The Congress leadership and the UPA government are propagating that the
Indo-US nuclear deal is absolutely essential for India's energy security.  A
massive disinformation campaign has been mounted that nuclear energy is a
solution not only to the shortage of electricity in the country but also an
answer to the oil price rise.  This is nothing but a cover to promote the
strategic ties with the US. As it is difficult to promote India-US strategic
ties directly, therefore the recourse to false claims that nuclear energy
will at one stroke reduce not only our oil consumption and but also remove
our power shortages.

Let us take the issue of oil first. More than 50% of India's oil consumption
is in the transport sector - cars, buses and trucks and the rest in
petrochemicals and fertilisers. Only a negligible amount is used in the
power plants. Nuclear energy has very little to do with oil - it cannot be
used as a substitute for oil; unless the Government experts have found a new
way to burn uranium directly in cars and buses! On the other hand, Natural
Gas from Iran would insulate India substantively from the oil price shocks.
The Government has been dragging its feet over the Iran Gas Pipeline project
at the behest of the US and in consideration of the Hyde Act.

On the power shortages, the facts are as follows.

·      India's growing shortage of electricity has little to do with a lack
of nuclear energy but a lot to do with starving the power sector of public
investments over the last two decades. In the last three Five-year plans,
capacity additions has been of around 20,000 MW per Plan, less than what we
had added in the 7th Plan.

·      Even if the Deal is signed today, it will take about 8 years before
any electricity is produced from imported reactors under the Deal

·      The cost of installing nuclear power plants using imported reactors
is three times that of coal-fired plants of the same size

·      The cost of electricity from such plants will be more than Rs. 5.00,
 twice that from coal-fired plants

·      The quickest and cheapest way to remove the current electricity
shortages is to build coal-fired plants which take half the time required by
nuclear plants

·      Nuclear plants require imported uranium, which is controlled by a
small international cartel. The price of uranium has gone up by five times
in the last few years because of this cartel.

·      Nuclear energy has an important place in India's energy option and
this route needs to be kept open for the future. However, this should be
based on our indigenous technology and our indigenous resources to ensure
energy security.

·      Even with the most optimistic nuclear scenario that the Government
has projected, Nuclear energy will at best meet only 8% of our electricity
demand and about 4% of our total primary energy demand. While the nuclear
option should be kept open for the future, it has little importance for
meeting our immediate energy needs.

The Government has also been highlighting a temporary shortage of uranium
fuel and painting it as a permanent one. The Government, either deliberately
or a failure of planning, did not invest in expanding the existing uranium
mines or opening new mines. Worse, they also closed one of the existing
mines. The Atomic Energy Commission has made clear that we have enough
uranium for 10,000 MW of installed capacity against the current capacity of
only about 4,000 MW. It appears that the spectre of uranium shortage has
been created only to push a Deal that is not in India's national interest.

The India-US Nuclear Deal is not about India's energy security. Energy
security lies in using indigenous energy resources such as coal and ensuring
our future energy supplies from Iran and other countries in West and Central
Asia. Obviously, augmenting indigenous coal production, investing in oil
exploration, securing gas supplies through Iran Gas Pipeline are much more
important for India's energy security than buying imported reactors and
importing uranium for such nuclear plants. Energy security does not lie in
helping a moribund US nuclear industry to sell us billions of dollars of
reactors, which nobody is buying in the US.

Mythical energy claims are being made in order to promote a bad nuclear
deal. Energy is just a cover. The real intent is India-US strategic ties.