Grand promises, low returns
Estimated generation	Actual generation	Year
8,000 MW	600 MW	1980
20,000-25,000 MW	1000 MW	1987
43,500 MW	2,700 MW	2000

The people of southern coastal Tamil Nadu had been looking forward to the thrice-postponed public hearing on the environmental impact of the Koodankulam nuclear reactors being built near India’s southern tip, barely 20 kilometres from Kanyakumari. They were concerned about this ever since 1988, when USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi signed an agreement on building two large (1,000 mw each) VVER-1000 nuclear power generators.

For five years, they had watched the power station rising slowly but menacingly on cordoned-off land at Koodankulam, the closure of its fishing beach, construction of a special jetty to land heavy equipment, and the growing movement of contractors and equipment.

Over the years, they became more aware of the nature of these plants, being built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), and developed apprehensions about radiation releases, about catastrophic accidents, about how hot water from its coolant circuit pumped into the sea might affect the fish catch, about hazards from storage and movement of radioactive material, and about freshwater being diverted from the Pechipparai dam, vital to meeting the region’s drinking water and irrigation needs. Another concern grew when plans for adding four more units to the station were announced: their own displacement.

On June 2, they finally had their first chance to voice their concerns. The people of Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari districts had prepared for the public hearing with petitions and arguments. They came in trucks and buses to Tirunelveli’s Government Engineering College hoping that the hearing would be free and fair, and held in a friendly atmosphere — only to find intimidating bandobast with 1,200 policemen, nasty riot gear and armoured personnel carriers. Yet, none of this prevented them from expressing their views.

The hearing, at which we were present, began with District Collector G. Prakash inviting Project Director SK Agrawal to present an overview of the reactors and their safety systems. SP Udayakumar, a peace studies scholar based in Kanyakumari district, objected to this. He said the hearing was to ascertain the people’s views on the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), not to have NPCIL expound on its safety. The collector paid no heed and said NPCIL was there to answer any doubts the people may have. Many protested that the collector had not made the EIA Executive Summary for the proposed Reactors 3 to 6 available in Tamil, thus denying them an opportunity to understand the details. The collector lamely said he had put the EIA summary on the official website and also in certain government offices. But he could not produce a copy. Not one member of the public had seen it.

At any rate, about 10 activists and people spoke, expressing misgivings about the project’s risks and hazards. Agrawal also spoke. Some speakers were angry. But there was no violence or rowdiness.

Norms flouted Under the EIA, the purpose of a public hearing is to ascertain the concerns of local communities, ngos and environmentalists on a project’s environmental impact. The EIA notification of 1994, amended last year, mandates that: » the public be given 30 days’ notice in English and vernacular newspapers; » information regarding the availability of the EIA and its Executive Summary in designated offices be publicised; » the EIA Executive Summary be made available in Tamil, the most widely spoken language in the area;violated The June 2 hearing violated each one of these conditions. The collector, say MoEF rules, must conduct the hearing in “ensuring widest possible public participation district-wise… Every person present … shall be granted the opportunity to seek information or clarifications… The summary... reflecting all the views and concerns… should be read over to the audience… explaining the contents in the vernacular language.” These norms were also violated Finally, MoEF norms mandate an EIA and a public hearing for any project worth Rs 100 crore or more. This has not been done for the desalination plants

Suddenly, less than two hours later, the collector announced that the hearing had ended. He did not bother to sum up in Tamil the full range of views expressed, nor secure the assembly’s approval, required under the rules (See Box: Norms Flouted). Thus ended the only public hearing on India’s largest proposed nuclear power station (6,000 mw).

Its farcical nature, the collusion evident between NPCIL and the district administration, and the flagrant breach of stipulated procedures have further polarised opinion here. The people overwhelmingly oppose the project. The authorities seem hell-bent on building it, even if it involves violating norms set by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, and the Tamil Nadu government. Siting norms say that a 1.6-km radius zone around a nuclear power station must have no habitation. The next 5-km radius area must be a “sterilised zone”, where “the density of population should be small so that rehabilitation will be easier.” Finally, in the outlying 16-km radius, “the population should not exceed 10,000”. A TN government order of May 1988 clearing the project lays down the same conditions.

However, at least three large settlements lie within the 5-km zone: Koodankulam (population 20,000), Idinthakarai (population 12,000), and a new tsunami (rehabilitation) colony (population 2,000-plus). Now, Koodankulam and Idinthakarai are just two to four km from the plant as the crow flies. And parts of the tsunami colony are less than a km from the reactors. The population in the 16-km radius is at least 70,000!

