INTERVIEW: NEERAJ JAIN - “Fighting for the Right to Life”
India’s Anti-Nuclear Energy Peoples’ Movement
( September 16, 2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) NEERAJ JAIN
is the convenor of Lokayat, a social activist group in Pune,
Maharashtra that is part of the all-India National Alliance of
Anti-Nuclear Movements (NAAM). Jain, who trained in electrical
engineering, is the author of Nuclear Energy: Technology from Hell
(Aakar Books, Delhi 2012). He was interviewed by B. Skanthakumar on
5 September 2012, before the confrontation five days later during
fuel-loading of the Koodankulam nuclear reactor, in which one fisherman
was shot dead and dozens were injured, sparking strikes and agitations
across Tamil Nadu, including in Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode and
Thootukudi.
What is the background to the upsurge of peoples’ movements against nuclear energy in India today?
The Indian National Congress-led
government is going for nuclear energy in a big way, claiming that it
is cheap, clean and safe, and the solution to the country’s energy
needs.
This expansion of nuclear energy
is a follow-up to the Indo-US nuclear deal [in 2008]. The Indian
government agreed to buy US$150 billion worth of nuclear reactors,
equipment and other materials from the United States of America (US) in
return for the US inking the agreement. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh's special envoy, Shyam Saran, also promised that US companies
would benefit for decades from Indian orders for military equipment. The
quid pro quo was for the US to modify its laws and allow India to
engage in nuclear commerce; from which it had been blocked after its
nuclear tests in 1974.
The US also lobbied with the
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) – which is an association of 45 countries
which export uranium and nuclear technology – to grant India the waiver
to engage in civilian nuclear trade, despite not having signed the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In return, the Indian government
promised the NSG countries that their companies would receive lucrative
contracts in India. This was candidly admitted in an article in a
leading newspaper of Maharashtra by the former chief of India’s
Department of Atomic Energy, Anil Kakodkar.
This is the real reason behind
the Indian government opening its doors to Western nuclear energy
companies. After putting the country on sale, it is now strutting about
claiming that it has become a 'nuclear super-power', in addition to its
claim to having become an 'economic super-power’.
The government of India is setting up two kinds of nuclear plants.
One group consists of those that
are being established all along the coastline with imported reactors,
which will be among the biggest plants in the world. These so-called
‘nuclear parks’ are in Gujarat (Mithivirdi), in Maharashtra (Jaitapur),
in Tamil Nadu (Koodankulam), and in Andhra Pradesh (Kovvada). There was
another plant proposed in West Bengal but a powerful peoples’ movement
has halted it – temporarily at least – and possibly for good. There are
also plans to build a nuclear plant at Markandi (Pati Sonapur) in
Orissa.
Ironically, despite the free
market rhetoric of the Indian elite, there has been no competitive
bidding for any of these plants. Instead, the government has allotted
these plants to different foreign companies; even before the terms of
the reactor contracts have been negotiated and the price finalised!
In Jaitapur – where the French
company Areva is setting up the plant – 940 hectares of land has been
acquired from 2,300 families. The people who owned the lands refused to
sell it, and so the government stepped in and forcibly acquired it
invoking British colonial-era laws that allow acquisition of land for
‘public purposes’. When the Indian Prime Minister was asked the price of
the reactors, he replied that pricing issues are still “subject matters
of negotiations”! These extraordinary procedures give rise to suspicion
of underhand deals. The plants in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are to be
built by US companies GE Hitachi and Westinghouse; while the Koodankulam
plant in Tamil Nadu is being built by a Russian company,
Atomstroyexport.
The other group of plants are
the indigenous projects that are being set up by the Indian government
in the interior of the country in places such as Gorakhpur (Haryana
state) where four small reactors will be constructed – India only has
the capacity to independently build small-scale plants – and in Chutka
(Madhya Pradesh state).
The nuclear reactors to be set
up at the four nuclear parks along the coast are giant-sized and will
produce between 1,000 and 1,600 megawatts each. The Jaitapur plant,
where six reactors of 1,650 megawatts each are to be built, is going to
be the biggest nuclear plant in the world. The EPR reactors being set-up
here are of unproven design and are not in operation anywhere in the
world.
Nuclear
energy is not a new source of energy in India though, so what accounts
for the size and spread of the anti-nuclear energy movement recently?
India has for sometime had
nuclear energy power plants: 20 small scale plants, mostly of 220
megawatts each, at six different locations in the country. The first
Indian plant was set-up in 1969 in Tarapur near Mumbai (formerly known
as Bombay).
