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 1/5th 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.
