[Reader-list] Leaks at India's nuclear-power plants: cause for concern?

[Harsh Kapoor]

The Christian Science Monitor
October 11, 2002

Leaks at India's nuclear-power plants: cause for concern?

Even the country's safest reactors don't meet international 
standards, according to its atomic regulations agency

By V. K. Shashikumar | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

NEW DELHI – Kakrapara Atomic Power Station (KAPS), in the western 
city of Surat, is India's well-groomed nuclear workhorse. Huge 
concrete domes enclose its two reactors, which generate a surplus of 
power for the country. And when it comes to controlling radiation 
leakage, KAPS is "our best station," says S.P. Sukhatme, chairman of 
India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).

That, it turns out, is bad news. KAPS may be India's prized nuclear 
plant, but radiation emitted from its reactors is three times as much 
as the international norm, says Mr. Sukhatme.

It's a shocking admission that puts the rest of the country's 
nuclear-power plants in grave perspective. "The main implication is 
that other nuclear-power plants are much worse than even Kakrapar," 
says Suren Gadekar, considered to be India's top antinuclear activist.

Four months ago, world leaders fretted about the possibility of two 
nuclear-weapons rivals, India and Pakistan, approaching the brink of 
war. That problem apparently on hold, India's nuclear scientists say 
the country could still face an equally devastating nuclear 
catastrophe – without a shot being fired.

This time, the threat is not Pakistan or terrorists, but India's 
power plants themselves. Some scientists say that the plants are so 
poorly built and maintained, a Chernobyl-style disaster may be just a 
matter of time.

"The fact that India's nuclear regulator acknowledges that reactors 
in India are not operated to the standards of reactors in the US and 
Europe is not much of a surprise," says Christopher Sherry, research 
director of the Safe Energy Communication Council in Washington. "But 
it is very disturbing."

India tested its first nuclear device in May 1974. In 1998, the 
country successfully conducted five underground nuclear tests, 
heralding its entry into ga select group of countries capable of 
waging nuclear war.

Today, the country has 14 nuclear power reactors including two at 
KAPS. Most are modeled after a design first built in Shippingport, 
Penn. in 1957, and considered by experts to be the most 
cost-effective way to produce electricity through nuclear energy.

However only three of those nuclear reactors fall under International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards. The rest – which were built 
with local technology – are accountable only to national standards 
set by the AERB.

This February, Sukhatme asked the Nuclear Power Corporation of India 
Ltd – a government-owned manufacturer of nuclear plants – to plug 
leakage of water contaminated with tritium, a highly radioactive 
substance, from reactors. "There is a clear need for reducing the 
exposure to workers," he says.

Also earlier this year, the AERB ordered the closure of India's first 
nuclear plant in the state of Rajasthan. The reactor that put India 
on the nuclear world map developed a series of defects, starting with 
"turbine-blade failures." Gradually the reactor was wrecked by 
"cracks in the end-shields, a leak in the calandria overpressure 
relief device, a leak in many tubes in the moderator heat exchanger."

While the government releases no information about leaks or accidents 
at its nuclear power plants, Dhirendra Sharma, a scientist who has 
written extensively on India's atomic-power projects, has compiled 
figures based on his own reporting. "An estimated 300 incidents of a 
serious nature have occurred, causing radiation leaks and physical 
damage to workers," he says. "These have so far remained official 
secrets."

According to critics like Mr. Gadekar, India's nuclear-power program 
has always been secretive because politicians use it as a cover for 
the country's weapons program. "Right from Jawaharlal Nehru [India's 
first prime minister] onward, our leaders have always claimed that 
the nuclear-power program is a 'peaceful' program, whereas the 
weapons implications were always there in the background," says 
Gadekar. "As a result, secrecy has become a way of life for these 
people."

The chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, has 
repeatedly asserted that his group is doing what it can to ensure 
that the country's power plants are safe. Still, leaks continues to 
raise serious questions about safety.

Part of the problem, says N.M. Sampathkumar Iyangar, a former 
manufacturer of nuclear reactor components, is that well-connected 
manufacturers are able to cut deals with politicians in India's 
Department of Energy, often selling defective parts, which are then 
used to build reactors.

But others, like Dr. Kakodkar, say the real problem is that new 
technology designed to upgrade safety at power plants is too 
expensive for developing countries like India. According to Kakodkar, 
India should not be held accountable to international standards until 
the international community helps make such technology available to 
developing countries.

"Safety and technology cannot be divorced," he says.

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