Use uranium in nuke power

This article is reprinted from PTI Feature
K.S.Parthasarathy


Use uranium in Nuke power

By K S Parthasarathy

Recent discussions on the alleged hazards of uranium mining reminded me of Nigel Holloway's argument that if one has the concerned 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.

Anit-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 disarmanment and dismantle their arsental.

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 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 anti-nuclear 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 countries nuclear power; France (78 per cent); Belgium (54 per cent); South Korea (39 per cent); Switzerland ( 37 per cent); Japan ( 30 per cent); USA (19 Per cent); Russia (16 per cent); India produces less than three per cent. 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.

We need uranium. Then only the capacity of our reactors will reach the earlier figures of over 80 per cent annually from the present 63 per cent.

Is nuclear power costly? The power from units 1 and 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 the Ploughshares Fund (this US agency paid $20,000 to IDPD) now, competes with "Anumuthi".

Both "Animate" 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 viewers to connect any disease with the agent that allegedly caused it. This is a lamentable trend.

The activists produced two films. "Buddha weeps in Judged" and "Judged-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 epidemicology!

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 were receive funds carry out such studies, is 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. (PTI)