What of “recent work” by the Planning Commission that the PM mentioned? The most recent one is the Report of the Working Group on Power, which the commission published as recently as February 2007. The working group lists the cost per megawatt for generation projects. The report places the cost at Rs 4 crore per megawatt for coal based projects; Rs 3 crore per megawatt for gas based projects; Rs 4.50 crore to Rs 5 crore per megawatt for run-of-the-river hydro projects; Rs 5.50 crore to Rs 6 crore for storage hydro projects. And for nuclear power projects? Rs 6.50 crore per megawatt. And, recall, this group was straining to pad up the necessity for nuclear power to justify recourse to the deal.

But we don’t have to go just by estimates: there is an actual and current example. The new unit at Tarapur is supplying power at Rs 2.70 to Rs 2.80 a unit. What is the price per unit that has been accepted for power from the new ultra-mega thermal power project? Rs 1.19 per unit! The moment I recalled this contrast in the Rajya Sabha the other day, Dr Kasturirangan, who had just spoken in favour of the deal, interjected, “That price for nuclear energy is subsidised.” Others who have studied the matter intervened, “Actually the cost is Rs 9 per unit.” So, power at double or seven times the cost from other sources.

Indeed, even at these levels, these Indian estimates of the cost of nuclear power are gross underestimates. To cite just one fact, they do not build in the cost of disposing nuclear waste. The US itself is today plagued by this problem — having spent over $9 billion for developing a storage repository in the Yucca Mountain in Nevada, having striven for two decades to develop the site, the expectation is that the site will not become operational till 2015/2020 or so.

... contd.