[Reader-list] Energy Options for India: Some questions

[saraswati]

Energy Options: Some questions for the Scientific
Community and the Economists:

In a recent lecture at the Institute of Engineers,
Hyderabad; by an Imported (from America) Civil
Engineer (sponsored by the Nuclear Lobby in America,
as mentioned by him – “I am paid 10,000 dollars to
conduct these silly lectures), who talked about
“Nuclear Energy” being the future for India’s energy
requirement (He had nothing to do either with Nuclear
Energy production or Nuclear Physics); there have been
mixed responses. 

Chief among them were – whether Nuclear Energy is a
safe option, whether it is a renewable resource and
most importantly, there was one gentleman who kept
saying there is a need for Nuclear Energy in order to
protect the farmer from committing suicides due to a
shortage of electricity. (His take was that since
there was no power, the farmers are unable to irrigate
their lands from their tube wells. That there are many
more fundamental reasons with regards to agricultural
policies behind farmers deaths is another issue). 

Speaking about the safety of Nuclear Plants vis-à-vis
Kalpakkam Nuclear Plant in Tamil Nadu and its
situation during the Tsunami, the chief designer of
Kalpakkam Nuclear Plant spoke about how strong the
safety norms were in Kalpakkam and how the safety
precautions were better in India than in the USA. He
also added that everyday there are at least 10-15
people dying in road accidents in Hyderabad, so the
tally is any day better in the Nuclear Industry. 

My question to this gentleman and others is: someone
dying in a road accident is an accident, caused
involuntarily. Knowing fully well, that Nuclear
Industry right from Mining, to Processing, Energy
Generation, and (worst of all) – the nuclear arms race
between India and Pakistan, that took speed with
Indo-US Nuclear agreement; (not to forget the recent
incident of  theft of Uranium from the Jadugoda mines,
whose final destination one cannot know about);
Considering all these factors, with full knowledge
that all this can cause death and destruction; if we
say, well people die anyways, so why not just NUKE
them out – then aren’t we collaborators in MURDER? 

Even if it was just ten people or one person who dies
because of the Nuclear Establishment, most often, an
ignorant villager / miner who knows nothing about
Nuclear Science; isn’t it MURDER by the NUCLEAR
ESTABLISHMENT? By all those who are professing Nuclear
Energy as the option, please think, if you or I have
any right to Kill even one human being in the name of
Development, while we, the well healed, the middle
class, enjoy the fruits of their sacrifice?

Do we have a right to ask the soldiers of Development
(the miners and other such sacrificial goats) to
sacrifice their lives for us, us who will not make a
small sacrifice like shutting off our TV sets, or our
Water Heaters in order to save energy? In the same
vein, I want to question all the scientists – “How
many of you will send your children to work in the
Uranium Mines as Miners? And ask them to take it up as
a career option?” The day you do that, you may speak
about Nuclear Energy being the option for India or for
any other country. The day you and I are willing to
live next to a Tailing Pond of a Uranium Mine, we
should speak about Nuclear Energy. 

Everyone keeps harping about France, France does not
mine its Uranium in its own territory – some poor
fellows in Africa are paying the price for France’s
“Energy Options”. The American Indians became the
sacrificial lambs in the United States’ avarice for a
Nuclear Dominance. In this day of “Collateral Damages”
I suppose, what I speak seems like archaic bullshit.
But before development or anything else, what separate
human beings from Animals are a code of ethics and the
principles of humane behaviour. I think we need to
rethink who we are and where we are going. 

The Second Big Question everyone asks is: if we do not
use Nuclear Energy, then we will head for an Energy
crisis. 

I wish to ask first of all, is this Nuclear Energy and
everlasting resource? There was something one
scientist spoke in a discussion in New Delhi recently,
that they are simulating the same reactions which are
happening in the SUN, in order to generate Energy. My
question to him was, “Why don’t you use the SUN
directly, instead of going through this round about
way?” His answer, ‘We can use solar energy, we can use
a solar cooker, solar heater and solar lamp, but how
many of us are doing that”. I asked him, “Are you
using a solar cooker?” He replied in the negative. 

