Nor do our estimates build in the cost of the more and more stringent and increasingly expensive security arrangements that will have to be made to prevent theft of fissile material as the number of reactors multiplies. Even countries that have exerted to the utmost to secure such material are experiencing insuperable difficulties. “The nuclear material currently unaccounted for at plutonium reprocessing facilities could make many bombs,” Ferguson notes. “For example, Japan cannot account for more than two hundred kilograms of plutonium at the Tokai-mura plant. In Britain, the Sellafield plant cannot account for about thirty kilograms of plutonium. According to the IAEA, only eight kilograms of plutonium are needed to make a bomb. But even less than that was used in the Nagasaki bomb, which employed six kilograms. More advanced designs could use as little as one to three kilograms.” (In addition to Ferguson’s study, for an instructive analysis of all this see the oft-cited report by Brice Smith, Insurmountable Risks, The dangers of using nuclear power to combat climate change, Institute for Energy and Environment Research, Md., 2006.)

But: “I have seen many calculations in the Department of Atomic Energy. In the eighties... a detailed study was done... And, I think, the Planning Commission has done recent work, and they have also come to the conclusion that...” says the PM. And that is the end of the matter.

The fabrications in regard to uranium

The argument that we need nuclear power would not have been enough to justify the deal — for the response could have been, “All right, use domestically available uranium to generate it.” Hence, two further myths were fomented: we are woefully short of uranium; such uranium as we have is of poor quality.

... contd.