Uranium:Mine It and Burn It in Nuclear power Plants

PTI Feature

24 March 2008

Is nuclear power costly? The power from Units 1 & 2 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station is the cheapest non hydro power in the country at Paisa 93 per unit. Power from other nuclear reactors costs between Rs 1.81 to Rs 2.79 per unit. These rates are not high, as fifteen out of the 49 Indian generating stations sell power at higher cost, varying between Rs 3.07 to Rs 7.94.-by K S Parthasarathy

Uranium:Mine It and Burn It in Nuclear power Plants

-by K S Parthasarathy
Former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board

Recent discussions on the alleged hazards of
uranium mining reminded me of Nigel
Holloway’s argument that if one has the concern to
reduce long term radioactivity in the environment,
the policy should be “Uranium-don’t leave it in the
ground” (ATOM, June 1990). The best way is to
mine it and burn it in nuclear power plants. He
proves it by using elementary calculations.
Anti-nuclear activists oppose uranium mining
because they believe that uranium may be used for
producing nuclear weapons. To many, there is no
alternative until countries that have nuclear
weapons (some of them across our borders) accept
nuclear disarmament and dismantle their arsenal.
Activists criticize the government for pursuing
uranium mining project; they feel that growth of
nuclear power is economically wasteful,
environmentally harmful and at risk of catastrophic
accidents... This view needs closer scrutiny.
All power sources have adverse impacts. We do
not enjoy the luxury to reject any now on the ground
of adverse effects.

Coal is a very impure material. A thousand mega
watt coal-fired power station releases annually 5.2
tons of uranium and, 12.8 tons of thorium besides
10 other elements including mercury and arsenic.
We cannot be indulgent towards coal power and
consider nuclear power to be environmentally
harmful.

Many believe that nuclear power has a new
dawn. USA expects to construct 30 new plants.
Nuclear power is a reality, fear of accidents not
withstanding! Some European nations retain antinuclear
posture; they import electricity from France
which produces 78 % of its electricity from nuclear
reactors!

These nations are slowly but surely shifting away
from their proposed nuclear phase out!
Thirty countries produce nuclear
power; France (78%); Belgium (54%); South Korea
(39%); Switzerland (37%); Japan (30%); USA
(19%); Russia (16%); India produces less than three
percent. We must enhance it to 10%.
If, nuclear power was economically wasteful and
environmentally harmful, why so many countries
depend on it for their daily needs!

There were nuclear accidents; one in 1979 at
the Three Mile Island in USA and the other in 1986
at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
reviewed the accidents. This led to improvements.
No one abandoned nuclear power because of
these accidents! Electric companies connected 50
out of the currently operating 104 nuclear power
reactors in USA to the grid since 1979; nineteen of
these after 1986. Canadian companies connected
all the fourteen operating reactors in Canada to the
grid after 1979. Fifty-three out of 59 French reactors
came on line after 1979.

Is nuclear power costly? The power from Units
1 & 2 of the Tarapur Atomic Power Station is the
cheapest non hydro power in the country at Paisa
93 per unit. Power from other nuclear reactors costs
between Rs 1.81 to Rs 2.79 per unit. These rates
are not high, as fifteen out of the 49 Indian
generating stations sell power at higher cost, varying
between Rs 3.07 to Rs 7.94.

Until now, the anti nuclear groups were quoting
the “careful scientific health survey” of”Anumukti”
in some mining villages to prove the adverse health
effects. The Indian Doctors for Peace and
Development (IDPD), which conducted another
survey with support from by the Ploughshares Fund
(this US agency paid $20,000 to IDPD) now,
competes with “Anumukti”
Both “Anumukti” and IDPD successfully
circumvented the traditional, scientific peer review
and publication process by exploiting news papers
and periodicals. They dished out reports littered with
stories of human interest invariably spiced with
melancholy and drama. They used telling pictures
of human suffering to condition the viewer to
connect any disease with the agent that allegedly
caused it. This is a lamentable trend.

The activists produced two films. “Buddha
weeps in Jadugoda” and “Jadugoda-The Black Magic”,
“acclaimed documentaries” for the activists! To
others, they are skillfully edited pieces mixing
carefully selected scenes and quotations to bias the
viewer to a certain point of view. Shakeel Ur
Rahman, the secretary of the national council of
IDPD is very grateful to the film maker as the film
“supported” their findings at a London conference
(the Telegraph, March 5, 2008).

The paper from IDPD is a typical example of
how “cherry picking” can masquerade as
epidemiology!
At the very outset, the authors stated thus: “We
assumed that specific health problems related to
uranium mining was affecting the indigenous people
disproportionately in the study villages compared
to the reference villages”. Then the agency goes on
searching for evidence to support the assumption.
IDPD chose a structured questionnaire with
34 investigators from the vicinity of Jadugoda” and
used them to collect data to prove their assumption.

The arrangement helped. They belong to the villages
which were carpet –bombed with weird stories on
uranium hazards by motivated anti nuclear activists
for the past few years!

“ Responses to some of the variables in few of
the interview schedules were not found to be
satisfactory and such responses were not considered
for data analysis” the authors brazenly admitted
to “cherry picking” of the data!
“If those who receive funds carry out such
studies, is it not incumbent on them to publish the
results in scientific journals?” I asked the
Ploughshares Fund.

Ms Paul Carroll of the US agency clarified that
the agency did not have such an explicit expectation
in this case. “We invest not only money but
confidence in our grantees, and would expect that
they would conduct research and writing in keeping
with the standards for the field.”

She promised to pursue my line of questioning
with Dr. Arun Mitra, the project director for their
grant at IDPD and would convey his response to
me. None of the medical committees of qualified
specialists, which surveyed Jaudugoda villages
found any disease which could be related to
radiation exposure. Based on media reports and
other documents an advocate filed a Public Interest
Litigation (No 188 of 1999) in the Supreme Court
of India. On April 15, 2004, the Supreme Court
dismissed the petition. The court explicitly stated
that it did not find any merit in the petition.
Voice of sanity must prevail over fear and
ignorance. The nation must benefit from mining
uranium, a virtually useless metal except as a nuclear
fuel.