October 11, 1999

by Praful Bidwai

Mr Koji Kitani, president of JCO Ltd which runs the Tokaimura nuclear plant, should have knelt harder and longer as he apologised to the area’s 300,000 citizens who had to be evacuated. Their lives were seriously threatened by a major accident at JCO’s plant. A mere 16 kg of uranium dioxide was enough to cause what has been acknowledged even by the global nuclear industry and its UN lobby, the International Atomic Energy Agency, as the world’s fifth worst nuclear disaster. There are many lessons for us in India in Tokaimura—and in the Wolsong reactor leak in S. Korea, which followed.

The accident was caused by workers mixing seven times more uranium dioxide with nitric acid than the recommended 2.4 kg. This instantly resulted in criticality and a self-sustaining chain reaction, which produced radioactivity 20,000 times the permissible level. (Highly enriched uranium or plutonium brought together even in small quantities such as 5 to 8 kg undergoes fission spontaneously, releasing vast amounts of energy). Fiftyfive people were exposed to high doses of radiation, many of them to levels 1,000 times greater than what you would receive in a chest X-ray, itself considered too risky for infants or pregnant mothers.

The Tokaimura accident ranked Level Four in the IAEA’s seven-level scale, but may be upgraded to Level Five. Of the known accidents in the world, two have been Level Five (Windscale, UK, 1957; Three Mile Island, US, 1979), and one Level Six (Russia, 1957), topped by Chernobyl (Level Seven). JCO executives say the “extremely serious” accident was caused by “human error” or negligence. Another view is that the operators violated safety regulations. This also involves human failure of another kind.

Chernobyl (1986) too was caused by “human error”, when engineers were experimenting with the shutdown procedure of a Russian-designed reactor. This started a runaway reaction leading to a core meltdown and a catastrophic release of radioactive poisons which contaminated land and water thousands of kilometres away. Sheep in Scotland had to be slaughtered because they had consumed grass contaminated by the fallout. Mountains of affected butter were destroyed in distant parts of Europe. The death-toll from Chernobyl was not 32, as the plant operators first claimed, but well over 100,000, according to the Ukrainian government and independent experts. This dwarfs all industrial accidents anywhere. In its consequences, Chernobyl exceeds 20 Bhopals.

There lies the rub. Nuclear power is an ultra high-risk technology where human error, however limited, produces horrific effects of far-reaching consequences. Because radiation is an invisible, intangible, but potent and long-acting poison, nuclear accidents are especially dangerous: their effects are transmitted across generations. There is no cure for nuclear poisoning. Radioactivity cannot be eliminated: at best, it can be relocated.

This puts nuclear energy at a qualitatively higher danger threshold than, say, high-risk chemical technology. Compare it with a man walking a tightrope at, say , a height of 300 feet above the ground. The chances of his losing balance and falling are the same as they would be if the rope were stretched at six feet above ground level. But the consequences are vastly different. At six feet, the tightrope artiste would break a bone or two. Falling from 300 feet would mean certain death. This analogy explains why nuclear power inherently poses a grave hazard. It involves extremely fast and high-energy reactions, much harder to control than chemical, thermal or biological processes. Nuclear is more accident-prone than other technologies; indeed, uniquely so.

Small wonder, then, that the world has witnessed over 150 serious accidents in its 420-odd nuclear reactors Potentially, each could have led to a fuel meltdown a la Chernobyl. This accident rate is more than 100 times higher than the average for high-risk chemical plants. Nuclear’s accident-proneness acts across reactor types, geographical boundaries and levels of development. Some of the worst accidents have occurred in the U.S., France, Britain and Russia. Japan has a relatively low industrial accident rate, but witnessed six serious nuclear accidents in the last five years alone: a massive coolant leak at the Monju fast reactor (1995), fire at a reprocessing plant and a “criticality accident” at two facilities (1997), leaks at a power reactor and waste storage plant, and release of a massive 51 tonnes of coolant at the Tsuruga reactor (July 1999).

