By Ravi Ladduwahetty
The government will shortly make strong representations to the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), at its technical sessions in September, over the Koodankulam nuclear power plant, situated 360 kilometres North of Tamil Nadu in Southern India, which could have deleterious effects on Sri Lanka in terms of radiation.
Currently, a Memorandum of Understanding is also being drafted and will be signed between the governments of Sri Lanka and India to determine what type of mitigatory measures could be taken in the event of any nuclear accidents that could take place in the future, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Atomic Energy Authority Dr. Ranjit Wijewardene told The Island in an interview late Monday night.
The MoU is being drafted by experts from the Ministry of Power and Energy and the SLAEA. It will be channeled to the Indian government through the Sri Lankan Ministry of External Affairs.
"India has as many as 19 nuclear power plants in operation, the closest to Sri Lanka being Koodankulam, barely 200 kilometres away from the border and despite whatever effects it could have on Sri Lanka, the country was in no position to stop India continuing with its nuclear programmes," the Atomic Energy Authority Chief said.
He said that there would not be any nuclear accidents due to failure of nuclear technology but there could be failures due to natural disasters such as the one that struck in Japan’s Fukoshima.
However, he also said that the International Atomic Energy Authority had also sponsored the installation of the equipment, running into millions of dollars, as a part of a radiological emergency response plan. This will be installed before the end of May and would be a detecting system able to sound early warnings.
A total of five detector systems will be installed, the main one at the Atomic Energy Authority headquarters, Sri Lanka Chapter. The other four will be installed at specific locations on the western coast, at naval detachments, but all will be controlled and monitored by the SLAEA. "The monitoring mechanism will be made by the SLAEA," he said.
There would also be a baseline radioactive data plan which will monitor all activities of radioactive elements which may fall on Sri Lanka’s soil.
The SLAEA will shortly put in place a mechanism where all the key members of the Armed Forces and the Police along with the key members of the medical profession will be trained on how to handle such disasters in the event of any happening.
Sri Lanka has also explored the possibilities of implementing a nuclear power programme. Cabinet approval was given in 2010 for feasibility studies to explore the possibilities of whether nuclear power was possible here.
Historical developments have shown that an Inter-Governmental Agreement for the construction of two reactors was signed on November 20, 1988 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The project remained in limbo for a decade due to the political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup. There were also objections from the United States, on the grounds that the agreement did not meet the 1992 terms of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.
Construction eventually began in 1997.
The cost to India was estimated to b US $ 3 billion in 2001. A small port became operational in Kudankulam on January 14, 2004. It port was constructed to receive barges carrying oversized light water reactor equipment from ships anchored at a distance of 1.5 kilometres.
In 2008 negotiation on building four additional reactors at the site began. Though the capacity of these reactors has not been declared, it is expected that the capacity of each reactor will be 1000 MW or 1 GW. The new reactors would bring the total capacity of the power plant to 9.200 MW or 9.2 GW.
In June 2011, Sergei Ryzhov, the chief designer of the light water VVER nuclear reactors used at this Nuclear Power Plant was killed in an airplane accident. The plane belonging to the Rus-Air airlines was flying from Moscow to the Karelian capital Petrozavods.
Two 1 GW reactors of the VVER -1000 model are being constructed by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Atomstroyexport. When completed they will become the largest nuclear power generation complex in India producing a cumulative 2 GW of electric power. Both units are water-cooled, water-moderated power reactors. The first was scheduled to start operation in December 2009 and the second was scheduled for March 2010. Currently, the official projections put unit 1 into operation in June 2011, and unit 2 will go in March 2012.
Four more reactors are set to be added to this plant under a memorandum of intent signed in 2008. A firm agreement on setting up two more reactors has been postponed pending the ongoing talks on liability issues. Under an inter-government agreement signed in December 2008 Russia is to supply to India four third generation VVER -1200 reactors of 1170 MW.
The reactors have some advanced safety features like passive heat removal systems, double containments, Core Catcher, and hydrogen re-combiner instead of conventional systems.
Thousands of protesters, living in the vicinity of the plant, have used various means to protest against it fearing a Fukushima-like disaster.
