Japan nuclear crisis: implications for India

The Japanese tragedy is immense. The radiation threat is real and nightmarish.
We are lucky to have experts in the nuclear field like Sunita Narain who can guide us through these difficult times.

I think the basic question revolves around the safety of the Nuclear installations on two accounts (i) Structural stability per se in the event of a credible magnitude earthquake. (ii) impact of credible magnitude earthquake on the performance of the safety systems during and after the earthquake(s). In case of the present Japanese Nuclear Crises, it is the power back up system failure perhaps with some other breaches as well ( un reported so far). This is a difficult scenario - (1) how large power back up system need to be provided? (ii) How large ‘coolant’ reserve need to be kept in hold? In the Indian scene even if the Nuclear plant is designed for a credible magnitude EQ but, what about the other infrastructure like the source from where regular power is drawn because both would be designed on different credible magnitude EQs.
I think it’s a wake up call for us to learn from this Japanese serial events and re-design our ‘Culture of Safety’ towards evolving more stringent ‘Damage Reduction & Prevention Strategies based on SOPs - a paradigm shift. I also feel strongly that our I.S Codes need urgent revision and the periodic revisions should be strictly adhered to for absorbing emerging technologies, environmental and disaster management issues. It should be made mandatory to have a certificate in the DPRs listing the I.S. Codes that were need to be followed and have been followed right from Identification to Project Construction Stages as well for as Post-Construction monitoring. The transparency and accountability need to be made more visible – which is not at present. The practice of granting conditional clearance of DPRs by the nodal agencies need to be considered as ‘Promotion of Bad Practices’ and is required to be stopped forthwith. We need to re-define ‘Safe & ‘Economic designs of our Developmental Projects inclusive of Nuclear Plants. In case of Japanese Nuclear Crises, so far no damage to the ‘Plant’ has been attributed to the EQ, it is the secondary affects that have damaged the ancillary infra structure/supportive structure by un-precedent secondary affects of EQ (Tsunami) that has caused the present crises. Its time we also review our storage reservoirs associated with hydropower generation or with multi purpose projects for any such eventuality that might breach them and cause massive down stream flooding and break down of infra-structure etc., there is no harm in re-looking. We have lot to learn from this Japanese incident, perhaps this is going to re-define the definition of ‘Sustainable Development’ during the proposed UN Conference in 2012 at Rio.
thnks
nk agarwal
Geo-Consultant & Advisor

Most of the extra power we will need is for industry as govt pursues it higher-and-higher GDP dream. But is this the only way for a country to progress and advance? Why is no one looking at other models that could be more self-sustaining and less destructive? Why is there so little out of the box thinking -especially in India- about how we can bring a modicum of safety and prosperity to all our people, without it being at the cost of the environment and of the less well-off? All the ingenuity in the world seems to be going into how we can make the mobile phone and computer the centre of our lives and almost nothing into how we can make better lives.