The anti-nuclear movement in
India is very old. The movement was especially strong in Kerala state,
where no plants have ever been constructed because of the strength of
opposition. The people of Kerala have forced the cancellation of the two
plants proposed to be set up there. The construction of many other
plants also saw powerful movements in opposition to them, in which
protestors have died because of police violence. However, in the
pre-internet age, and when the Indian media (radio and television) was
under the control of the State, there was little information about these
struggles. It is only receiving attention nationally and
internationally now, thanks to advances in information and
communications technology, as well as due to the growing strength of the
movement through greater awareness of the dangers of nuclear energy
among the people.
The present anti-nuclear
movement should therefore be seen as a continuation of these older
struggles. Many of the leading activists in the current movement such as
the nuclear scientist Dr. Surendra Gadekar, and Dr. S. P. Udayakumar of
the Peoples’ Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), have been active
for the last 10 or 20 years, and have been involved in the past
agitations against nuclear plants.
Additionally, there are several
new factors which are contributing to the growing intensity of the
anti-nuclear movement all over the country. These include the scale of
the proposed plants along the Indian coast, which are massive even by
international standards, and where the reactors are five to eight times
larger than current Indian reactors; the controversial nature of the
foreign companies concerned, such as Areva; and the safety record of
those companies.
For example, even pro-nuclear
countries such as Britain and the United States have expressed serious
reservations about the design of Areva's EPR reactor, and have not given
it clearance to construct such reactors in their countries. The Russian
VVER-1000 reactors being constructed in Koodankulam are no better. Even
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is a cheerleader
for the nuclear industry, has expressed concerns that these reactors
don't meet Western safety standards, (which is not to say that Western
standards are very good). Due to the huge size of these reactors, they
are far more dangerous; and the consequence of a nuclear accident would
be devastating and of unimaginable proportions. Obviously, this has
contributed to the intensity of the current struggles.
Furthermore, over the years,
more and more information has been disseminated to the people on the
dangers of nuclear energy. The effects of nuclear energy on communities
near the uranium mines and existing plants is also becoming better
known, including through independent surveys whose findings are now
public knowledge. There is a large increase in cancer deaths and in
births of deformed babies, and other health problems caused due to
radiation: like diseases of old age in the young, fertility problems,
spontaneous abortions, and so on.
Fishing communities are
devastated: in Tarapur where once there were 700 boats, now only 20
remain. People agitating against the new nuclear plants have visited
these older plants, for example the people of Jaitapur region have
visited the people of villages around the Tarapur plant. And so they are
aware of the health effects of nuclear plants. Consequently, there are
larger numbers of people, and in different parts of the country,
participating in these agitations.
Finally, the Fukushima disaster
[in Japan on 11 March 2011] has had a major impact on the anti-nuclear
sentiment of the people, and has strengthened the arguments of the
movement. Even before the tragedy at Fukushima, the anti-nuclear energy
movement in India had been quoting prominent nuclear scientists and
saying that another accident at a nuclear reactor somewhere around the
world would only be a matter of time, as nuclear plants are inherently
prone to accidents.
The Koodankulam Nuclear
Power Plant is only 250 kilometres from Sri Lanka, but even after
Fukushima, the Director of Sri Lanka’s Atomic Energy Authority insisted
that “nuclear power plants are the cheapest and the safest mode of
generating electricity ... and [that] the probability of a nuclear
accident is very rare”.
One of the most powerful
propaganda arguments being given by the nuclear industry is that nuclear
energy is the solution to the problems of global warming. Apart from
the fact that nuclear energy is neither cheap nor safe, the reality is
that it is not green too. It is true that a nuclear plant in itself does
not produce greenhouse gases; however, the nuclear reactor cannot be
viewed in isolation. The production of electricity by fissioning uranium
depends upon a vast and complex process known as the nuclear fuel
cycle, of which the nuclear reactor is only a part. And, the fact is,
large quantities of fossil fuels are utilised during all the stages of
the nuclear fuel cycle.
The nuclear fuel cycle starts
from the mining of uranium ore; the ore is then taken to the mill to
extract uranium from the ore; next, the uranium is enriched; the
enriched uranium is then fissioned in the nuclear plant; the plant
generates huge quantities of radioactive waste which has to be safely
stored for thousands of years; and finally the reactor has to be
decommissioned after it has completed its life-span of between 40 and up
to 60 years.
All these processes are highly
energy consuming, in which huge amounts of fossil fuels are burned. For
instance, building the reactor itself requires huge amounts of cement
and steel; and the manufacturing process of steel and cement releases
large quantities of greenhouse gases. The worst part is that the nuclear
waste generated in the reactor has to be stored for thousands of years,
that is, for so long as it continues to emit significant amounts of
radiation. Obviously, the safe storage of the waste is going to consume
large amounts of energy – no one knows how much.
