).
Continuing a discussion from Chennai group....