Optimists and pessimists may continue to debate India?s nuclear energy prospects after the new deal is signed with the United States and the Nuclear Suppliers? Group. But none can deny the fact that India has paid a high price for its isolation from the global leaders in nuclear energy over the last few decades. The best evidence of the failure on nuclear policies is India?s skewed capabilities on the energy front. While the country fares close to the top among nations in coal, petroleum and wind power, its current ranking on nuclear power generation is at a dismally low level with no worthwhile prospects of any significant improvement over the next few decades.
India, which is ranked the fifth largest economy on a purchasing power parity basis, is only the seventh largest primary energy producer in the world after the United States, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Iran. But India?s accomplishment in some of the more important energy markets is much better than the overall rankings.
For instance, take the case of coal where the country is now the third largest producer and consumer, after China and the United States, even though its coal reserves are only the sixth largest in the world. And India uses close to a tenth of the coal consumed globally. Similarly, though devoid of much oil reserves, India has emerged as the sixth largest user of petroleum products consuming about a little more than a tenth of that of the United States, the biggest global gas-guzzler, with most of the consumption based on imports.
India?s achievement in electricity generation is good given that it is now the fifth largest electricity-generating nation. As in the case of petroleum products, India?s total electricity generation was close to one-fifth of that of the United States, the largest electricity producer across the globe. India has also scored in the wind energy front with the current installed capacity pushing it up to the fourth position behind Germany, the United States and Spain.
In fact, the only one major segment where India?s achievements in the energy sector lags significantly behind is in nuclear energy. The most recent estimates show that India was ranked in the 20th position when it comes to nuclear power generation with the country producing just 15.6 billion kilowatt hours of nuclear power in 2006, which is just about 2% of the 787 billion kilowatt hours of nuclear electricity produced in the United States, the global leader in the segment, and a meagre 0.6% of the global output of nuclear power.
Apart from nations like Belgium, Spain and South Korea, even smaller countries of Eastern Europe like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine generated more power from nuclear energy than India. In comparison, India had a better ranking in the generation of thermal power with the country emerging as the fourth largest producer of electricity from fossil fuels next only to China, Japan and Russia.
And what is, perhaps, even worse is that India?s record in nuclear energy in recent years does not instil much hope. A decade ago, India?s nuclear energy generation was similar to that of China with each country producing 10.5 billion kilowatt hours and 11.4 billion kilowatt hours of nuclear power, respectively. But today China?s electricity generation from nuclear energy is more than three times that of India.
The only silver lining in this otherwise bleak nuclear energy scenario is the large number of ongoing projects. Numbers show that developing countries of Asia, including India, will account for more than two-thirds of the new nuclear power generation capacity that will be added across the globe by 2030. India is expected to add 17 gigawatts of additional installed capacity of nuclear power.
But how much of India?s proposed nuclear power installations fructify over the next two decades is a big question mark. Only a massive step up in investments, with close cooperation from the global leaders in nuclear power, will ensure that this anomaly in India?s energy generation is corrected and that India?s nuclear power generation capabilities moves close to that of its achievements in the other segments.
p.raghavan@expressindia.com