The pro-nuclear propaganda
conveniently forgets the whole nuclear cycle and only focuses on the
functioning of the nuclear reactor itself. Therefore, neither is nuclear
energy green, nor is it the solution for the global warming crisis.
The most critical issue is that
nuclear energy is not safe at all. During the process of making
electricity from uranium, that is, during the entire nuclear fuel cycle –
in the mining of uranium, followed by purification and enrichment, and
then in the reactor itself – radiation is released at every stage into
the atmosphere. The impact of this radiation on human beings is deathly:
it causes cancer, mutates the reproductive genes so that children are
born deformed, and also causes many other diseases.
Let us consider the nuclear
reactor itself. The process of splitting uranium in nuclear reactors
creates more than 200 new, radioactive elements that didn’t exist
earlier in nature. The resulting uranium fuel is a billion times more
radioactive than its original radioactive inventory. A regular 1,000
megawatt nuclear power plant contains an amount of radiation equivalent
to that released by the explosion of 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.
These radioactive elements
created in the reactor have half-lives of varying length from a few
seconds to thousands and tens of thousands of years. Despite all the
safeguards that are in place, it is impossible to prevent leakage of
some amount of these radioactive elements into the atmosphere. Some of
them inevitably leak out. They leak out in gaseous form and they leak
out along with the steam discharged by the reactor. In fact, nuclear
power plants are officially allowed to emit a defined (‘permissible’)
amount of radiation.
These elements are dispersed
into the environment and will keep releasing radiation for hundreds and
thousands of years. They will contaminate the water and soil, and will
inevitably enter the food chain.
Now, the nuclear plant will be
decommissioned after around 40 to a maximum of 60 years; but because
these radioactive elements can remain in the eco-system for thousands of
years, countless generations of people living in its vicinity will be
poisoned by radiation, long after all trace of the power plant itself
has gone.
It should be emphasised that
this process cannot be undone; because radiation will be present in the
air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil we cultivate for our
food. There is no known means of decontaminating our eco-system. The
only option for human beings is to flee from those areas and abandon
them altogether.
Turning to the issue of nuclear
waste: a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant produces 30 tonnes of
radioactive waste in a year. So, for example, the 10,000 megawatt
Jaitapur plant will produce 18,000 tonnes of waste over its maximum life
of six decades. This waste is the most toxic substance known to
human-kind. For instance, one percent of it is plutonium, which has a
half-life of 24,000 years, and so will remain radioactive for 200,000
years. It is so carcinogenic that less than one-millionth of a gram, if
inhaled, will cause lung cancer. The nuclear waste is so radioactive
that humans cannot approach or handle it – it has to be removed by
robots.
Now, how do you store this
nuclear waste in such a way that humans do not come into contact with
it? How do you store something that is so corrosive, that is at such
high temperature, and emitting such intense radiation? How do you store
nuclear waste safely for even 200 years, leave alone 200,000? How can
you guarantee that the container in which the waste is stored will
survive even 200 years? Material science is only 100 years old, and if
you make such a container which you claim will last 200 years, how do
you know that it will?
That is why around the world,
the current practice is to store the waste in temporary storage sites
near the reactors, either in huge cooling pools or in dry storage casks.
And everywhere these storage facilities are leaking; to contaminate the
environment for innumerable generations. Of course, with time, as the
volume of leakage increases, so does the level of radiation.
Finally, let us consider the
possibility of a major nuclear accident. Nuclear plants are inherently
prone to accidents. Many nuclear scientists have emphatically stated
that with nuclear technology, you can't guarantee that accidents will
not take place. The event of a nuclear accident is a singular
catastrophe because it affects tens of thousands of people (at the
minimum), and remember, for thousands of years. So, even one such
accident cannot be afforded by humanity.
The Chernobyl nuclear accident
[on 26 April 1986 in present Ukraine] affected half of the globe. A
study published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009 estimates
that 1,000,000 (one million) people have died worldwide over the period
1986-2004 due to diseases caused by radiation releases from this
disaster. And this number will keep increasing in the years to come.
In the case of Fukushima, a
greater tragedy was averted because much of the radiation was dispersed
over the sea. Even then, recent studies in Tokyo, which is around 240
kilometres from the site of the nuclear accident, have shown that
radiation from Fukushima has contaminated that city and the millions who
live and work in it. Independent scientists from Europe and the US have
estimated that there will be at least a million cancers in Japan over
the next 30 years as a direct result of the accident at the Fukushima
nuclear power plant. Radiation has spread from Japan to around the
world; traces have been detected as far away as in Switzerland and the
US.
