India’s Planning Commission Goes Batty – Wants To Promote Nuclear Power

Nuclear Energy is dying around the world as the high costs and the massive tail risks make it unfeasible in most countries. Many of the big contractors of nuclear equipment are going kaput as they are unable to get orders and even after they get orders face massive cost and time overruns. The two biggest western manufacturers Toshiba-Westinghouse and Areva are in huge trouble. The dropping costs of wind and solar energy have made nuclear energy obsolete. With solar energy costs expected to touch 2 cents/kWh in a couple of years, it does not make sense to put a nuclear reactor in your neighborhood. The days of cheap nuclear power are long over with new nuclear power plants being extremely costly to build and even risky.

Read about Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy.

India too is facing teething trouble in commissioning the existing nuclear power plants as it faces huge protests from locals who do not want to face radiation risks. Though the issue of raw material supply has been resolved, the high costs of nuclear power are a big concern. The Hinckley plant in the UK which is being constructed has faced huge criticism for the massive costs. With Fukushima, the added cost of safety equipment and regulations has made building new nuclear power prohibitive.

India has not changed its target of increasing nuclear power capacity to 63 GW from around 6 GW now. This target makes no sense in the age of ever decreasing solar power prices. It is expected that solar would touch a price of INR 5/kWh by 2022 while nuclear power technology is not seeing much improvement. Niti Aayog needs to get out of its ivory tower and smell the grass.

NITI Aayog bats for more nuclear capacity

NITI Aayog has called for ‘actively pursuing’ works on new nuclear power projects and suggested fresh capacity addition of 2.8 GW by the year 2019. For this to be achieved, the Aayog states that work on new nuclear power projects under construction at existing location and Kudankulam Phase 3 and Phase 4 would have to be actively pursed.

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