Generically, nuclear power poses three kinds of safety problems. First, catastrophic large-consequence accidents in power reactors, reprocessing plants or waste storages. These typically involve high exposure to small populations, in some cases to the larger public. Second, “routine” radioactivity releases from all activities in the so-called nuclear fuel cycles--from uranium mining to fuel fabrication, and from power generation to spent-fuel reprocessing. These affect large numbers, e.g. people living near nuclear reactors and working in uranium mines, or consuming irradiated foods or drinking tritium-contaminated water.




Third, and most serious is the problem of long-term waste. All nuclear technology generates waste, some of which remains active for long periods. For instance, fission produces plutonium-239. This element, named after the Greek God of Hell, is the most toxic substance known to science. If ingested or inhaled even in microgrammes, it is liable to produce cancer. Now, the half-life of Pu-239 is 24,400 years. This means that even as it slowly decays, half the quantity of the isotope will still be present 24,400 years later, and significant amounts for a quarter-million years. There is no safe method of storing such waste without risking a leak into the environment. Even diluting waste to remotely “safe” levels means using 10 billion units of water--a physically unachievable task.




The waste problem warrants a complete, radical, reconsideration of nuclear power. Even if nuclear power generation were to be made totally accident-proof, and if all releases were somehow to be eliminated, there would be no solution to the waste problem-—no method to contain it safely for millions of years, no material to enclose its seething, active contents, no stable geological site where to put it away. This in itself demands a phasing out of nuclear power. Surely, we have no right to create, and then inflict upon ourselves, problems to which we have no solutions.




The generic problems posed by nuclear power are greatly magnified in India. Our nuclear programme is a story of failures, unsafe practices, violations of regulations, poor management, missed targets, horrendous cost overruns, bad economics, and lack of public accountability aided by secrecy and deception. Take a quick look at the Department of Atomic Energy’s (DAE) record. The Kaiga power plant was to cost Rs. 730 crores. It has already clocked up Rs. 2,896 crores. Kakrapar was budgeted for Rs. 338 crores, but has soaked up Rs. 1,335 crores. The DAE has never completed any project in time. The cumulative plant load factor of its reactors is a miserable 37 per cent—less than that of the Bihar Electricity Board!




The DAE has absorbed 15 to 25 per cent of India’s energy R&D budget over the years, but generated just 2 per cent of our electricity. Even assuming that decommissioning nuclear plants (which costs almost as much as building them) and storing wastes is expense-free, the cost of nuclear power in India is twice as much as that of coal-thermal electricity. On more realistic assumptions, nuclear power turns out to be unaffordable.




The DAE’s safety record is appalling. Its principal reactor design—CANDU, or the same as used in the latest Wolsong accident—is problematic. The DAE has exposed thousands to excessive doses of radiation. It has had many major accidents. A serious fire broke out at the Narora nuclear station in March 1993. This cut off power to the reactor’s emergency cooling system, the last barrier between normalcy and disaster. The incident was described by Dr A Gopalakrishnan, then Atomic Energy Regulatory Board chairman, as ‘doomsday averted’-—averted not by intervention, but by God’s grace.




In 1994, a safety system, a concrete containment dome, collapsed during construction at Kaiga. It damaged a structure covering the reactor and injured 14 workers. In 1996, a pipe from a waste-processing plant at Tarapur released waste into a canal used by the public. This past March, heavy water leaked from the Madras power station. More such accidents are only waiting to happen. Dr Gopalakrishnan listed 130 ‘safety issues’, including 25 at BARC alone, and sought answers from the DAE. He was sacked!




Nuclear power in India, then, involves excessive risks, grossly unsafe practices, extravagant costs, and poor returns. This situation is unlikely to be reformed. The DAE has proved incapable of learning from experience. Nuclear power has betrayed all its promises. Even those in the establishment who thought it would provide a cover for clandestine nuclear weapons development must concede after May 1998 that it is useless. Nuclear power is not the technology of the future. It is in retreat in developed countries. There are safer, cheaper, sustainable alternatives to it. The time has come to call a halt to the nuclear madness.  We should demand a full, independent, safety and social audit of nuclear power, pending which all nuclear energy development must be frozen--the sooner, the better.