Hozefa Merchant is a Journalism student who has worked and volunteered extensively with Greenpeace, Student for a free Tibet, and so on. In this article, Hozefa try's to give a new prespective on the intentions of the Bush administrations US-India Nuclear deal. It's a whole new insight.
The nuclear game is a new product to come out of the US production house. Its goal is to be the numero uno provider of the nuclear energy that the world needs as a solution to depleting energy resources and the global warming. With this new “weapon of mass dependency”, the Bush administration is trying to monopolize the worlds nuclear industry and also ensure its stand as a world’s most powerful nation for a very long time. These are not just allegations; they are analysis of the activities of the Bush administration that have been building up since the past one year.
Few months ago the US nuclear industry started a major PR campaign to gain public popularity for the nuclear energy as the best solution to their country’s energy crisis and Global warming. For this they roped in two of the major environmentalist, Dr. Patrick Moore and Christine Whitman.
Dr. Patrick Moore is a Greenpeace co-founder, who left Greenpeace in 1986 due to some disagreement over Logging and Nuclear stand of the world famous environmental watchdog. Since then, Dr. Moore is the chair and chief scientist of an environmental consultation firm, Greensprit Strategies Ltd. and also the director of NextEnergy Solution, the largest distributor of geothermal heat pumps in Canada. A surprising fact about Dr. Patrick Moore is that almost three decades ago his stand on nuclear energy was and I quote “Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created. Their construction and proliferation is the most irresponsible, in fact the most criminal, act ever to have taken place on the planet.” This was the statement written by Dr. Moore in 1976 when he was the Vice- President for Greenpeace Foundation. Dr. Moore made this statement even before the Three Mile Island and before Chernoybl disaster. So the questionable part is what made him change his mind form “the most dangerous devices that man has ever created” to “nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.”
Christine Whitman is a former administrator of the Environment Protection Agency and is a former governor of New Jersey. Christine Whitman has worked closely with the Bush administration in advancement of the administrations Nuclear plans. Whitman also prepared safe guidelines and standards for the controversial Yucca Mountain project. The yucca mountain project is a repository to hold 77,000 tons of collective radioactive waste that the US would produce through its civilian as well as the US defense nuclear programs. After Christine Whitman left EPA, her guidelines and standard proposed for the Yucca Mountain Project were rejected because they were found to be incompetent for the radiation containment during its peak period.
Collectively Dr. Moore and Christine Whitman will head the “Clean and Safe Energy Coalition to promote nuclear energy in the United States.
US - India Nuclear deal was proposed by the Bush administration on the grounds that it would help strengthen the Indian economy, which in turn would act as a buffer to the influence of the growing economy of China. However, India’s economy is and has been steadily on the rise, without any help form the USA. India had already emerged as a powerful and influential nation. Its influence over the other Asian countries is at par with the influence of China. So then what could be the need for the Bush administration to help strengthen the Indian Economy at this point of time? That’s the question that needs to be answered.
To be able to answer this question we would need to review the Indian Nuclear plans. India has currently about 22 nuclear plants from which, under US - India nuclear deal, 14 are civilian nuclear facilities and 8 are for defense purposes. George Perkovich, a leading analyst from Carnegie Endowment for International peace, reported that India’s atomic energy commission, in 1954, declared that it would produce about 8000 megawatts of electricity by 1981. By 1971, they were only able to produce 420 megawatts. Later that year the goal of 8000 megawatt till 1981 was reduced to about 2700 megawatt. Presently, Indian nuclear facilities are producing roughly about 3310 megawatts. Even after this unfulfilled promises, still some Indian officers believe that by 2010, Indian nuclear power plants would produce 10000 megawatts.
Highly enriched uranium is one of the fuels required to generate nuclear energy. The uranium ore is found in the mineralized zone of the Singhbhum thrust belt in the East & West Singhbhum Districts of Jharkhand. Jaduguda Mines has the distinction of being the first uranium mine of the country where mining operation began in 1967. The ore form Jaduguda mine as well as concentrate from the uranium recovery plants is processed in the centralized processing plant (mill) located close to Jaduguda Mines. Perkovich also said that the India’s Atomic energy commission failed to inform it’s people that the Uranium it used for generating energy was of very low quality and that it was running out of resources to keep up to the pre-stated goal. However, if the goals were to be met then the high quality uranium would be required to be imported. But the nonproliferation rules prevent the 5 acknowledged nuclear power nations to export enriched Uranium to India.
In the US - India nuclear deal, India has been promised a regular supply of enriched fuel to cater to the nuclear energy needs of the country. This one factor is alone to make India dependent on US. Considering the nonproliferation treaty, that dis-allows the nuclear power to supply nuclear fuel to India, only the US will be able to supply nuclear fuel to India. This leaves a wide space for the US to negotiating India into following its directives or plans for the future. In a way Bush administration would create a global monopoly wherein only US would be able to export nuclear fuel. If the Bush administration really wants India to prosper then it should allow all the 5 nuclear powers country to export fuel to India, however such generosity would not be acceptable to the non-recognized nuclear countries like Iran, Pakistan, Libya, and North Korea.
All this evidence and arguments only proves my stand on the Intentions of the Bush administration.