Nuclear Power in the Year of Modi in India

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 05/23/15

Jaideep Prabhu reports that it has been a year now since Narendra Modi took office as Prime Minister of India and by all accounts, it has been a good year. In many ways, the Modi victory is reminiscent of the Barack Obama rise to the presidency of the United States in 2008 - after eight years of what many saw as a misguided war in the Middle East and Central Asia, a significant number of Americans wanted change. Similarly, after ten years of anemic Congress rule, Modi represented the hopes - perhaps unrealistically high - of millions of Indians. For a candidate who had spoken at length about solar power during the election campaign, it was not surprising to see Modi talk up nuclear energy once in office. In July 2014, Modi visited the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and was full of praise for India's nuclear community. Declaring that nuclear power would be an essential part of India's energy security, he assured the Department of Atomic Energy of his full support in the implementation of their expansion plans. To be sure, it will take a brave prime minister to belittle the nuclear program - India takes much pride in its high-tech endeavors such as spacefaring and nuclear technology, especially given the prejudicial international environment in which it was developed. Yet such pride has not necessarily translated into support in the past - some projects are decades overdue and there was never a concerted push towards nuclear power in India. It is difficult to predict what a visionary might advocate but a few things that might receive consideration are new technologies such as Molten Salt Reactors, Integral Fast Reactors, and thorium reactors such as the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor. A second consideration would be a ramp up in the number of reactors by an order of magnitude - if we want clean air, plentiful energy, and growth simultaneously, perhaps it is time someone talked about a thousand reactors over the next half century rather than twenty, fifty.