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But assume this sudden leap is executed in the 12th Plan. Another document tells the tale the government has conjured up because of the deal. This government’s main study on the energy sector has been the report of another committee set up under the overall rubric of that habitual legitimiser, the Planning Commission. The committee had the usual stellar cast. Its report is entitled Integrated Energy Policy and was put out by the Planning Commission in August 2006. At page 37, in Table 3.4, the report gives two sets of possible figures for installed capacity of nuclear power — a set for a ‘pessimistic scenario’ and another set for an ‘optimistic scenario’. The capacity for 2020 in the former is put near the usual DAE figure, 21,000 MW. Under the ‘optimistic scenario’, it is put at 29,000 MW — far higher, you will recall, than even the working group figure, but still not so high as to sell the deal. To locate the sabz bagh in the name of which the government has been marketing the deal, you have to look at the figures for 2030: 48,000 MW in the ‘pessimistic scenario’ and 63000 MW in the ‘optimistic scenario’.

That the credulity of even the authors of the report was being strained is obvious from the note they add to this table. They record, “These estimates assume that:

•“the FBR (Fast Breeder Reactor) technology is successfully demonstrated by the 500 MW PFBR (Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor) currently under construction,

•“new uranium mines are opened for providing fuel for setting up additional PHWRs (Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors),

•“India succeeds in assimilating the LWR (Light Water Reactor) technology through import and develops the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor for utilising Thorium by 2020.”

Anyone who has the least familiarity with what the Times of India would have called ‘bureaucratese’ will see through to the extreme skepticism that the authors — heavily pressurised reactors, if I may say so — are trying to convey. By the time three pages have passed, the pressure has taken the better of the reactors: in listing “some energy supply scenarios for 8 per cent GDP growth”, they go for “maximum nuclear”, which they say “assumes nuclear development as per the optimistic scenario of Table 3.4.” The “pessimistic scenario”? Press “Del” for delete!

That apart, what would we have to do to get from 20,000 MW in 2020 to 63,000 MW by 2030 — that is, how do we add 43,000 MW in 10 years? If we put up 500 MW reactors, that will require that we put up over 80 reactors in 120 months: that is, we bring into operation one reactor every one and a half months; if we put up 1000 MW reactors, that will require over 40 reactors — that is, we bring into operation one reactor every three months.

But take one more leap of faith.

Assume that the reactors are set up at this pace. What do we get at the end?

The report states, “Even if a 20-fold increase takes place in India’s nuclear capacity by 2031-32, the contribution of India’s nuclear power capacity to India’s energy mix is also, at best, expected to be 4.0 to 6.4 per cent.” (Integrated Energy Policy, Volume I, xxii.)

Notice what the experts are saying:

•Even if —

•There is a twenty-fold increase

•The contribution to capacity — not to actual generation

•Shall at best be....

For this marginal contribution, indeed for the possibility of this marginal contribution, our strategic interest is being mortgaged in perpetuity.

While the government peddles the deal as the magic lamp that will, as the papers have been putting it, “end the nuclear winter”, which will open “the nuclear trove”; while the government peddles the deal as the master-stroke that will ensure “energy security”, the government’s principal document on energy acknowledges the obvious: “If the sanctions by the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) are removed and India is able to import uranium and nuclear power plants, nuclear power can play a much bigger role in the power sector. The capacity growth then would not be constrained by Table 3.4. However, if energy security concerns are our primary driver towards nuclear (sic), then imports of LWRs (Light Water Reactors), even though more economical, may have to be limited to restrict our dependence on energy imports.” (Integrated Energy Policy, p. 48.)

Alternatives

Contrast this contribution with just three of the many alternatives that are available. Citing an Asian Development Bank study, Integrated Energy Policy states (on p. 81) that demand-side management has the potential for affecting a peak saving of “at least 15 per cent of total generation”. The report lists several methods by which these “megawatts” may be secured — every megawatt saved is a megawatt generated. In fact, I am instructed by Commission staff themselves, this is the order of saving that comes about merely from the adoption of more efficient end-use appliances. The correct figure of this potential is not 15 per cent but 19 per cent to 22 per cent: this is the difference between the efficient and inefficient energy scenarios projected on pages 48-49 of the report.

Consider a second alternative. The working group on power itself indicated that the potential of hydro power in just our northeastern states is 58,000 MW.

Add to this what can be secured through partnering with Nepal. The current cost of a reactor — a cost that is bound to leap higher, as we shall see — is around $2.5 billion per reactor. For generating the 35,000 MW that the government’s representatives had mentioned in Parliament, we will have to spend $91 billion. For those mythical 63,000 MW, mentioned by the Planning Commission’s Integrated Energy Policy, we will have to spend $158 billion. Now, the total budget of the government of Nepal is about $1.6 billion. You could offer to defray the entire budget of the Nepalese government for 60 to 100 years, and invite it to together build a string of hydro power projects with money raised from the market, and you will still come out better: you would have got power from a perennial, renewable source; you would have alleviated the problem of floods in UP, Bihar and the rest; you would have converted a neighbour into a friend.