India, which is far more
populous than the former Soviet Union and Japan, has not even been able
to cope with the Bhopal Gas disaster [the leak of methyl isocyanate gas
on 2-3 December 1984 in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh state believed to have
caused at least 20,000 deaths and injury to around 570,000], and the
rehabilitation needs of those affected. How can India, or for that
matter Sri Lanka, cope with a nuclear accident?
The peoples’
movement in Koodankulam is under severe repression but continues to
inspire anti-nuclear struggles in the rest of India and around the
world.
The anti-Koodankulam struggle is
probably one of India’s largest social movements in recent years.
Between 60,000 to 70,000 people have so far participated in this
agitation. It is a Gandhian non-violent movement of resistance. The
people mobilised are extremely well-informed of the hazards of nuclear
energy. The activism and bravery of the women, in particular, has been
the subject of many short films and media reports.
The villagers living around
Koodankulam are well-aware of the issues because there is an existing
nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu state (in Kalpakkam). They know the
health impact of the Kalpakkam nuclear plant on the people living in the
nearby villages. So, the dangers and the consequences are understood.
They know that pro-nuclear energy scientists are lying to them because
the claims that they make for nuclear power are so absurd.
The nuclear energy lobby refuses
to engage in debate with its opponents, which causes people to believe
that it has something to hide. It refuses to release scientific reports
on the safety of the plants; it refuses to release the site evaluation
report; it refuses to conduct environmental impact assessment on the
flimsy argument that the Koodankulam plant had been approved in 1988,
when the law providing for environmental assessment for large projects
was not in force. Yet, they claim that the plant is safe. So, how can
the people in the area believe them?
The Indian government has stated
that in accordance with an agreement with Russia, the Russian company
building the reactor will not be liable for any accident in the reactor,
implying that the Indian government will bear the health and
environmental costs. If the plant is so safe, people ask, then why do
the manufacturers want to indemnify themselves from liability for
accidents?
Unfortunately, the massive
propaganda campaign in the rest of Tamil Nadu (which is badly affected
by power shortages), including deploying former Indian President and
missile scientist APJ Abdul Kalam, has succeeded in convincing people
living in areas far away from the plant that nuclear power energy is
feasible and desirable.
The government has engaged in a
smear campaign to discredit the ‘Peoples Movement Against Nuclear
Energy’ in Koodankulam, describing it as funded by western
non-governmental-organisations; and emphasising the Christian faith of
the fisher-people at the forefront of the movement, as well as the
participation of the local Catholic clergy.
The government has clamped down
heavily on the protestors against the Koodankulam plant. The main site
of the agitation is the village of Idinthakarai which is six kilometres
from the power plant. The protestors have been virtually encircled by
the police who have blocked the access roads into their village, and
created bunkers using sand-bags to fortify their positions. False cases
under the Indian Penal Code have been filed against more than 56,000
protestors; the charges include 'sedition' and ‘waging war against the
state’. The leaders of the movement have not left the village in months,
because they expect to be arrested by the police if they do so. The
leaders are surrounded by several thousands who are protecting them from
any attempt by the police to arrest or otherwise harm them.
The only region in the world
where nuclear power plants are presently being constructed is in Asia.
New plants are proposed or are under construction in China, South Korea,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, and of course, India. Therefore, there is a
strong need for Asian people to come together to support each other. We
need to block companies in our countries that are producing components
or supplying materials for the construction of nuclear plants in other
countries: for instance, Japanese and South Korean companies are engaged
in nuclear commerce with other Asian countries. We also need to link up
with activists in Western countries. Australian people should demand
that the uranium mined there not be exported for nuclear energy. We also
want anti-nuclear activists from Western countries, especially
scientists and legislators, to come to India and link-up with the
movement here. Their solidarity can be used to counter the pro-nuclear
propaganda in the mainstream media.
Nuclear energy is not a national
issue – it is a global issue; because radiation and the effects of
nuclear accidents do not respect state boundaries. A nuclear accident
can radioactively contaminate half the globe.
The people protesting in
Koodankulam are not only fighting for their health and livelihoods; they
are not only fighting for the peoples’ of India; they are fighting for
the right to life of the peoples’ of the entire world, and for the
healthy lives of our unborn generations. It is the duty of all conscious
human beings, wherever they are, to join the struggle against nuclear
energy.
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Source: Sri Lanka Guardian on September 16, 2012 | 11:34 AM
