Glimmer of Hope on Indo US Nuclear Deal

From: Nagindas Khajuria 

Published: Asian Voice 

Sent: Saturday, 3 November, 2007 

Subject: Glimmer of hope on Indo-US nuclear deal

Sir,

Your Comment article (P3, AV 3 Nov) refers to senior figures in the Opposition BJPmaking soothing noises about the Indo-Nuclear Deal to Congress sees a glimer of hope. AV editorial continues to take the view that Indian growth is severely handicapped by shortage of power and that this deal is in the national interest. My belief is that both BJP and Congress are naive and mistaken in not realising that the deal is against India's national interest, whether you look at it from any of the political, economic, social, environmental, military or technology dimensions.

Political: Britain has a "special relationship" with USA. India will be perceived to have entered into a "special relationship" with USA. India is still 137th in terms of human development index compared to USA. Do we need a big brother at this stage of our development? India is not Iraq or Iran, but if we sign the deal, 100 years own the line, our fate will be similar to Iraq or Iran.

Economic: France now gets close to 80% of its electricity from 59 nuclear plants operated through the state owned Electricite de France and a private partner. USA has 104 plants but none ordered since 1970s. Finland is now building its 5th nuclear plant, the largest in the world. Did these countries sign a "bilateral nuclear deal" with USA?

Social: India currently scores on all three counts. Politically it is free and democratic. Economically, it is prosperous and is making itself more equitable. And socially, it is relatively peaceful and cohesive. Most Western countries have democracy and prosperity, but they suffer from social disintegration. The nations in the East have prosperity and social cohesion, but they suffer under political authoritarian regimes. If the deal is signed, we shall lose this unique position scoring all the three counts forever.

Environmental: The key advantage of nuclear power is give cleaner fuel and bridge the gap between fossil fuels and alternative energy sources. Current annual CO-2 footprint is 25.9 tonnes (US resident), 11.6 tonnes (UK resident) and 0.9 tonnes (African resident). With such high foot print, it makes sense to have nuclear plants in US and Europe, but not so in India or Africa. To improve India's energy needs and control pollution in India, there are at least 15 other alternative energy sources apart from nuclear that India could implement.

Military: After the Indo-Nuclear Deal, US and Western Europe, want to sell fighter bombers to India with nuclear war heads as a counter measure to the threat of invasion from China. This fear is instilled in Indian minds, but then why could the Chinese not think, that if India had such nuclear military power, India may not invade China? This is a old divide and rule tactic on a very grand scale. 170 million people were killed in the 20th century in wars. Do we want to continue this in the 21st century?

Technology cooperation: For the past 50 years, USA may have cooperated, for example, in computer software and business process outsourcing services extensively with India, but so it has in computer hardware, in electronics, and manufacturing with China. Why or how come suddenly India needs an Indo-Nuclear Pact to somehow continue this technology transfer, while China does not. Hardware and software go hand in hand and we are no where near making any dent in our technical know how simply by signing such a deal. All we shall do is pay them a lot of money for what we could accomplish much more cheaply by learnig over time by ourselves or in collaboration with other nations who do not want to charge an arm or leg or tie as as their "poodle". A lot of countries now think UK is USA's poodle when it comes to UK's foreign policy.

The solution? Different parts of India will need different solutions to its energy needs. Apply and work in all directions. Some ideas are: harness energy produced by alternative sources in a more efficient manner. Some examples given by Pacala and Socolo are as objectives to achieve by 2054: Double vehicle fuel economy and cut distance travelled per car in half; install fluorescent bulbs in all the world's 50 billion light fixtures; improve the efficiency of coal-fired power stations from 40% to 60% and cut in half the energy lost when fossil fuels are extracted, processed and delivered to those plants; there are currently 30,000 wind turbines worldwide of the standard one-megawatt size, increase them to 2 million; a 700-fold expansion of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy; a 50-fold expansion in ethanol; halt current deforestation and double the current rate of reforestation; make farmers avoid ploughing and thus reduce the amount of CO-2 escaping from tilled soil; add 700 one-gigawatt nuclear plants; quadruple the use of natural gas in power plants to replace equal number of coal-fired plants and finally capture carbon emitted by large fossil-fuel plants and store it underground. My own addition would be to harness biomass generated by house and garden waste, cattle dung, etc. more scientifically to generate more electricity, stop electricity generating board employees in India stealing sometimes about 40% of the electricity generated due to poorly managed financial controls, etc. 

Nagin Khajuria