[Reader-list] Can't avoid nuclear power: Buddhadeb

[Pawan Durani]

 Dear Readers ,

As expected , the drama is unfolding .

Deal Or No Deal ?

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070026426
NDTV Correspondent
 Monday, September 17, 2007 ()
 West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is generally more liberal
on ideology. But he also walked a thin line on Monday on the nuclear deal
and nuclear power.

So far he has been publicly firm on opposing the Indo-US deal. Media
speculation began again after he said India should be ''cautious'' on the
deal and also came out in favour of nuclear power.

''And as far as I am concerned and from what I have read in papers and
magazines you just can't avoid nuclear power,'' he said.

As to whether nuclear power is a safe and economic alternative, he said, let
scientists decide the issue and pointed out that environmentalists opposing
nuclear power as a viable option are beginning to sound like
''fundamentalists''.

Bhattacharya's comment, made at a Confederation of Indian Industries meeting
in Kolkata on Monday, comes at a time when the Left is furiously opposing
the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Though the Left are opposed to the Indo-US nuclear deal, they are not
opposed to nuclear energy per se.

''We need clean power in the background of the global warming problems that
are threatening our civilisation.

Some people think, some scientists, that the only alternative is nuclear
power. And what our honourable PM says that we have entered a nuclear
renaissance. But we have some doubts not about the environmental problems
but the cost of setting up the nuclear power plants about the price of
nuclear electricity; all of this has to be properly evaluated. And
scientists, planners and politicians must come together and discuss this.
It's more a technical opinion than a political one.''

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had invited Buddhadeb to a dinner date last
month when the Left's opposition to the nuclear deal was at his height.

The Left has not really taken a stand on nuclear energy.

What they have said is that before going in for nuclear energy, the
implications for going in for such a choice should be worked out vis-a-vis
cost effectiveness, are other sources such as hydel, thermal power being
utilised, what is impact on environment, in wake of Chernobyl disaster.