Renewable energy much better than Nuclear disaster

Japan's nuclear reactor blasts fearing melt down

JAPAN met with an unforeseen disaster making its nuclear reactors blast due to earth quakes, this has raised the question about dependency of countries like India on Nuclear power plants for the need of power supply's. Many environmentalist world wide are questioning on the safety of reactors/radiation and its effects on human life's. Even our D-street have concerns and there is a school of thought about India would never be able to complete its nuclear projects in next 15 - 20 years due to many political pressures and hence will not able to satisfy the power demands. 

  I gave a thought on it and here are some of the facts which somewhat we already know & some in my opinion I want to draw your attention to –

1    Maharashtra power demand is 16,000 Mw currently.

2    State owned Mahagenco provides 13,500 Mw, which includes 1,500 Mw purchased from outside.

3    Demand in maharashtra is expected to grow to 23,800 Mw.

4    Mahagenco to provide additional 5,000 Mw.

Now to meet these demands Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project was proposed & similar other nuclear power projects were proposed. As Japan met with a nuclear disaster, Indian govt. have started facing the political pressure to drop these nuclear projects concerning public safety. And the only option to meet the ever growing power demands is Renewable Energy which are cost effective & more environments friendly.

Let’s compare the Capital costs of these projects –

1    Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project is of 9,900 Mw in 938 hectares of total land, which will have 6 reactors of 1,650 Mw capacities each, to be built in collaboration of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd and AREVA a French company. These European Pressurised Reactors (EPR’s) will cost Rs. 20 Cr/Mw or Rs. 8.00 – Rs.9.00 / Unit.

2    Pressurized heavy water reactor with indigenous technology costs Rs. 8 Cr/Mw. Needs about 1 to 4 Square Kilometers of land.

3    Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission to generate 1,000 Mw by 2013 & 20 Gw by 2022 cost to be Rs. 15 Cr/Mw and needs 6.4 Acres of land. (1Gw = 1,000Mw)

4    Indian Wind Energy has installed capacity of 11,807 Mw.  As per Indian Wind Energy Association the potential of electricity generated by wind in India is about 65,000 Mw. Currently wind energy cost Rs. 5 Cr – Rs. 5.6 Cr/Mw and needs about 0.25 Acres of land for 1Mw.

5    Hydro projects cost Rs. 5.4 Cr – Rs. 6 Cr/Mw, Coal Projects cost Rs. 5 Cr/Mw, Bio mass Gas project cost Rs. 5.5 Cr – Rs. 6 Cr/Mw.

So its makes sense to go towards Renewable Energy, India produces 1.67 lakhs Mw against the demand of 3.70 lakhs Mw by 2017 - 18. The per capita power consumption in our country is at 700 units which is much lower than 11,000 in US & 2,800 units in China.

The Power Mix in India (2010) is - Thermal: 65 %; Hydro: 25 %; Nuclear: 3%; Renewable: 7 %.

The Installed capacity as on 30th November 2010 - Coal is at 89,778.38 Mw; Hydro is at 37,367.40 Mw; Gas is at 17,624.85 Mw; Diesel is at 1,199.75 Mw; Nuclear is at 4,560 Mw; Wind & Solar energy is at 16,786.98 Mw.

This shows that even if the nuclear power projects which contributes 4,560 Mw are not allowed due any reasons we still can manage to mop up our power demands. We can utilise this money by giving subsidies & financing to renewable energies. Looking at the current scenario I think that govt. will have no option rather than to promote alternative energy resources and companies like SUZLON ENERGY will gain from it. NUCLEAR PLANT OR NO NUCLEAR PLANT INDIA WILL SHINE AS IT WAS & AS IT IS……..

VISIT HOME PAGE - CLICK HERE