Nuclear is cheaper, greener, indigenous And it can be distributed
The nuclear bill changes everything
Thirty years ago, a group of IIT Alumni called me and showed me a video clip from the English feature film “Nuclear Winter” with a question, “Is this real or did you just make this up”. Ten years before they met me, I had written the script and done the special effects for the movie. I had just about managed to learn how to use the internet on the day we met.
The movie had been sponsored by the Nuclear Power Corporation. And it spoke of making nuclear safer by making nuclear plants smaller. And shifting from uranium to thorium. I didn’t remember how that got into the script. But it got me thinking. Those days I was helping set up the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. I had begun thinking like a regulator. A few years before that India had unleashed liberalisation of an unprecedented magnitude. Private businesses had been allowed to set up power plants.
I called up the PMs office with a funny question, “why make coal fired plants, why not nuclear”. I recall the then power minister looking at me as if I had completely lost it. I was told that we run nuclear plants to produce weapon grade uranium. Power is just by product.
For thirty years since that day I have tried to push every bureaucrat and leader who mattered to allow thorium based nuclear. My friends in BARC have never supported this but have always given me good reasons to say why it won’t work. This has helped sharpen my narrative. Finally I got to meet someone who bought the pitch around four years ago. By then the iit alumni group that met me 30 years ago had designed and build a 3 MW nuclear reactor good enough for a 1.25 MW electric charging station. Now we finally knew what it cost to build. Rs 24 crores per MW selling price. BoM of 13 crores. Almost 100% indigenous.
Yesterday after an almost endless set of do loops, the govt finally moved the Parliament Bill to allow private sector players to enter nuclear power generation. No other prime minister in the last 30 years had the guts to allow this. Other than UK, no foreign country has done something similar.
This is a win for India.
Nuclear can be cheaper than solar
Doesn’t need land
Doesn’t need washing of panels
Runs 24/7
Nuclear is the third leg in our energy portfolio besides gas and solar. And the most important.