Discussion with Dr.Anil Kakodkar Part-1

Q: How can India benefit from the Uranium deal with Australia?

A: It is a very good question and I would like to go about it in detail. First, let me explain why nuclear energy? Some people are worried about nuclear energy and there is that connotation on nuclear war. Then why do we still want to emphasize on nuclear energy. First of all we need energy. In fact, growth of civilization has gone hand in hand with ability of human beings to use energy. First capability of using was energy was when human being learnt how to produce fire. Well then they found out that with fire you can cook, the options for food became much larger; in terms of assimilation of food in human body, it also became easier. So, today if you look at the world, roughly 1/5^th of humanity is well to do and they have all the comforts in the world. Now whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is another question altogether. The rich economies roughly constitute 20% of the world population yet they consume 80% of the energy.

 So, as a result a large fraction of the Earth’s resources have been consumed. There are still resources, but the fact is that the rate of consumption of Earth’s resources is continuously increasing. So, whatever energy resources we would have consumed in say maybe last 10 years, we will consume much more than that in the coming 5-10 years and in another 5-10 years it will be even more. So, now India saying that this kind of lifestyle is no good is a nice philosophy and we should all work towards it, but it doesn’t have any impact on the world, because we are not yet among the rich and the powerful. So if you want to be heard you have to first become powerful. I wouldn’t say rich, but you have to certainly become powerful, and then only the world will listen to you. So, if you want the world to understand this philosophy you have to attain a position where the world will listen to you. This is number 1. We are all human beings, we all have aspirations. How these aspirations get created is that ‘my neighbor something which I don’t have’. That’s what creates aspirations. There is this 20% world which is fueling aspirations, so the aspirations are growing in the rest 80%. Now we are talking about the countries that have the rest 80% of the population, countries like India, China, Africa, and so on. You must have heard about the term emerging economies. India is an emerging economy; China was considered an emerging economy. 

There is this larger portion of these emerging economies, where the aspirations have gone high and where the economy is also growing. On an average you people will earn on an average as much money as your parents earned when they were retiring. This is the growth path. So even if the last generation used some energy, you are going to use 10 times larger amount of energy. I’m still saying that we should adhere to our old principles. But, the fact is that preaching has to come from an actual demonstration of that principle, leading y the front and we should do that. But, the larger body of people is more likely to be driven by aspiration and they will become capable to fulfill them. Aspiration enhancing capability is a positive way of looking at aspirations. We must have aspirations, as you heard Dr. Kalam’s oath. We must defeat the problem, these are all aspirations. So the short point is that the Earth’s resources are finite, and particularly in India the biggest drain in our economy is our energy import bill. Now we are sitting comfortable because internationally the oil prices have fallen down. Imagine the first shock of the 70s or the second oil shock, you have to get one more oil shock, our economy will go down. Coal which we have in plenty, we still have in plenty. But, there is this problem of unevenness, there is the problem of transportation and infrastructure. So, we started importing coal. Now, the difference between the nuclear energy and the conventional energy is that whatever energy you can get from say 1 kg of oil or coal, you can get 1 crore times more from 1 kg of Uranium. So in terms of Earth’s resources, when the Earth’s resources are likely to be depleting very fast, it is a new opportunity to protect Earth’s resources and still fulfill our requirements of energy.

That is the central point about nuclear energy. Now you produce nuclear energy by fission of materials which are fissionable. Now, in nature only Uranium-235, Uranium is a chemical element which consists of 2 isotopes: 235 & 238. Uranium-238 is 993 parts of 1000 in naturally available Uranium, which is not fissionable. Only 7 parts out of 1000 in naturally available Uranium is Uranium-235, which is fissionable. So any nuclear energy has to start with Uranium, world over. 

There is no other alternative because that is the only thing available in nature. Now, the trouble is that we have Uranium, but Uranium quantity is also very small. Now, what to do? While Uranium-235 fissions Uranium-238 gets converted into Plutonium, which is also fissionable. That’s how you can use it in weapon. You can also use Plutonium for running a nuclear reactor. But, it is not as efficient as, say Thorium. If you put Thorium in a reactor, it can get converted into a third isotope of Uranium: Uranium-233 and that is fissionable. And we are very rich in Thorium. Of course numbers vary, but according to me India has the largest deposit of Thorium. So we should develop technology to convert Thorium into Uranium-233 which will meet our entire energy requirement. The Domestic Research & Development that we are doing is essentially driven by this objective that we become capable and self-sufficient in making use of our Thorium. But, this is a long term thing in the sense that we have this three stage program wherein you start with Uranium reactors, as I said, then, you go to the second stage where you put fast reactors which are primarily run on Plutonium & Uranium. With the fast reactors, the advantage is that these are breeder reactors. A breeder reactor is you produce more Plutonium as compared to Uranium you consume. So, you produce electricity and you also produce fuel. In a normal energy production you consume energy but don’t produce new energy resource. In nuclear energy you consume the energy resource for production of energy but, you also produce energy resource. And in breeder reactor you produce that in quantities larger than you consume that why it is called breeder reactor. So that’s the second stage of Indian Nuclear Power Program. Once you’ve done that comes the third stage where you use Thorium to produce large quantities of Uranium-233. Now, this is our 3 stage program and will be conducted in sequence and that’s going to take time. 

When Atomic Energy program was conceived at the time of Independence; we conceived this as a technology development program for long term energy security of the country. It’s going on and we have developed several technologies; we have developed Thermal Thorium Reactors, Uranium Reactors, Plutonium Reactors, and many more. In terms of time there may be delay but in terms of technology approach it going on exactly as had been planned. But our energy requirements are growing, galloping. So we started commercial Nuclear Power Program and we have around 22 commercial nuclear reactors which are operating in the country and they will grow. We have a commercial fast reactor and we also have design of Thorium Reactor. But, now if I have to meet the requirement of the energy then this is not growing fast enough, and I can’t do it faster because the first stage requires Uranium & I don’t have Uranium. There was an embargo, people used to look at India as a pariah country when we conducted the 1974 peaceful nuclear explosion, the 1998 nuclear weapons explosions. But, when the world realized that India has not done anything wrong, we had not violated nay international agreement, we had not violated any law that we had agreed upon, we had not done anything unethical in terms of stealing or borrowing technology from other nations. So then they realized that India is a technologically strong country and you cannot stop India by doing so. So, slowly the world realized that India is a responsible country as well and there is no harm in dealing with India. India of course has its own security concerns but, it has done that in a responsible way. So the atmosphere changed and the world was ready to do nuclear commerce with India. 

Now, once the nuclear commerce is opened up for us on our terms and without affecting our strategic autonomy or our decision making power, why not we accelerate our nuclear program by importing Uranium which was a constraint so far. So, the idea of importing Uranium of Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, is to be able to accelerate electricity production from nuclear reactors even as our 3 stage program is going on. So that is a long answer to your short question.