The protesters base their objection on the "more than one million people live within the 30 km radius of the KKNPP which far exceeds the AERB (Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) stipulations. It is impossible to evacuate this many people quickly and efficiently in case of a nuclear disaster at Koodankulam", etc. According to S. P. Udayakumar, of the voluntary People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, "the nuclear plant is unsafe and the safety analysis report and the site evaluation study have not been made public".
No public hearing was held. It’s an authoritarian project that has been imposed on the people." A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has also been filed against the government’s civil nuclear programme at the apex Supreme Court. The PIL specifically asks for the "staying of all proposed nuclear power plants till satisfactory safety measures and cost-benefit analyses are completed by independent agencies".
Protesters said that even advanced countries like Germany have decided to shutdown all its 17 Nuclear reactors through which the country gets 23 per cent of its energy. Gopal Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, former West Bengal governor also said that an "Indian Fukushima cannot be ruled out and government needs to convince people about safety aspects of the project".
In March 2012, police said they had arrested nearly 200 anti- nuclear protesters objecting resumption of work of building one of two 1 GW reactors, a day after the local government restarted work on the project.
There have also been rallies and protests in favour of commissioning this nuclear power plant.
Former chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority of India P. Srinivasan said that one should never compare the Fukushima plant with Koodankulam. "The Fukushima plant was built on a beachfront, but the Koodankulam was constructed on a solid terrain and that too keeping all the safety aspects in mind. Also, we are not in a tsunami prone area. The plants in Koodankulam have a double containment system which can withstand high pressure. At least Rs 14,000 crore has been spent. If we don’t operate the plant immediately, it will affect the economic stability of our country"
A centre panel constituted by the Government of India, which did a survey of the safety features in the plant, said the Koodankulam reactors are the safest and fears of the people are not based on scientific principles. Dr. Muthunayagam, the panel’s convener, added that the protesters have asked for some documents which are not related to the safety of the reactor hence he suspects the very nature of their questions. Nuclear scientist and principal scientific adviser to the federal Government of India Rajagopala Chidambaram said "We have learnt lessons from the Fukushima nuclear accident, particularly on the post-shutdown cooling system," and also added Fukushima nuclear accident should not deter or inhibit India from pursuing a safe civil nuclear programme.
The Tamil Nadu state government formed a four-member expert panel which submitted a report to the government after inspecting the safety features of the plant. The Tamil Nadu government, in the wake of the acute power shortages in the state, is in favour of the commissioning of the planT.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=49471
Karunanidhi slams SL for raking up Kudankulam issue
BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, April 10: Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) President Muthuvel Karunanidhi today slammed Sri Lanka for raking up the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) issue a quarter century too late.
"India will do what is required," he declared.
The Kudankulam project was not something new and had been started many years ago and work on it is currently in progress, he said.
If Sri Lanka rakes up the issue now, it cannot be accepted.
"The Indian government will do what is required," he told reporters at his residence in Chennai.
His remarks came a day after Colombo voiced concern over the possible impact of radiation from India’s nuclear power plants in the southern region, as it prepares to raise the issue with global atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"We respect the right of India to have nuclear power stations. But our concerns are on the possible radiation effects they could have on Sri Lanka. We have already written a letter", Sri Lanka’s Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka had said.
Work resumed at the site last month afterTamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa gave her government’s go-ahead on March 19 to the project, being built with Russian technology in the state’s Tirunelveli district. Work was stopped last September when local people went on a hunger strike against the plant on the grounds that it poses danger to their lives and livelihood.
The state and central governments sent panels of nuclear experts to the project site, who declared after checking the facilities thoroughly that all precautions have been taken and that the plant will pose no danger. It was after this that Ms Jayalalithaa gave the go-ahead. She has now appealed to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to allow her energy-starved state to use all the nuclear power that Kudankulam plant will generate.
The project has had a chequered history. It was on November 20, 1988 that an Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The project remained in limbo for 10 years due to political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup, and also due to objections of the United States on the grounds that the agreement does not meet the 1992 terms of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
A small port became operational in Kudankulam in January 2004. It was established to receive barges carrying over-sized light water reactor equipment from ships anchored at a distance of 1.5 kilometres. Until then, materials had to be brought in via road from the port of Tuticorin, risking damage during transportation.
