India has a industrial accident liability law passed after the Bhopal industrial disaster in 1984. A Union Carbide plant released thirty two tons of toxic gases that killed about four thousand people and injured at least six thousand more. This was one of the worst industrial disasters in history. One of the repercussions of the disaster was the creation of a new liability law.
The law says that companies that the manufacturer of equipment involved in a serious industrial accident can be sued. This liability law has kept India from being able to import nuclear components and fuel from most nuclear nations. India has been working on an insurance pool that would cover nuclear accidents and protect equipment suppliers. Russia recently said that they were in discussion with India to build twenty power reactors and that the liability law did not bother them.
India has a huge population and an insatiable demand for electricity. Currently sixty percent of the electricity in India is generated by burning coal. This creates severe air pollution and releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is contributing to global climate change. Nuclear power accounts for just three percent of electrical generation in India at present. India would like to generate about twenty five percent from nuclear power plants by 2050.
The U.S. and India signed a civilian nuclear arrangement in 2008 but U.S. businesses were concerned about liability and have not signed up to supply India with reactors. Another impediment to U.S. companies doing nuclear deals with India was the insistence by the U.S. that any nuclear tech or fuel that was exported to India would have to be tracked to insure that they were not diverted to India's military nuclear program. India has never signed the international nuclear non-proliferation treaties.
U.S. President Obama just ended a visit with Prime Minister Modi in India. In the new civil nuclear technology sharing agreement just signed during Obama's visit to India, the U.S. dropped the tracking requirement. U.S. companies should be attracted by the estimated one hundred and eighty five billion dollars worth of new nuclear power reactors that will be facilitated by the new arrangement. However, they will conduct their own risk assessments to determine whether or not the new Indian insurance pool will be sufficient to protect them in case of a nuclear disaster.
I recently posted about the desire of nuclear equipment and nuclear fuel manufacturers to sell to the developing world. In that article, I spoke about Vietnam. One big concern that I have with such deals is a fear that corruption in the construction, operation and regulation of nuclear power plants could pose a grave threat to the environment and public health. Fortunately India is rated as being much less corrupt than Vietnam. Out of one hundred and seventy countries, India has a ranking of eighty four which means that more than half of the countries are rated as being more corrupt than India. On the other hand, nuclear exporters such as the U.S., Japan, Canada, France and Russia are considered to be among the thirty least corrupt countries. In view of the fact that there are serious examples of corruption in the nuclear industry even in these countries, it is even more likely that there will be serious corruption in India with respect to the construction and operation of nuclear power plants. India should explore other sources of energy such as solar, wind and hydro.
Indian nuclear power plant:
