In the fantasy land that the retired “scientists” of our Department of Atomic Energy live in, facts are a minor inconvenience. Among the many myths they have promoted is, one, that Americans have no civilian nuclear technology to offer since they haven’t built reactors at home for a while.

Rubbishing this claim, last week Beijing chose the US Westinghouse over the French Areva and the Russian Atomstroiexport in a bitterly fought bid to build four new reactors in southern China.

Unlike our retirees, Beijing is aware that the two American companies, Westinghouse and GE, have been building reactors outside the US and remain competitive in technology, price and a range of other incentives.

Under the contract estimated at US 8 billion, Westinghouse, now owned in part by the Japanese Toshiba, will build four reactors by 2013 based on the AP-1000 design developed in America. A considerable portion of the financing for these 1100 MW reactors will come from the US Exim bank.

At the weekend’s signing ceremony in the official Diaoyutai Guest House in Beijing, the US Secretary of Energy, Sam Bodman said, “the Chinese were very demanding” before clinching the deal to the US.

Nuclear industry analysts say Beijing insisted and got major American concessions on transfer of nuclear technology. While Beijing understands the value of pitting one supplier against the other and extracting the best possible terms, our men in Mumbai want to scratch out some suppliers even before we are in a position to call for a bid. So much for Mumbai’s negotiating strategy.

Nuclear globalisation

Mumbai’s retired set want to reject the nuclear deal with the US and are prepared to scale down the current plans to build 20,000 MW of nuclear power by 2020.

Without external cooperation and import of reactors, India’s so-called indigenous, three-stage nuclear power programme will be lucky to reach 10,000 MW by 2020. And given the uranium shortages, the DAE is already finding it difficult to operate its present reactors at planned capacity.

India’s nuclear tall talk stands in contrast to the Chinese nuclear power programme which is racing to reach 40,000 MW by 2020. Mumbai’s retirees try to sell the pup of “nuclear self-reliance”, that has produced 3000 MW of nuclear power after taking the lion’s share of the nation’s research and development resources for six decades.

China is focused instead on international collaboration, leveraging the size of its planned nuclear market to extract concessions from western suppliers, mobilising foreign finance, and acquiring control over uranium resources in other countries.

Above all, China wants to create a nuclear industry that is capable of building and exporting reactors to the rest of the world. As China’s State Council, the highest authority in China like our cabinet, stated in a policy document in February 2006, “foreign cooperation is central to mastering international advanced technology on nuclear power and develop a Chinese third-generation large PWR”.

As long as our Parliament liberally dispenses tax payers’ money to underwrite empty nuclear talk and demands little in return, there is no prospect of India catching up with China on atomic power generation.

If Parliament lets the retired “scientists” have their way, India’s nuclear programme will remain small, “self-reliant” and entirely marginal to the nation’s electric power needs.