In 2008, negotiation on building four additional reactors at the site began. Though the capacity of these reactors has not been declared, it is expected that the capacity of each reactor will be 1000 MW or 1 GW. The new reactors will bring the total capacity of the power plant to 9200 MW or 9.2 GW.
Two 1 GW reactors of the VVER-1000 model are being constructed by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Russia’s Atomstroyexport. When completed, they will become the largest nuclear power generation complex in India producing a cumulative 2 GW of electric power.
Both units are water-cooled, water-moderated power reactors. The first was scheduled to start operation in December 2009 and the second one was scheduled for March 2010. Before the locals began their agitation, the official projections put unit 1 into operation in December 2011, and unit 2 about a year thereafter. These will have to be rescheduled yet again.
Four more reactors are set to be added to this plant under a memorandum of intent signed in 2008. A firm agreement on setting up two more reactors, has been postponed pending the ongoing talks on liability issues.
Under an inter-government agreement signed in December 2008 Russia is to supply to India four third generation VVER-1200 reactors of 1170 MW.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=49483
Karunanidhi slams SL for raking up Kudankulam issue
BY S VENKAT NARAYAN Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, April 10: Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) President Muthuvel Karunanidhi today slammed Sri Lanka for raking up the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) issue a quarter century too late.
"India will do what is required," he declared.
The Kudankulam project was not something new and had been started many years ago and work on it is currently in progress, he said.
If Sri Lanka rakes up the issue now, it cannot be accepted.
"The Indian government will do what is required," he told reporters at his residence in Chennai.
His remarks came a day after Colombo voiced concern over the possible impact of radiation from India’s nuclear power plants in the southern region, as it prepares to raise the issue with global atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"We respect the right of India to have nuclear power stations. But our concerns are on the possible radiation effects they could have on Sri Lanka. We have already written a letter", Sri Lanka’s Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka had said.
Work resumed at the site last month afterTamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa gave her government’s go-ahead on March 19 to the project, being built with Russian technology in the state’s Tirunelveli district. Work was stopped last September when local people went on a hunger strike against the plant on the grounds that it poses danger to their lives and livelihood.
The state and central governments sent panels of nuclear experts to the project site, who declared after checking the facilities thoroughly that all precautions have been taken and that the plant will pose no danger. It was after this that Ms Jayalalithaa gave the go-ahead. She has now appealed to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to allow her energy-starved state to use all the nuclear power that Kudankulam plant will generate.
The project has had a chequered history. It was on November 20, 1988 that an Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The project remained in limbo for 10 years due to political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup, and also due to objections of the United States on the grounds that the agreement does not meet the 1992 terms of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
A small port became operational in Kudankulam in January 2004. It was established to receive barges carrying over-sized light water reactor equipment from ships anchored at a distance of 1.5 kilometres. Until then, materials had to be brought in via road from the port of Tuticorin, risking damage during transportation.
In 2008, negotiation on building four additional reactors at the site began. Though the capacity of these reactors has not been declared, it is expected that the capacity of each reactor will be 1000 MW or 1 GW. The new reactors will bring the total capacity of the power plant to 9200 MW or 9.2 GW.
Two 1 GW reactors of the VVER-1000 model are being constructed by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Russia’s Atomstroyexport. When completed, they will become the largest nuclear power generation complex in India producing a cumulative 2 GW of electric power.
Both units are water-cooled, water-moderated power reactors. The first was scheduled to start operation in December 2009 and the second one was scheduled for March 2010. Before the locals began their agitation, the official projections put unit 1 into operation in December 2011, and unit 2 about a year thereafter. These will have to be rescheduled yet again.
Four more reactors are set to be added to this plant under a memorandum of intent signed in 2008. A firm agreement on setting up two more reactors, has been postponed pending the ongoing talks on liability issues.
Under an inter-government agreement signed in December 2008 Russia is to supply to India four third generation VVER-1200 reactors of 1170 MW.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=49483
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