Perilous Nurturing of Nuke-Nuts

[monitor]

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Perilous Nurturing of Nuke-Nuts
Posted on January 3, 2012

Maimuna Ashraf
Exclusive Article

Indian nuclear aspirations are not cloaked, India is moving swiftly with a vision of becoming the world leader in nuclear technology, but, this brisk expansion in nuclear technology is raising apprehensions and alarming many countries around. Lately such concerns have been expressed by Chinese official media and scientists in an article titled ‘Risks behind India’s Military build up’ in the state-run People’s Daily. India is standing by to test its 5000 km range Agni-V missile, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) Director-General V K Saraswat had stated that Agni -V will be test fired in coming February. The missile has already been termed ‘killer’ missile for certain countries. Chinese official media said that the “killer” missile with potential to reach several cities in China showed New Delhi’s intention to become major power in the region. Analysts articulate that while short range missile Agni-I and II are regarded as Pakistan-specific, Agni-III, IV and V are certainly China-specific. The People’s Daily also issued an analogous write up last month terming India’s decision to beef-up defense preparedness at borders with China with one lakh troops as a ‘sensitive move’. Moreover stated, “It will result in a tense situation in the region and harm India’s own interests. Increasing troops on the border area is always a sensitive move and it is especially sensitive to increase troops on a disputed border area,”
It is definitely right that India is focusing on building defense rapidly in coming years. It has been decided in the recent 11th Five-Year Plan to spend 8.2 billion US dollars purchasing equipment from foreign countries to improve its fighting capabilities. India’s pronouncement to acquire 8.2 billion U.S. dollars military equipments from the world’s top military powers is a step towards deterrence to its adversaries. This has also lead to a major enhancement in India’s relations with the USA, Russia, Germany, Israel, Japan, Australia and other countries, since India has become the world’s largest arm importer as said by a topical report of Sweden Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Australia has also lifted its ban on exporting uranium to India, despite India not having signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
However India itself has explicated its strategic aspirations and anticipations to have a significant position in world affairs, so said that it cannot abide these internal and external security environment constraints. It is the Indian goal to continue to reinforce its military and hold a military power to assure its standing as a major power.
India already has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear program; it has currently more than 20000 MWe nuclear capacities on line and expects to have 63000 MWe by 2032. India is at this time building 6 nuclear power plants (NPP) with a cumulative capacity of about 4,000 MW. Already in the pipeline with the necessary approvals granted are 18 NPPs with a collective capacity of about 17,000 MW to be built across the country. In addition, another 39 NPPs with an aggregate capacity of 45,000 MW have been proposed. Thus, towards the end of the next decade, India’s nuclear power capacity will reach over 70,000 MW. India plans to build these NPPs in clusters, each comprising about 6-8 plants with individual capacities in the range 1,000 – 1,200 MW, or with a total capacity of about 10,000 MW at each cluster. India aspires to boost its use of nuclear power from the existing 3 percent of electricity generation to 40 percent by 2050.
A noteworthy Indo-Russia nuclear project is on its way in Kudankulam. Kudankulam will have a total of 8 plants comprising two plants of 1,000 MW each and six plants of 1,200 MW each, thus making a total of 9,200 MW of capacity. Nevertheless, endorsements for the last four are yet to be approved. All eight units at Kudankulam are to be fabricated with Russian support, with Russia financing about half the cost of the plants. The capital costs of these plants are expected to be around US$ 1,600 per kWh. They will be built by India’s Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) under Russian supervision and NPCIL will commission and drive the plant. Work on two units would be completed soon while on units three and four are yet to be finalized. However the project has become contentious, thousands of protesters and villagers living around the Russian-built Koodankulam nuclear plant in the southern Tamil Nadu state, blocked highways and staged hunger strikes, prevented further construction work, and demanded its closure as they fear of the disasters like the Environmental impact of nuclear power, radioactive waste, nuclear accident similar to the radiation leak at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. The protesters have noticeably stated few explicit reasons for opposing the Koodankulam NPP project. Russia has also backed India’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat. Both countries have lately signed a deal for 42 Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jets. Russia also has other contracts with India, in particular the modernization of weapons already delivered. By one ballpark figure, 80% of India’s Army is equipped with Russian hardware, while a nuclear submarine leased from Russia is all set to join the Indian Navy in early 2012. All these developments are in a wary of its regional adversary China.
The Kudankulam case show that despite every preventative measure being taken to guarantee the safety of the plant and people, NPPs could go out of control due to unpredicted circumstances and accidents could take place causing radiation revelation to people living over a very wide area. Kudankulam is only 240 km from the west coast of Sri Lanka, in line with Puttalam. If any of the 8 nuclear power plants, being constructed or planned there develops a radiation leak due to some surprising reason; its impact would be felt directly by Sri Lanka. This is chiefly so during the monsoon months when the winds blow from the southern tip of India towards the North Central Province for several months. As 2 plants each with capacity 1000 MW will come into operation this year, and 2 more in another 5 or 6 years time. The balance 4 will also come into operation during the next decade. All these plants will draw sea water for cooling purposes, and if the water supply system breaks down due to an earth quake or a tsunami, as happened at Kalpakkam in 2004, there could be a great disaster, directly affecting Sri Lanka. Even otherwise, there could be a possibility that a mishap could take place due to human error or hardware error as ensued in Chernobyl and cause radiation leak. Hence the nurturing of Indo nukes can have serious implications for China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. At a time when India is boosting its defense ties with Russia to counter Pakistan and China, comprehensive defense pacts should take place to boost Pak-Sino defense to counter India, besides Pakistan needs to try other options as well especially the world’s second largest arms exporter Russia. Hence an immense swing in foreign policy is some how requisite!

