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 The Indo-US nuclear agreement — 123 — is a major energy refuge for India, says the prime minister. But it is of alarmingly adverse national interest according to many informed critics, and so the subject desiderates public debate. We have abundant non-nuclear energy resources which, if fully surveyed, explored, researched and technologically exploited, will free the nation from American hegemony or Western dependence in our power-based development. Then why this morganatic massage with submissive spouse status a la Hyde Act? Or is the American alliance itself a snobbish symbol of elite class elevation? The choice is between US nuclear big business and us, with swaraj dynamism and swadeshi resources, well aware that Washington DC often regards international law as the vanishing point of White House jurisprudence.

The US is a creative wonder of progressive people, glorious personalities, great centres of learning which command my deep appreciation. But look at the other side. In our unipolar world, the US is a dominant and domineering power with a dollar culture of corporate greed, crass materialism, five-star glamour, and import-investment free-booting operations of colonisation and corruption, with auxiliary political, military and diplomatic pressurisation. What matters for American big business in this nuclear deal is dumping their uranium and connected technology on the Indian atomic energy estate because, after the Russian disaster on Chernobyl and the worst catastrophe of terrible radio-active magnitude in Three Mile Island (March 1979), most of Europe and America cried halt on their nuclear generation projects. We are the victims of private nuclear industry which has had no business in America since 1979. The title of a US publication by Helen Caldicott, addressed to Americans, is eloquently calamitous: ‘Nuclear Madness: The Choice is Yours — A Safe Future — Or No Future At All.’

Let me, out of curiosity, quote from a recent e-mail message received by me from a Florida engineer: “Florida’s biggest utility announced Wednesday a $2.4 billion energy plan that includes building what would be the world’s largest solar-power plant in the Sunshine State.”

We have limitless solar potential going waste, while little Nepal has been using it in a small way for decades! Colonial nuclear mendicancy is a humiliation.

Bharat Jhunjhunwala writes recently in a daily: “The alternative of wind power is yet more attractive. It is previously mentioned that the cost of one KwH power generated from wind sources is Rs 2.40 against Rs 400 plus from other sources. This source of energy has an added advantage that it can be used in remote areas. Wind turbines, solar panels and biogas equipment can be installed in community halls or houses in villages. The International Atomic Energy Agency says in its press release that proponents of nuclear energy agree that for the rural poor, “the best promise may be that offered by off-grid renewables. There is no gain-saying that wind, solar and bio energy is more suited for vast rural areas of our country.”

The 5th World Wind Energy Conference 2006 sums up what is relevant here: “The Indian government has assigned the ministry for non-conventional energy sources to electrify 25,000 rural Indian villages based on renewable energy. WWEA welcomes this programme as a milestone for rural development worldwide. The 5th World Wind Energy Conference 2006 (WWEC 2006) under the theme ‘Energy Independence powered by Wind’ will attract experts from around the world to discuss how to implement such ambitious wind energy programmes for the benefit of human development.

According to the Indian minister for non-conventional energy sources, Vilas Muttemwar, his ministry will in the coming years electrify 25,000 villages in remote areas with renewable energy sources. The government programme is part of a major rural electrification programme. Currently, around half of India’s 1.1 billion population has no access to modern electricity. India, however, is already leading in grid-connected wind farms being today number four worldwide with currently 5.500 MW installed. India is the only country worldwide with its own ministry for renewable energy.

Stefan Gsänger, secretary general of WWEA: “Today India belongs to the world leaders in grid-connected wind farm technology. With the new programme on rural electrification, India may also become a global leader in stand-alone and wind-hybrid systems. Worldwide around 2 billion people do not have access to modern energy services like electricity. Already today renewable energy can provide a de-centralised, affordable, clean and sustainable energy supply to those areas. The Indian example will set up a milestone for all those countries and world regions with un-served areas.”

A. Gopalakrishnan, former chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, argues against US uranium imports: “A very serious worry about nuclear power plants must be their safety. Having seen two major catastrophes in Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl, the world has to be wary of any large-scale expansion of nuclear power. Nuclear power being touted as ‘environmentally friendly’ is a commercial ploy of those who wish to sell reactors, and the veracity of this statement is highly questionable. Nuclear power plants remain very high technology installations, with very serious and long-lasting disastrous consequences to large segments of population if a serious accident occurs.” Viewed from a nuclear angle,

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.”