Lets debate the issue of energy security.Nuclear power contributes less than
3% to our energy,meagre by any standards.Over the next decade this can
increase to upto 10%,still way less than oil & coal but substantial.Everyone
witnessed the way crude oil prices dealt a sever blow to our economy &
spurred inflation to double digits.Yes, agreed, to some extent this deal &
India’s proximity to US puts the IPI gas pipeline deal in jeopardy but
then we cant turn a blind eye to environment friendly nuclear energy.India
has 30% thorium reserves but is yet to develop the technology to harness it.
Once she does, we will have electricity cheaper than that produced from
coal.
The technology and the uranium fuel for its reactors would propel the
nuclear programme which has stagnated in the last 3 decades.India needs to
emulate France where nuclear power contributes 70% to its energy needs.

I don’t believe I have claimed that nuclear has no issues, only that it is a strong contender for a transition source (especially if the energy storage technologies do not pan out).

“Adding enough nuclear power to make a meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would cost trillions of dollars, create tens of thousands of tons of lethal high-level radioactive waste, contribute to further proliferation of nuclear weapons materials, result in a Chernobyl-scale accident once every decade or so, and, perhaps most significantly, squander the resources necessary to implement meaningful climate change mitigation policies.”

http://www.nirs.org/climate/climate.htm

No Coal, No Nukes, No Kidding.

http://energyjustice.net/nuclear

TO R MARGOLIS

1. Hyde Act, which is a US domestic act, put many Indian N-facilities under their jurisdiction, and therefore, will be able to force the US government to pressurise the NSG (which works on consensus) to stop supplying Nuclear Fuel to India, should India do something that the US does not like. For exmaple, the Indian Parliament condemned the NATO attack on Iraq without UN sanction. This shows India’s foreign policy is independent. It will not be any more with Hyde Act in place.
2. Australia, which has the highest known Uranium reserves, continues the sell Uranium to China, a clear proliferator, and US, which used N-Bombs on Japan, yet shows double standards towards selling Uranium to India. The 1-2-3 Agreement does not address that concern.
3. Indian army is deployed in Afghanistan and India send supplies to them via Iran. India is also building a railway line connecting Iranian shore and Iran-Afghan border. Iran can be a vital source for the Gas-Pipeline project, which will be beneficial to India. We need that energy resource, since we cannot run cars and buses with nuclear generated electricity. We need oil for that. Adopting an anti-Iran posture under pressure from US will hamper India’s energy security and military presense in Afghanistan.
4. India is still being judged from the fact that India is a NPT-non-signatory, which in itself is discriminatory.
5. The US is trying to sell India N-technology that is meant from Uranium Reactors, for which, India will have to spend her resources to buy or build reactors using Uranium. This would make India dependent on foreign Uranium imports.
6. India has 25% of the world knows Thorium resources, which, would be a better way to invest India’s resources on, than on Uranium based old technology, that the US is trying to sell.
7. To separate Civil and Military N-facilities in India will incur enormous cost, which, till date, has not been confidently estimated by BARC. That would be a great overhead on our economy. Not to mention the years, if not decades, it will take to complete the separation process.
8. Keeping the above in mind, opening up our facilities for foreign inspection will cause leakage of our N-secrets and will compromise our N-deterrent.
9. Many scientists in BARC have openly admitted their concerns regarding this deal, which has not been addressed by the government.
10. The deal will place many Indian facilities under foreign scrutiny for perpetuity, yet, there is not guarantee that Uranium will be made available to India till perpetuity.

True, we need N-power, but at what cost are we getting it?