(Maimuna Ashraf is defence & diplomatic studies analyst based in Rawalpindi)

[patna_ke_presley]

The thing is if this thing is related to India and China only, so why Pakistan is getting worried??? And will Russia arm up Pakistan against India, seems impossible.

[Archie]

For a country that starts brandishing Nukes even if someone sneezes
its quite weird that there press worries about India Building Nuclear Power Plants to generate electricity , while there countries leader go cap in hand to Iran and India so as to purchase electricity

[patna_ke_presley]

For a country that starts brandishing Nukes even if someone sneezes
its quite weird that there press worries about India Building Nuclear Power Plants to generate electricity , while there countries leader go cap in hand to Iran and India so as to purchase electricity

What does Koondakulam has to do with arm race and why is creating concerns. It is electricity production- we need electricity to run our Industries, Railways and homes.

[Aamir Hussain]

The issue is two fold:

Indian Nuclear aspirations -- it is no longer just for detterence but clearly as an offensive weapon program with second strike capabiltiy. This changes the game and leads to escalation in both sophistication and quantity of weapons deployed and platforms of delivery.

Safety of both the Nuclear Weapons and the power plants. We have seen what happened in Japan. Clustering of plants while cutting down on overheads does complicates crissis hnadling when something goes wrong in one of the plants in the cluster. The spill over effects of such an ambitious projects of building nuclear power plants will no doubt raise concerns for safety from its neighbours. They have a legit concern.

As an example we are bearing the brunt of pollution in Indian cities close to our border with increased fog during the start of winter in Central Punjab.

Both the above points, if carried forward, will illicit response from India's neighbours and if your theory is right, India would not mind if we put nukes on our subs. or develop longer range missiles and start developling fast breeder reactors -- offcourse to produce much needed electrictiy, would it?

All things nuclear, have a spillover effect. I do not think both the people of India and Pakistan understand the longterm effects of playing with this slow burning fire.

[killerx]

clean sweep of china and india in case of war

[patna_ke_presley]

clean sweep of china and india in case of war

The article is mentioning about Pakistan, what Pakistan has to do with the India vs China.

[Capt.Popeye]

^^^
Beautifully rambling writing by this Maimuna babe. She starts with Agni-5 as a "killer missile", then onto the defense budget, then Australi getting willing to supply uranium to India, then in her own words "India already has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear program" and how India is ramping up power production, Fukushima, then "Russia has also backed India’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat. Both countries have lately signed a deal for 42 Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jets. Russia also has other contracts with India, in particular the modernization of weapons already delivered. By one ballpark figure, 80% of India’s Army is equipped with Russian hardware, while a nuclear submarine leased from Russia is all set to join the Indian Navy in early 2012. All these developments are in a wary of its regional adversary China."

