A fairly balanced piece, excepting one point: gestation period (average) for nucl power plant is 14 year+ ( 23 years for the last nucl plant in the USA)
Saviour or monster? by NN Sachitanand 24 Jul 08 (http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1179584&pageid=0)
In the raging debate on the Indo-US nuclear deal, a crucial aspect that has been rendered cloudy due to exaggeration from both sides is the role that can be played by nuclear energy in the future scenario of power generation in India.
The supporters of the deal have painted nuclear power as a white knight that will save this country from a power-starved future. The antagonists characterise nuclear energy as a monster which will lay waste the environment with radioactivity and emphasise that we would be better off laying our bets on non-conventional renewable energy sources like the sun, wind and biomass.
Both are wrong. The pro-nuclear group is grossly underestimating the difficulties of putting up nuclear power-generating capacity. It has taken India over 40 years to put up the current commercially operating nuclear power capacity of a mere 3,779 MWe .
Another 2,976 MWe of nuclear power capacity is supposed to go into commercial operation towards the end of 2010 .
Because of safety issues relating to containing radioactivity, the construction of a nuclear power plant is extremely complex in terms of materials, processes, safety standards, stipulations, inspection, and trials as compared with a coal or oil-based thermal power plant.
Each of the initial lot of nuclear power plants in India took anywhere from 6 to 8 years to complete. The pace has picked up a bit for the latter lot, but it still takes from 4 to 6 years for a plant to be put up now.
And these are plants of 200 MWe capacities. In contrast, you can put up a 4000 MW coal-based thermal power plant in four to six years. As against this experience of putting up 7000 MWe in 50 years, the UPA government is claiming that , provided the gates of international supplies of fuel, equipment, expertise and funds are opened up following the ratification of the nuclear deal, the nuclear power capacity can be ramped up to 20,000 MWe by 2020 and another 20,000 MWe can be added by 2030.
This is the height of optimism. These grandiose plans will most likely founder, in the first instance due to protracted delays in getting community approval at the proposed sites and, in the second instance, in getting adequately-skilled manpower.
As of now, nuclear power represents a mere 3 per cent of the of total power generation capacity installed in India. Even if, post the nuclear deal, all the 40,000 MWe capacity comes into being by 2030 as projected by the nuclear lobby, which is highly unlikely, it will still represent just 10 per cent of the total power-generating capacity of 4,00,000 MW expected to be installed by 2030.
Let us now turn our attention to the other end of the spectrum the non-conventional, renewable energy sources. According to the ministry of new and renewable Energy (MNRE), as on March 31, 2008, a grand total of 12,632 MW, which includes everything from solar and wind to biomass-based power generation. Compare this to current total installed power-generating capacity of 1, 45,000 MW, and we get an idea of how pitiful is the contribution of these renewable energy sources.
The fundamental weakness of all these alternative energy resources is their distributed nature. This means you cannot generate a large amount of power in a small area, using such resources. For example, India is supposed to have a total wind power potential of 65,000 MW.
But the MNRE has itself pointed out that wind-power farms require 12 hectares per megawatt. If we take into account the international practice of setting up grid-interactive wind power systems on sites having wind power density greater than 300 W/m2, the national potential would be only 5000 MW.
Or take deriving electrical energy from sunlight using photovoltaic panels, which is supposed to be the fastest-growing alternate energy industry in the world today. A recent housing project near Kolkota which used this technology deployed 16 square metres of photovoltaic panels per house for a capacity of 2 kilowatts.
If we were to translate this to the requirement of panel area for a 1000 megawatt power plant, it would come to an impractical 9 million square metres!
I am afraid the romantics will have to wait for the day when scientists crack the problem of extracting hydrogen from sea-water on a commercial scale at a cost cheaper than that of natural gas. Till then, India's power demand will have to be met largely by coal and natural gas, both of which , unfortunately , are carbon dioxide emitters when combusted. Perhaps the government of India needs to focus more on developing technologies to trap and store this carbon dioxide.
__._,_.___
*****************************************
Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
*****************************************
Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
*****************************************
MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
*****************************************
Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
*****************************************
MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
*****************************************
German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
*****************************************
Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
****************************************************
VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
****************************************************
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___