India needs to conduct a comprehensive review of its safety standards for nuclear power plants as also preparedness to meet any eventuality in the light of Japan’s unprecedented nuclear crisis. To start with, it can set up an independent agency to regulate the sector. That would help bring transparency in regulation-making and boost public confidence.
Japan’s nuclear crisis has brought to the fore the safety issues involved in operating nuclear power plants and put a serious dilemma before the energy-deficient countries like India looking at nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel to meet their long-term energy security goal.
While India cannot afford to abandon its nuclear generation programme, it would be advised to show more caution in pursuing the option. Besides, it should also undertake a comprehensive review of design and safety standards for nuclear reactors in the light of the Japan’s unprecedented crisis. It can also look at giving more teeth to the nuclear watchdog atomic energy regulatory board (AERB) by allowing it functional and financial autonomy. The watchdog currently functions as a government arm under the atomic energy commission.
India has 20 nuclear reactors, of which 19 are in operation. Only two units in the Tarapur atomic power station have boiler water reactors similar to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which is in crisis after being being hit by the earthquake and tsunami recently.
?The crisis in Japan need not be an occasion for panic or alarm, rather, it ought to be a trigger further safety enhancements at all nuclear power stations, Srikumar Banerjee,? secretary, department of atomic energy, recently told The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief, Shekhar Gupta in an interview on NDTV 24X7.
According to the AERB, all the reactors are designed to withstand the impact of earthquake and tsunami of specific magnitudes, which are decided on the basis of conservative criteria. As per AERB norms, operating reactors are put to comprehensive safety audit once in ten years. In between, brief reviews are also conducted at an interval of five years. Besides, periodic drills are also conducted to assess preparedness to deal with an unlikely emergency.
However, the moot question is that can all these safety measures guarantee an accident-free operation of nuclear plants in India? The domestic nuclear lobby would have us believe this. But Japan’s fiasco shows that accidents cannot be ruled out at any nuclear power plant.
While the Fukushima plant was robust enough to absorb the impact of the unprecedented earthquake, it was not designed for the eventuality of flooding. That proved a fatal shortcoming in the design of the reactor.
The memory of the Chernobyle nuclear disaster of 1986 was fading out and demand for nuclear reactors had started reviving in recent years. However, the meltdown at the Fukushima plant has sparked fresh concerns about the safety of nuclear power generation.
Countries like Germany and China have decided to undertake reviews of safety standards for nuclear reactors and pending that, put on hold fresh approvals.
In India, the AERB has said it will conduct a fresh assessment of safety standards as also preparedness of plants to undertake mitigation measures in case of any crisis. However, that might not go far enough in assuaging public concerns about new nuclear power projects planned in the country.
The government needs to overhaul the regulatory framework for the nuclear industry to provide greater say to the civil society on key issues ranging from the selection of project sites to formulation and implementation of regulations.