Jaitapur N-deal

Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL) and EDF of France have signed an agreement for building the 10,000-MW (megawatt) Jaitapur nuclear power plant in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, making India the fifth country to opt for the EPR (European pressurised reactor) technology that is yet to become commercially operational anywhere in the world.

The agreement for the Jaitapur project billed as the world's largest nuclear power project with six EPR reactors comes even though questions over the untested EPR technology, project cost and power tariff as well as EDF's ability to complete the project on time remain unanswered.

What is EDF?
EDF is a French state-controlled company and is Europe's largest operator of nuclear power plants. The company last year took over the nuclear power equipment-making business of Areva, which had developed the EPR technology and was to originally build the Jaitapur plant, after it landed in dire straits.

About EPR technology:
The European Pressurized Reactor (EPR, or Evolutionary Power Reactor) is a third generation nuclear reactor under construction developed by the French companies Areva NP and EDF (Eléctricité De France). There is no important technological breakthrough with the third generation but it is designed to be safer and more efficient. It is one of the most powerful reactor in the world. The EPR design has several active and passive protection measures against accidents — four independent emergency cooling systems, each capable of cooling down the reactor after shutdown, in other words 300 per cent redundancy.

Key Issue areas:
Disaster risk: Areva had signed the MoU for Jaitapur in 2009, with an estimated cost of $4 billion. In April 2015, Areva signed a pre-engineering agreement with NPCIL to examine the licensability of its EPR technology in India. The troubles for Areva began after it found few takers for its EPR technology as the world shunned nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The EPR technology is yet to become commercially operational anywhere in the world.

High cost: But the more basic question for the Jaitapur project pertains to the cost of energy. The tariff could go up to Rs 8 or so unless the project gets cheap financing from the French or Indian government lending agencies. Even the Rs 7 per unit price cap will appear costly in public perception in the backdrop of solar and wind power tariff dropping to below Rs 3 per unit-mark. Admittedly, solar and wind are intermittent energy sources as against nuclear power station. But it may be hard to manage public perception.

Risk of time & cost over-run: All the nuclear power projects using the EPR technology currently under construction globally - Hinkley Point in the UK, Olkiluoto in Finland, Flamanville in France and Taishan in China - are facing time and cost over-runs.

Environment concerns: It is likely to harm the fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats and Maharashtra coasts, deprive thousands of farmers and fisherfolk of their livelihood, besides other risks and safety factors

New technology: Besides, the "fear of the untried technology" still remains one of the key areas of concern. This could have partially been addressed had EDF taken full responsibility of engineering, procurement and construction process. But the French company has so far not agreed to this and only inked a co-operation deal with Indian engineering-construction giant L&T for higher localisation of the fabrication process.

Inadequate Cost benefit analysis: Experts have already warned against going ahead with any deals with bankrupt MNCs attempting to “dump” obsolete yet expensive technologies for their financial benefit at the cost of the Indian people—without considering the effects of radiation on humans, animals and marine life, the local environment and the Arabian Sea waters on the west coast.

By: Dr. Vivek Rana