India’s ‘stage three’ fantasy

India's leading private-sector engineering-and-power interests are currently looking at the nuclear power push as a tantalising new income stream. Following the contentious 2008 US-India nuclear deal, international trade restrictions were lifted for India on accessing nuclear supplies despite the fact that it remained outside of the purview of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Since then, a host of interests have begun fervently planning for investment in manufacturing for the nuclear-energy sector. These include the Indian private sector (Larsen and Toubro, Reliance Power, GVK Power and Infrastructure, and GMR Energy), the public sector (Bharat Heavy Electricals, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited and the National Thermal Power Corporation), as well as international groups (including Areva, GE-Hitachi, Westinghouse and Atomstroyexport). Indeed, the India-US nuclear deal has done much to re-energise the nuclear-power debate the world over. India (along with China) subsequently finds itself at the centre of very ambitious plans for an international nuclear-power revival, meant to satiate their respective demands for power. Ten of the 14 new nuclear reactors are in Asia, as are 19 of the 35 units under construction worldwide.

The international nuclear industry, quite naturally, is using every opportunity to make optimistic announcements about this 'nuclear renaissance'. The World Nuclear Association, a suppliers' group, said in late 2008: