India and the Bush doctrine

Yea, though we walk through the valley of the technology control regime, we need fear no failure: for courage of conviction resideth in our hearts and mind; lessons learnt from our past failures and successes achieved so far in our quest for technology indpendence comfort us.

-- Nuclear Pilgrim's Progress

Dogma and the Doctrine

Main dogma of the Bush doctrine seeks to bequeath a bonanza for the nuclear power plant [npp] industry - which is extinct in the US and in deep stupor in many of the NSG countries - by selling nuclear technology to India, while adopting a superior seller's position, relegating India to a lowly buyer begging for the supplies.

Bush's strategy to 'operationalise' this doctrine is to use a provision of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA 54) with regard to Presidential waivers. Towards this objective, he has offered India a bait: "Even though you have not signed the NPT with its full-scope safeguards and hence are not eligible, by our laws, to 'receive' our npp related products / technology, we will make an exception in your case (because we love you). If you agree to place a majority of your nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards and agree to abide by some other conditions of good behaviour, then we will kindly sell to you nuclear technology, allow you to import uranium from other supplier countries, . .. etc."

Policy-makers-in-charge in India, are falling hook, line and sinker for this subterfuge, and are about to swallow the bait in a single mouthful.

To be able to overcome the non-proliferation requirements of the AEA 54 and sell nuclear products to India (which so far, rightly, has neither signed the NPT nor agreed to the full scope IAEA safeguards) the US Administration needs to use the mechanism of 'exemption and waivers' available in the Act. For this, the US President needs to make a determination that selling nuclear technology to India will not prejudice achieving nonproliferation objectives of US. The Bush Administration has advanced an argument that sale of nuclear technology to India, as per their proposal, will not weaken but actually strengthen the US aims.

NSG countries have, in theory, followed the US lead in taking the position that as India is not a signatory to the NPT and full scope safeguards, they will not sell npp related products to it.

From around 1974, essentially, there have been no large-value npp related exports to India from the US. This has turned out to be mostly to the detriment of the US in terms of lost opportunities to sell their products. It is this policy-related disadvantage that they now are seeking to overcome. However, up to now, a few of the NSG countries have been selling npp related items to India, by selectively applying their non-proliferation rules. When it suited their commercial interests or in the cases where the specifications were not too hi-fi, they supplied the items. In other cases they refused to supply. They may also have maintained a good degree of coordination among themselves on who should supply what to India, and probably also had an understanding of the price to be charged (the extent to which India can be fleeced). It is my conjecture that they may have, at times, even employed tactics to delay India's nuclear power projects. They would quote a low enough price such that the offer cannot be rejected. After the order is placed and the delivery time is well past, the 'supplier' organisation would 'regretfully' say that it can no longer supply the item because the mandatory export licence has not been granted by (its) Government! It would be quite impractical to take, every time, recourse to legal action against the 'non-supplier' particularly if the cost of the item involved is not very large.

One must note that the above strategy adopted by the US / NSG had a very beneficial impact on indigenous development of such items. Indian managers and policy makers were forced to support their engineers and scientists in their quest for development of hi-tech within the country against all odds. It is not mere chance that much progress in development of technology in the past decade or so has coincided with the implementation of nuclear technology control regime on India by the US / NSG. It is interesting to note that US -India Joint Statement was made on July 18, 2005, soon after the India-built 540 MWe PHWR (Tarapur 4) attained first criticality at on March 6, 2005. Again, this seems to be too good to be just a coincidence.

India's efforts in self-help are working reasonably well as can be seen by achievements in setting up or embarking on India-designed PHWRs and PFBRs. Mainly due to inconsistent, non-uniform support of the policy makers who matter in the Indian way of administering technology within the Government sector, the process has been a bit slow, but very steady. (In a later paragraph in this article, I will attempt to show that such hi-tech development efforts cannot be speeded up to a much greater level).

How might India respond to the new US policy?

US has realised that the policy of 'selective sabotage' adopted so far has not worked [see box]. So they have now decided to adopt a modified approach by offering to sell much of the nuclear technology and dual-purpose items for civilian nuclear use.

"The Administration has characterized civil nuclear cooperation with India as a 'win' for nonproliferation because it would bring India into the nonproliferation 'mainstream'. In short, the Administration is proposing that India should be courted as an ally in U.S. (not global) nonproliferation policy, rather than continue as a target of U.S. (and global) nonproliferation policy. India should become an ally for three reasons: past policies have not worked; India has a relatively good nonproliferation record anyway, and India could be a useful ally in the nonproliferation regime." [Emphasis added]--- Sharon Squassoni, U.S. Nuclear Cooperation With India: Issues for Congress, Updated March 28, 2006, CRS Report for Congress

How does US hope to achieve its objectives of bringing down India's development efforts?

Hitherto, since civilian and nuclear facilities had not been separated in India, the technology control was being implemented by US / NSG across the board, in a diffused manner, on a selective and case-by-case basis. With India now designating specific facilities as civilian, the US and NSG will be able to apply their technology control methods much more rigorously. They hope to simply dry up all sales to anything that is not designated civilian and hence not subject to safeguards. For each and every item of purchase, India would be required to furnish an end-use certificate with GoI affirming that it is to be used only in the safeguarded nuclear facility as specified in the certificate.

In spite of rhetoric to the contrary, for its electric-power generation nuclear reactors, India still needs to import some items. When the modified technology control regime comes into force, India could follow one of two strategies

Strategy (a): Develop the required items and manufacture them in India,

or

Strategy (b): Import. I foresee that India may end up designating one by one, all its npp-s to be built in future, as 'civilian' and place them under IAEA safeguards. If US / NSG adopt this strategy, then India-made power reactors under the non-civilian category may henceforth cease to come up.

Policy makers in India repeatedly aver that (a) and (b) can and will be implemented simultaneously.

I disagree with this promise with all the strength of expression at my command. Top-level managers responsible for large projects, tend to view indigenous technology development under the present level of industrialisation in India, to be prone to initial technical failures, as well as time and cost overruns. This near term likely disadvantage is usually given very great emphasis, and hence almost always, importing is the preferred alternative. Strategy (b) will almost always win over strategy (a).

There is a danger that adoption of strategy (b) will inevitably destroy whatever we have achieved so far --- it takes only a trice to destroy what the potter has painstakingly created over a full working day.

Mr. Bush and other strategists in the US expect that India will take their bait and go the way of alternative (b) above, which is why they have predicted that 90% or more of India's npp-s will be eventually covered by IAEA safeguards. I agree with this particular 'presidential determination' because, for Indian managers of large-value projects in which cost of money in the form of interest-during-construction is high, (b) affords a softer and safer option. The ultimate result of strategy (b) would be the erosion of Indian ability to innovate along with loss of technological independence - just like a language that is not 'living' falls into disuse. Those hitherto involved in npp design, manufacture, construction and operation as well as many Private and Public Sector agencies who had accepted and overcome technical challenges in spite of possible economic risks and supported the programme in India, are likely to eventually get 'dumbed-down', to use a phrase common amongst software persons in GUI design and implementation.

Technology development in India - how should we go about it?

I place before the reader following propositions:

Are projections of future growth based on 'conventional' methods of forecast valid for India?

According to me, inter-country comparisons of various developmental parameters (such as, for example, 'consumption of electricity') based on a 'per-capita' criterion, are not appropriate when the number in the denominator tends to infinity. The population of our country at the moment is so large that it is tending to infinity. So, parameters based on per-capita usage of anything will tend to become zero and thus enter the realm of 'singularity'. Many physical laws are said to be inapplicable at points of singularity. I postulate that laws of growth projection would also fail at zones near one or more singularities. Also, such comparisons must take into account factors such as type of governance a country has adopted for itself (democracy vs authoritarian rule), civilisational ethos (the 'we-are-like-that-onlee!!' factor), etc.

Imagine our economy and industrial development to be like a large flywheel made of an assembly of parts including the hub, spokes and the rim, designed for and running at 1500 RPM. Now, there are inherent dangers in trying to give this flywheel a step-input of energy to make it run at 3000 RPM. For one, because of its heavy mass (large inertia), the energy required to accelerate it in a short time would be a large quantity indeed. Also there is a danger that the flywheel may tend to disintegrate when run at the higher speeds, the failures emanating from the increased stresses in the various parts and inherent material defects present (however well-made the flywheel may be). It is better to make a 1500 RPM flywheel run safely at 3000 RPM, by applying the input energy gradually while at the same time taking adequate measures to strengthen its various parts suitably.

By analogy, I am convinced that much of the projections of future energy requirements for our country are not sufficiently realistic and hence are unachievable. Industrial Revolution in Europe took place over centuries. India at 60 is still very young, particularly when its previous history of centuries of subjugation by all and sundry is taken into account. We have done well in the last few decades in countering the effects of nuclear technology control regime. If continued (realistically strict) support and good, enlightened oversight is provided by policy planners and implementers, Indian engineers and scientists in both government and private sectors will definitely rise to the challenge. Nehru - Bhabha combination was able to achieve the correct mix of checks and positive encouragement. We must try to replicate this.

Proposal to import number of big npp-s must be preceded by site approvals

Those who argue in favour of the US-India nuclear cooperation as spelt out in the present 123 Agreement text, highlight the possibility that India will be able to import many nuclear power plants of more than 1000 MWe capacity each. This claim must be verified very carefully.

Siting conditions for an npp are very tough indeed. There are stringent requirements imposed by criteria such as degree of proneness to earthquakes, availability of cooling water in large quantities, non-agricultural land and other environmental issues such as the quantum of 'burden' from plant emissions during normal operation and postulated emergencies that can be safely tolerated by the surroundings, etc. For example, high population density at or near a given site is a major negative factor. Likewise proximity of coal mines (anything less than about 700 Kms) is another factor to be counted in the disadvantage column. Similarly, if the npp has to be near a seashore, then tsunami / storm prone areas are a no-no (e.g. many places in coastal Andhra / Orissa / Tamil Nadu may fall in this category. India's western coast too has its share of demerits.) If the npp site is located at a remote area [load centres far away], then problems associated with construction of new high-capacity power-transmission systems and acquisition of land for the same could also arise. There are many more similar technical issues. Last but not the least is the requirement of enforcing what is (probably unfortunately and inappropriately) called a 'sterilised zone' law/rule -- authorities will not permit, without their prior approval, civilisational or industrial growth over an area of 5 km radius around the npp. This requirement is prevalent only in India. Such restrictions on land-use could cause much heartburn for the affected persons. Value of their property would plummet when an npp comes up nearby, leading to agitations, which in turn lead to project delay (may be even cancellation of the project).

Thus, there are not many sites available in India where large capacity npp-s as are presently projected could be located.

Therefore it is imperative that before accepting the conditions in the 123 Agreement which would place India at a disadvantage in many ways and then sinking so much money, we must insist that the authorities identify and get clean 'prior consent' from the Regulatory agencies (AERB, Environmental clearances, etc.) for all the proposed sites.

Paradigm shift

This probably is an opportune moment for me to 'propound' another idea. In npp project formulations, the conventional view favours economics of scale. So, we are seeing bigger and bigger capacity npps. While this may be true in countries with less population density, and may also be true in some cases in India, I propose that we must also take a look at the possibility of optimisation through economics of quantity.

For example, say 8 x 1000 MWe LWRs are proposed to be imported as 'additionality' under this 123 Agreement. Would 160 numbers of India-made 50 MWe [thermal] reactors each of which could have a very small foot-print, be equally attractive as the 8 big imported LWRs, which are well out of India's range of manufacture?

There could be many advantages in this proposal. I list a few. These small reactors would be designed to be essentially located underground requiring only very little area of exclusion for the public. This means we could have these plants located near many medium sized-town and also cities. Of course appropriate Regulatory approvals as usual would have to be obtained; but this might be easier than in the case of large npp sites. Power from these plants could be used to provide energy not only for the nearby industries but also for railway traction saving valuable hydrocarbon consumption. In the river-linking scheme, appropriately located small-npps could provide the required energy for pumping water up the gradients where required. Such distributed power generation could lead to reduced transmission losses too. Small cores have small inventories of fission products and hence can be designed to be adequately safe. The plants can be designed to have long intervals (say 1 to 2 years) between refuelling and fully automated for minimal operating / maintenance staff.

There might be a negative aspect too. Reactor designers say that a larger core means better neutron economy; that is, better utilisation of the inventory of all the fissile atoms available in our country. We would have to take this into due account at the time of evaluating the overall merits and demerits.

Lest I am misunderstood, let me hasten to indicate here that IAEA have done considerable work and published several reports on 'Small and Medium' npp concepts. I understand that BARC have evolved a design of a 'compact nuclear power pack' using highly enriched fuel for being located in remote areas supplying heat and electricity. What I have proposed here is not so compact an unit, but one that would not require highly enriched fuel or exotic coolants..

For me, the important plus point is that we should be able to make within India, most of the components (including the turbine, generator and other equipment) in the 'conventional' as well as the 'nuclear' side of the small-npp which is not the case with the large sized plants proposed to be imported.

It is better to spend resources in consistently supporting continued development of indigenous nuclear technology rather than importing

A better strategy would be to avoid splurging our newfound wealth in importing foreign nuclear technology. Instead we must utilise it with appropriate realistic managerial controls in developing the still-needed technologies in India. As and when we successfully develop indigenous high technology, others countries are likely to purchase from us, on account of our superior product quality and its economics. At this juncture, we can trade with them, on an equal footing just as the advanced countries do amongst themselves. We can import hi-tech items we find costlier to make in India and sell those hi-tech items which others find costlier to make in their own country.

Spare a thought for spare parts

In their preoccupation to ensure uninterrupted supply of fuel, India's negotiators seem to have forgotten about the equally important need for spare parts. The present 123 Agreement is silent on the required uninterrupted supply of spares, should at any point in future US decide to walk away from the agreement even as it did in the case of the Tarapur. It may neither be feasible nor economical to procure, along with the initial order itself, lifetime stock of many of the spare parts. (Life of a modern npp could be as much as 60 years or more). In the case of Tarapur 1&2, India was obliged to develop its own technology for many of the items that needed replacement although some safety related spare parts might have been imported from the US / NSG even after US stopped normal supplies under the contract.

Indigenisation of a spare part, in the last minute (after its failure has been detected), may prove to be costly. Unlike Tarapur 1&2, npp-s proposed to be imported now are of very large capacity. Loss in electricity generation of these large capacity plants, while efforts are underway to manufacture the spare parts locally, could be prohibitive. In addition IPR issues could arise for these localisation efforts.

Walk away from the deal; resolve the problem of Tarapur 1&2 spent fuel first.

We have travelled far along the road to winning technology freedom for our country. We have done reasonably well in our efforts. There is no need to deviate from the path we have successfully followed thus far and go seeking non-existant short cuts via dangerous crooked alleys and cul-de-sacs. Let us resolve to do better what we have done so far.Therefore, we must walk away from the present 123 Agreement; and also not implement the proposed separation plan. Instead, we should 'verify' US's new-found love for India before 'trust'-ing them by first negotiating an honourable agreement for the disposal of the spent fuel from Tarapur 1&2. I list below some possibilities:

(a) US to allow India to reprocess the Tarapur 1&2 spent fuel in an existing Indian facility under campaign mode safeguards or in a 'new national facility' to be built by India, with pre-agreed methodologies for safeguards verification by IAEA. The economics of building a new facility and the deployment of the recovered fissile and fertile isotopes may have to be justified by some 'forward looking' thinking.

(b) US to take back the spent fuel with a reasonable compensation to India for the energy content in it (fissile, fertile and probably other usable isotopes).

(c) Permit India to find a buyer for the spent fuel, again for a reasonable price.

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