There are growing calls in Europe for nuclear power to be reassessed and possibly dumped. There are 150 reactors in use within the EU, and replacing them with conventional fossil-fuel based power. Switzerland has put three planned plants on hold and Austria wants a new safety regime for all European reactors.
With the array of disasters hitting JAPAN and devastating every nook and corner of the country, leaves us with a strange but true query...What is that, calls for an urgent need? “development or clean development.” With the nuclear disaster hitting japan , what can we say? Does clean energy come with such a huge price TAG ? But then Nuclear being the most clean energy today, in the context of the overarching emissions, where will our decision to rethink nuclear as against conventional one lead us to? What about our protocols and pacts ....what about our reduction targets? Can we, as a developing country afford to not go NUCLEAR?
All these questions may sound hard hitting, but then they need to be addressed. The scale and magnitude of natural disasters are any how out of any one’s reach. So foreseeing them should we not try and take steps to adapt to it? Or shall we place ourselves in a more comfortable situation of not being called as sustainably developed country...??
Emissions are always going to get worse before they get better, and industrialisation of the developing world is where most of this blow-out is occurring.
As per my perception, rethinking nuclear is no solution. Instead we as a country need to attempt to resolve some fundamental issues like , what kind of safeguards should we build to protect ourselves against these high risks (like Japan’s earthquake and tsunami combined)?Another question is: what if we are not nuclear and how long we can afford to be the same?
Also what about the risks & vulnerabilities of the communities placed around? I guess one can just go on when we are on the other side....but then having said this, it does not exempt us from answering them too...!!!!
Probably in the light of japan’s nuclear disaster , one can easily deduce that the strength of the Nuclear realm lies in safeguarding communities and still provide them the clean energy & not opting to choose either of them
Hi, good to see a thread around such a burning yet important topic as far as our country is concerned. I share your view that it’s high time that India needs to go nuclear given it’s a clean energy and the state of affairs of power generation in India. The day is not far when we would suffer an acute shortage of power in India. So basically no choice whether to go nuclear according to me, it’s the only way forward!
ReplyDeleteI think the risks involved in setting up nuclear plants needs to be studied and well managed at least if we cannot avert them. The only concerns that hover around that are the safeguards and controls that need to be implemented to ensure any disaster recovery or business continuity. Given the Japan disaster, it is very important to draw learnings from that event and accordingly implement them. Not only that all the past events related to nuclear disasters like Chernobyl should be closely studied and put up effective controls and machinery to ensure quick disaster recovery and business continuity if similar catastrophic events are repeated in future. This is what all the nuclear nations are doing to reassess their controls and effectively implement control mechanisms.
I think India has the capability in terms of the resources required for setting up nuclear power plants but just that one needs to go that extra mile to ensure all safety procedures and safeguard are being strictly followed and implemented.
ReplyDeleteThanks dear hubby for those wonderful insights..
ReplyDeletealso do i completely agree with you that india has the capabilities , its just one need to go that extra mile...