Part Two of Two Parts (Please read Part One first)
India has a tariff system that provides a lower ROI for nuclear power than for other sources of power. If not for this system, nuclear power would be even more expensive than it is. The Indian government says that the ten nuclear power plants will result in more than thirty three thousand new jobs. However, the real issue with respect to jobs created by infrastructure projects is the ratio of investment per job and, by that measure, these nuclear projects are an expensive way to create jobs. Jobs generated by the solar industry are six times more labor intensive than jobs created by the nuclear industry. Investment in solar jobs is much more cost effective than investment in nuclear jobs.
Supporters of nuclear energy tout the low carbon emissions from nuclear power plants as a way to mitigate climate change. However, the manufacture and fueling of nuclear power plants generates a lot of carbon before a single watt of electricity is produced. It has been estimated that it may take as much as fifteen years of steady operation before a nuclear power plant repays the carbon debt from construction. Considering the lengthy time required to license and construct a nuclear power plant, nuclear power is no solution to climate change.
In addition, there are threats to human health and the environment from nuclear power plants in case of an accident. A single accident such as Chernobyl or Fukushima can contaminate hundreds of square miles of land and force the evacuation of millions of people. Costs for such accidents could run into the trillions of dollars.
Nuclear power plants also make great targets for terrorists and that is a serious issue for India considering recent terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan. They would also be targets for an enemy’s bombs and missiles in case a war broke out.
Every nuclear power plant produces radioactive waste products that are dangerous to human health and the environment. Some of these waste products have half lives of hundreds of thousands of years. The human race has been using nuclear energy for power production for over sixty years and yet there is still no safe, economical and widely accepted method for the disposal of dangerous radioactive waste from nuclear power reactors.
While the federal government of India is dedicated to expanding nuclear power, local communities are not so enthusiastic. Since the 1980s, every time the federal government has announced the site of a new nuclear plant in India, there have been public protests by the people who live near the new site. In some cases, these protests have caused the government to abandon sites for planned reactors. In other cases, the government has been able to use the promise of badly needed public funds to quash protests and proceed with reactor construction. The risks and costs of nuclear power plant construction fall heavily on poor rural communities who only use a small fraction of the electricity generated by nearby power plants.
The Modi administration in India strongly supports nuclear power but that may be an unwise policy decision. Globally, the trend seems to be away from nuclear power. Recently, India cancelled the construction of ten new coal-fired power plants because it was cheaper to build solar power plants. Perhaps this will soon be the fate of the planned nuclear power plants.
Kundankulam nuclear power plant:
