Japan?s nuclear crisis has alarmed global public opinion about the safety of nuclear power plants. The anti-nuclear lobby in India, which was lying low after the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal, has launched a fresh offensive against the government’s nuclear power programme after the crisis. Some safety concerns flagged off by critics about the nuclear power generation may be justified, however, the big question is can India abandon nuclear power without compromising its energy security?

Traditionally, coal has been the favourite fuel for power generators in India given its easy domestic availability. India is keen to increase the share of natural gas-based power generation in a bid to follow a low-carbon growth strategy but is hampered by a domestic shortfall of the green fuel.

For example, the Union power ministry had included several gas-based projects in its Tenth Plan capacity addition programme, but most projects failed to take off due to non-availability of fuel linkages.

India’s hopes of increasing the share of natural gas in electricity generation were revived when some big discoveries were made in the offshore Krishna-Godavari basin by players like RIL, ONGC and Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation.

Reliance Industries Ltd?s (RIL) D6 block, the largest find in the area till date, alone is estimated to have the potential to produce 80 million standard cubic meter per day (mmscmd) of natural gas.

The private player started production from the block in April 2009, leading to a significant improvement in the domestic availability of natural gas. The private contractor had achieved 60 mmscmd production.

Increased domestic production of natural gas encouraged power generators to envisage new projects based on the clean fuel. As a priority sector, power generators were given preference in allocation of gas from the block.

But later the private contractor said it was unable to ramp up production beyond 60 mmscmd because of technical constraints. And now it turns out that production from the block has declined, forcing the producer to make commensurate reductions in gas supplies to various nominated consumers, including power plants.

Developers of these plants are now a worried lot. If gas supplies further dry up, running plants on an optimum scale might become difficult for them. They set up power projects in the hope of easy availability of natural gas from the block. But now they are staring at the prospect of their investment going sour.

Liquid fuel-based urea plants, which converted to natural gas to benefit from a reduction in production cost, are also facing the prospect of a reduction in supplies. They spent huge sums on fuel conversion projects. If they do not get adequate gas supplies, they would have to use liquid fuel to utilise their manufacturing capacities.

India has also not made much headway in its efforts to import natural gas from countries like Iran and Turkmenistan through pipelines. While negotiators have finally reported some progress on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, the Iran-Pakistan-India project remains a pipedream. A similar project envisaged to transport natural gas from Myanmar to India has also failed to take off.

Importing LNG is an option to meet the domestic shortfall in natural gas. However, affordability remains a major issue in making large-scale import of LNG.

India needs to ensure its energy security if it wants to maintain its high economic growth rate. Against the backdrop of the Japan?s nuclear crisis, Indian anti-nuclear lobby’s arguments might sound more compelling, but they certainly do not offer any credible answer to India?s chronic energy shortfalls. The hard reality is that India cannot afford to banish nuclear energy unless it decides to compromise on its economic growth.