Coming back to our present lecture, I recounted this
incident to the Chief designer of Kalpakkam Nuclear
Plant; his answer was “It is too expensive and there
is not so much funding!”  My question is, “What about
all that subsidy, which is doled out to the Nuclear
Industry in India, which has spent at least hundreds
of thousands of crores of rupees and generated meager
3.1% electricity?”  My neighbour wants to purchase a
solar water heater, but she doesn’t want to buy it
because there is no subsidy. 

There are numerous ways in which we can generate the
money we need, if we have the will
we can abandon the
9000 crore Metro rail project(s) (now they are
planning this in every city in India, so you can
multiply that 9000 with 10-15 or what ever number of
cities they are planning to implement the Metro); and
use a cheaper option of Public Transport like a good
Bus system or the MMTS trains. Our governments do not
have money to give 200 crores to the RTC to purchase
500 buses, but they have the money to pay 9000 crores
to spend on the Metro Rail. They don’t want to spend
400 crores for improving the MMTS, but have 9000
crores to spend on the Metro Rail. 
So, if we can avoid the Metro Rail in all our cities
(Delhi being an exception, since there is a Metro
already), there will be a lot of money available for
renewable energy resources like Solar Energy and Wind
Energy. 

The most important question we need to ask ourselves:
What has been the paradigm of development that we have
been following? We know we are heading for an energy
crisis then, why are we increasing and introducing
Energy Intensive forms of “Development”? 

Here are a few examples:
Retail Super stores like WALMART and Reliance are not
really a “Development” requirement. When I buy
vegetables from the neighbourhood vegetable vendor, I
am using less energy – the vegetables are brought from
a nearby village in a lorry or more often, the vendors
bring them in Public Transport buses. The vendors walk
around the city on their Push Wheel Carts – No
pollution or energy use at all. In earlier times, we
carried our own bags, so no plastic either. Now
plastic carry bags have increased the energy usage of
this traditional marketing system. Since there is no
cold storage or packaging involved, no energy is used,
and besides we know that what we see, is what it is,
if it is four days old vegetable or fruit it shows –
in effect, we buy more fresh vegetables in this
system. 

Now take a typical super market in Europe or America,
which we are trying to bring into India. First we need
to build a huge building – energy is used in the
manufacture of cement, bricks, mortar, and even the
construction (since manual labour is getting phased
out). Then, the building uses a lot of electrical
appliances and of course air-conditioning. Then
packaging (because otherwise things do not look so
good) and carry bags with the labels of Reliance or
WALMART– again another industry which manufactures the
plastic and then the energy used in packaging
industry. 

Most importantly – Cold Storage and Transportation:
because in a superstore one can buy anything: bananas
from Costa Rica to American Sweet Corn, Fruits from
Australia, what ever. Can you imagine the amount of
energy that is used in this entire process – as
electricity, as petrol among others? 

Then, another consideration – bananas in their natural
state last about a few days to a week may be. But to
bring bananas from Costa Rica or West Indies to
Scandinavia, will at least take  a couple of days from
the farm to the ship, and then another 10-15 days on
the ship and then from there to the store in another
day or two. How will bananas last this long? By
artificial means – using “IRRADIATION”. In effect, the
cost of energy and then finally the “nuked” bananas
don’t justify the whole fanciful idea of buying inside
a “posh” looking supermarket. 

In the UK, in order to save energy, people started to
buy local food from local farmers. So, that must be
giving WALMART and their likes a run for their money,
so they descend on countries like India, where, we the
middle class feel, we are “Developed” if we buy from
an Energy Intensive Super Store, rather than our
friendly neighbourhood vegetable vendor. Because
getting down from your car in front of a street vendor
doesn’t add to your status. 