So either NPCIL will flagrantly violate its own norms, or thousands of families will be uprooted — and separated from their livelihood as fisherfolk.

This is only one of the many problems Koodankulam poses. The rest fall into three categories: location-specific, technology- and cost-related, and problems generic to nuclear reactors, irrespective of their design or technology. The reactors’ need for freshwater is a major issue in this water-scarce region. The EIA says this would be drawn from the Pechipparai dam, 65 km away. When this led to opposition, NPCIL decided to try desalinating seawater. In 2004, it awarded a Rs 116-crore contract to Tata Projects to construct a desalination plant to supply about 7.6 million litres a day. Six reactors would, however, require four times as much. There is no word on how the need will be met.

The second requirement is seawater to cool down the reactors. According to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (moef), the temperature of the discharged water should not be higher than 7°c above that of the sea. But temperature increases at India’s coastal nuclear reactors exceed this norm: 7.7°c (Tarapur 1&2), 8.4°c (maps 1&2 at Kalpakkam), and 9.5°c (for Tarapur 3&4).

If all six 1,000 mw reactors are built at Koodankulam, they will release over 13 times the heat discharged by the two maps reactors (220 mw each). Either the increase in the temperature of the water will be higher than at Kalpakkam. Or, the amount of seawater circulated will be minimally 13 times greater. In either case, the impact on marine life will be significantly higher. Further, Koodankulam lies at the edge of the Gulf of Mannar, one of the world’s richest marine biodiversity areas, with 3,600 species of flora and fauna, 377 of them endemic. Thermal discharges from the plant are liable to affect this precious biological reserve. No less important is the plant’s likely impact on the region’s marine fisheries. The three districts account for 70 percent of the state’s fish catch, and generate over Rs 2,000 crore in annual exports.

Safety? DAE doesn't care Practically all facilities operated by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have had accidents of varying severity. A 1993 fire at the Narora power plant; valve failure leading to massive radiation doses to workers at Kalpakkam in 2003; and collapse of a containment dome at Kaiga in 1994. All these partly resulted from avoidable reasons: poor cabling design and non-replacement of turbine blades (even after the manufacturer's warning) in Narora, faulty practices in Kaiga, and non-installation of monitors in Kalpakkam. Hundreds of workers have been subjected to radiation above the permissible limit. Further, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which is to oversee the safe operation of all civilian nuclear facilities, is not independent of the dae. It reports to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which is chaired by the dae head. The NPCIL chairman is also an AEC member. Thus, both dae and NPCIL exercise administrative power over the AERB. (Its lack of independence directly contravenes the International Convention on Nuclear Safety, which India signed in 1994.) Former AERB chairman A. Gopalakrishnan offers an example of the AEC's interference: "When, as chairman, I appointed an independent expert committee to investigate the collapse at Kaiga, the AEC chairman wanted its withdrawal and matters left to the committee formed by the [NPCIL MD]. dae also complained to the [PMO] who tried to force me to back off".

More vitally, livelihoods of thousands of fisherfolk, who possess remarkable skills in marine fishing, but rarely practice agriculture, are liable to be destroyed. Koodankulam will thus create a displacement crisis as well.

The next set of problems pertain to technology and costs. Nuclear reactors, including the Koodankulam plant, are a high-risk technology. Among all electricity generating technologies, nuclear power alone is vulnerable to catastrophic accidents — witness the Chernobyl meltdown of April 1986 (See Page 12). While the VVER-1000 reactor is different in design from the rbmk reactor at Chernobyl, it only means that the potential sequence of events leading to a major accident would be different. All existing reactor types are capable of undergoing a loss-of-coolant or reactivity-surge accident, which could cause a core meltdown and enormous releases of radioactive poisons, affecting the air, water, plant and animal life over thousands of square km.

Besides, VVER-1000 reactors pose specific safety concerns. Their operating experience raises questions about the reliability of their control-rod mechanism, which is crucial to preventing a runaway fission chain reaction. In the last couple of years, at Temelin in the Czech Republic and at Kozloduy in Bulgaria, numerous control rods, which are supposed to arrest power excursion or reactor misbehaviour, did not move as designed.

On March 1, 2006, when Kozloduy’s Unit 5 was operating at full power, one of the four main circulation pumps tripped due to electrical failure. As reactor power was reduced to 67 percent of nominal capacity, three control-rod assemblies remained in the wrong position. Of the remaining 61 assemblies, 22 did not move with driving mechanisms. The number of control-rod assemblies unable to scram (to drop due to gravity only) remains unknown. Control-rod insertion failures are considered serious and lead to a severely degraded state of safety if an accident-initiating event occurs.