India is endowed with almost 40 per cent of the entire resources of thorium in the world, most of it being in the coastal areas of Kerala and Orissa. While thorium by itself is not a nuclear fuel fit for direct burning in reactors thorium along with the plutonium produced in the PHWRs can be used as fuel in specially designed fast breeder reactors (FBRs).

I am pained to read Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserting with absolutist ipse dixit that India cannot afford to “miss the bus of nuclear renaissance” even if that be a lethal bus with noxious nuclear cargo which may burke or bury

Indian humanity. No power, however supreme, I pray, shall play God.

The governor of Florida, a state of fine sunshine and long seacoast stresses his policy of electricity from wind power and solar power: “Crist’s blueprint, draws largely from a plan being implemented in California. And it calls for a big increase in renewable power, such as solar, agricultural waste and wind. Along the beach, hotels sport solar panels. Farther up the coast, the spinning blades of windmills generate yet more clean electricity.”

Another practical measure from California which also generates solar power is educative. A recent report says: “Kohl’s department stores have flipped the switch on a rooftop solar energy system at its Laguna Niguel store as part of the largest planned US photovoltaic solar rollout to date. Michael R. Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, joined Kohl’s to celebrate this significant step toward the building of solar electric systems at 63 of Kohl’s 80 California locations, which will total approximately 25 megawatts (MW). At completion, Kohl’s solar programme will represent approximately 15 per cent of California’s photovoltaic installations to date.”

... contd.