Japan N-crisis: Nations review safety of their nuclear power programmes

NEW DELHI: India has strong reasons to go slow on atomic energy projects after the crisis in Japan, but the energy-hungry economy has a compelling case to encash the nuclear deal with USA to fuel existing units and build new ones as it strives to reduce its growing dependence on costly oil imports.

Nuclear energy projects around the world have slowed down after an accident in a reactor raises a public outcry against radiation risks. Whether it was the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 or the Chernobyl catastrophe in the following decade public opinion turned against nuclear reactors. But the temptation to build nuclear plants is hard to resist once the accident fades in public memory and oil prices soar to a level that damage government finances.

Construction of such plants rose after the 1973 oil shock and again in recent years when crude oil crossed $100 a barrel and scaled a peak of $147.

Indian policy-makers have already ordered a safety review of all the nuclear plants in the country and industry experts are saying that the events in Japan have cast a shadow on the country’s atomic energy programme that aims to hoist generation capacity from nuclear plants to 63,000 megawatts in two decades from the current 4,780 megawatts.