That was quite a filibustering journey by Maimuna. But no, she did'nt stop. Immediately in the next para she shifts tack-"NPPs could go out of control due to unpredicted circumstances and accidents could take place causing radiation revelation to people living over a very wide area. Kudankulam is only 240 km from the west coast of Sri Lanka, in line with Puttalam. If any of the 8 nuclear power plants, being constructed or planned there develops a radiation leak due to some surprising reason; its impact would be felt directly by Sri Lanka."
So "Even otherwise, there could be a possibility that a mishap could take place due to human error or hardware error as ensued in Chernobyl and cause radiation leak."

After all these meandering exertions, Maimuna come to a glorious conclusion (thank god, she finally quit writing) of
"Hence the nurturing of Indo nukes can have serious implications for China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. At a time when India is boosting its defense ties with Russia to counter Pakistan and China, comprehensive defense pacts should take place to boost Pak-Sino defense to counter India, besides Pakistan needs to try other options as well especially the world’s second largest arms exporter Russia. Hence an immense swing in foreign policy is some how requisite!"

For a professed "defence & diplomatic studies analyst " that was a huge piece of digressory penmanship. WTF was she getting at anyway? If she was wanting to moan and groan about something or the other, she certainly got a huge load off her chest.

Apart from that? Or was she getting paid by word-count. Then it was wisdom(?) by the kilo.

[patna_ke_presley]

"Hence the nurturing of Indo nukes can have serious implications for China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. At a time when India is boosting its defense ties with Russia to counter Pakistan and China, comprehensive defense pacts should take place to boost Pak-Sino defense to counter India, besides Pakistan needs to try other options as well especially the world’s second largest arms exporter Russia. Hence an immense swing in foreign policy is some how requisite!"

Sri Lanka The author is seemed to be Bozo.

[Aamir Hussain]

We can laugh all we want but the fact remains -- going on a NPP building spree at this speed has inherant dangers not fully understood or realised by the people of the sub-continent. The technology, and operations of NPP have their own challanges and employing them on "Assembly Line" like scenario is dangerous.

Neghoburs have a legit concern with the safetly of so many NPP, commissioned in such a short time.

You all, I mean our Indian neighbours should be more concerned with the safety issues of such speed building - afterall you all would be the first ones ot bear the brunt of radiation poisoning before we do.

[Peaceful Civlian]

Rightly said by Maimuna Ashraf. I totally agree with this Article, This shows the dangerous Plans of India and their Mass destruction program. This pulls Pants down the India's peaceful Program.

[patna_ke_presley]

Rightly said by Maimuna Ashraf. I totally agree with this Article, This shows the dangerous Plans of India and their Mass destruction program. This pulls Pants down the India's peaceful Program.

Typical Propaganda by Pakistani fanboy mentality. According to Nuclear Deal Koondakulam and Jaitapur are open for investigation of nuclear watchdog anytime they wish. And the IAEA was called recently to investigate safety of Koondakulam Power plant after Fukushima Disaster, even we try we can't use these plants for warhead purpose because we are bound by International treaty regarding that.

So don't be a fan boy and blindly following bullshit articles.

[heartrocker22]

The Kudankulam case show that despite every preventative measure being taken to guarantee the safety of the plant and people, NPPs could go out of control due to unpredicted circumstances and accidents could take place causing radiation revelation to people living over a very wide area. Kudankulam is only 240 km from the west coast of Sri Lanka, in line with Puttalam. If any of the 8 nuclear power plants, being constructed or planned there develops a radiation leak due to some surprising reason; its impact would be felt directly by Sri Lanka.

Tell this to Tamil ppl ,, i m sure that will have some calm effect on them

[IHK_PK]

We should at least, start developing the policy to set up more NPP's in various parts of Pakistan too, with the help of china immediately. As the gap between supply and demand for the electricity is quite serious and getting bigger and bigger day by day and the precious time is slipping away.

[killerx]

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The article is mentioning about Pakistan, what Pakistan has to do with the India vs China.

india goes to war what you think we will stand and watch bro