Speaking of Cars – if only if we had a good system of
Public Transport and used less cars and motorbikes, so
much energy would have been saved! Not just in the
direct saving of petrol, but in reducing the number of
cars manufactured, we reduce the mining, and
manufacturing thus saving tons of energy! 

Another example: take Hyderabad – we had a river
called Musi that provided us with drinking water. We
polluted it, polluted all our lakes, all water
resources, and now we are using Five Lifts to pump
water from Krishna River and transport it over 150 kms
to bring water to Hyderabad. If only we can stop this
nonsense of allowing pollution of our water bodies by
the industry we could have saved all that energy which
is being spent everyday to bring water to Hyderabad. 

Now the villages in downstream area which earlier
drank water from the Musi River are being supplied the
same Krishna Water through tankers. The tankers go
almost daily from Hyderabad to these villages. One
tanker goes to about 10 villages. There are nearly
50-60 villages like these. Now one tanker uses 100-150
liters of diesel in a day and that is almost 54,750
litres in 365 days! Can we assess the amount of energy
costs we are paying for the pollution caused by energy
intensive Industry (which is supposed to bring
development to us)? 

All the agriculture, fisheries in this area has
suffered enormously. At the end of the day, it is the
urban people and the Industry who are demanding more
and more energy – and has the Industry been able to
replace Agriculture as the Majority Employment
Provider? No, not yet, but it may take over, for soon,
we may be left with no good agricultural land to grow
our crops, as we continue to follow this ENERGY
INTENSIVE developmental model that thinks that the
Small Car (Energy consuming once again) of TATA’s
which will provide employment to 2000 people in 10
years time, has a right to occupy 1000 hectares of
prime agricultural land that is currently providing
employment to 10,000 people and make them destitutes!

We can save tons of energy, doing away with 24 hour TV
(when people watch less TV, so much power gets saved).
In any case TV is doling out trash that psyches the
minds of the young generation, making them buy more
and more, increasing consumerism, and thus increasing
mining and manufacturing to produce goods for this
artificial demand created by the Media. When we follow
these measures, we will surely be able to provide
enough power to our farmers!

We cave save lot of energy that is wasted by lighting
up trees on the Tankbund, by cutting down on energy
used in Entertainment shows/ Fashion Shows
(while we
put a curb on the power used by the farmers, there is
no curb on the energy used in these shows!)  

The list is endless
there fore, the need for more
energy comes from all these factors, and there fore we
demand for NUCLEAR ENERGY as the option, even if it
means we kill our own people, right now and in future!
It doesn’t matter that our own governments are killing
innocent people in the name of Development – I am
beginning to wonder – are we living in a democracy?

So, there fore, while on the one hand we kill farmers
by displacing them to make way for energy intensive
projects; we kill adivasis in the name of providing
electricity to the farmers by way of Nuclear Energy.
That the farmers are committing suicides due to the
consequences of green revolution, World Bank Policies,
WTO, Monsanto, Pesticide and Fertilizer Industry is
another issue. But once again, the Monsantos and Dow
Chemicals of the world need to be protected and
provided precious Energy, so that they can kill poor,
illiterate farmers who earlier were using “No Energy”
or “Low Energy” form of traditional agriculture; and
who were made to convert to this “High Energy
Intensive” form of chemical farming. Forced to dig
tubewells and unable to pay the high power bills, Or,
unable to use the water from the tubewells due to
power shortages; while the Industry is provided fresh
water at its doorstep; which doesn’t have the decency
to release clean, unpolluted water into the
environment.  Sure enough, farmers will continue to
commit suicides as we provide more money and more
ENERGY for airports in every small town of this
country, while a village will continue to suffer
without a regular bus or a proper road.

We do have our priorities – and the poor must become
the scapegoats of this development of ours, while we
continue to debate on such issues inside the comforts
of air-conditioned rooms, zipping away in our fancy
cars, while we listen to music from an i-pod! Sure
enough, we have got our priorities right!

Saraswati Kavula 





 
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