Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant

Koodankulam
Location of Koodankulam
Country	India
Coordinates	8°10′08″N 77°42′45″E
Construction began	1997
Owner(s)	Nuclear Power Corporation of India LTD.
Reactor information
Reactors under construction	4 x 1170 MW 2 x 1000 MW
Website Nuclear Power Corporation of India
As of August 11, 2007

Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power station currently under construction in Koodankulam in the Tirunelveli district of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

History

An Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed on November 20, 1988 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, for the construction of two reactors. The project remained in limbo for a decade due to the political and economic upheaval in Russia after the post-1991 Soviet breakup. There were also objections from the United States, on the grounds that the agreement does not meet the 1992 terms of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Since the plant was conceived in the mid-1980s, an anti-nuclear group People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy was opposing the plant for about 25 years due to the Environmental impact of nuclear power and its threat to the people and environment.

Construction eventually began in 1997.

The cost to India was estimated to be US$ 3 billion (Rs.13,615 Crores) in 2001.

A small port became operational in Kudankulam on January 14, 2004. This port was established to receive barges carrying over sized light water reactor equipment from ships anchored at a distance of 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi). Until 2004 materials had to be brought in via road from the port of Tuticorin, risking damage during transportation.

In 2008 negotiation on building four additional reactors at the site began. Though the capacity of these reactors has not been declared, it is expected that the capacity of each reactor will be 1000 MW or 1 GW. The new reactors would bring the total capacity of the power plant to 9200 MW or 9.2 GW.

In June 2011, Sergei Ryzhov, the chief designer of the light water VVER nuclear reactors used at this Nuclear Power Plant was killed in an airplane accident. The plane belonging to the Rus-Air airlines was flying from Moscow to the Karelian capital Petrozavodsk.

Technical description

Two 1 GW reactors of the VVER-1000 model are being constructed by the Nuclear Power corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Atomstroyexport. When completed they will become the largest nuclear power generation complex in India producing a cumulative 2 GW of electric power. Both units are water-cooled, water-moderated power reactors. The first was scheduled to start operation in December 2009 and the second one was scheduled for March 2010. Currently, the official projections put unit 1 into operation in June 2011, and unit 2 will go in March 2012.

Four more reactors are set to be added to this plant under a memorandum of intent signed in 2008. A firm agreement on setting up two more reactors, has been postponed pending the ongoing talks on liability issues. Under an inter-government agreement signed in December 2008 Russia is to supply to India four third generation VVER-1200 reactors of 1170 MW.

The reactors have some advanced safety features like passive heat removal system, double containment, Core Catcher, and hydrogen re-combiner instead of conventional systems.

Controversy

Subramanian Swamy , President of the Janata Party of India and former Cabinet Minister of India urged Prime Minister to take a firm stand and not to scrap the project by siting that the agitation in Koodankulam is a result by vested interests of countries which hope to sell reactors to India and do not want competition from Russia. He also said , "The Catholic church which is openly represented at the protest venue through large number of nuns and padres is also active which is inexplicable. Many of the NGOs organizing the protest are receiving funds for the protest. There is also participation by the rump elements of LTTE led by Vaiko, Naxalites and others".

As of October 2011, More than 120 Catholic fishermen in living around the Koodankulam nuclear plant in the southern Tamil Nadu state, blocked highways and staged hunger strikes, preventing further construction work, and demanding its closure siting fear of the disasters like the Environmental impact of nuclear power, Radioactive waste, nuclear accident similar to the radiation leak in March at Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The protesters have clearly stated few specific reasons for opposing the Koodankulam NPP project.

According to S P Udayakumar, of the voluntary People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, "the nuclear plant is unsafe" and "the safety analysis report and the site evaluation study have not been made public. No public hearing was held. It's an authoritarian project that has been imposed on the people." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha that "all precautions would be taken at the Koodankulam nuclear plant to maintain the highest safety standards".

Gopal Gandhi, Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, former West Bengal governor also said that "Indian Fukushima cannot be ruled out and government needs to convince people about safety aspects of the project" in a lecture on 'India 2021- Hazarding Guesses, Guessing Hazards' in New Delhi)

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has also been filed against the government’s civil nuclear program at the apex Supreme Court. The PIL specifically asks for the "staying of all proposed nuclear power plants till satisfactory safety measures and cost-benefit analyses are completed by independent agencies".

Renowned aeronautical scientist and former President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam after a personal visit to the plant said that Koodankulam Nuclear Plant is safe and the plant was essential for "power hungry" India. However People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy leader Mr.Pushparayan recollected that Former Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India Dr Homi Sethna had suggested to A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in the past not to comment on nuclear engineering since he was a missile engineer.

Regarding people's fears Former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India Srinivasan said that one should never compare the Fukushima plant with Kudankulam and added "The Fukushima plant was built on a beachfront, but the Kudankulam was constructed on a solid terrain and that too keeping all the safety aspects in mind. Also, we are not in a tsunami prone area. The plants in Kudankulam have a double contaminant system which can withstand high pressure. At least Rs 14,000 crore has been spent. If we don't operate the plant immediately, it will affect the economic stability of our country".

A center panel constituted by the Government of India, which did a survey of the safety features in the plant, said the Koodankulam reactors are the safest and fears of the people are not based on scientific principles. Dr. Muthunayagam,panel's convener,also added that the protesters have asked for some documents which are not related to the safety of the reactor hence he suspects the very nature of their questions.

In response to the center panel report, protesters wrote an open letter to the chief minister Jayalalithaa that the center panel's report is "ill-baked and incomplete eyewash report" and also said that the report has "ignored our question on liability, and has given no specific or scientific information on nuclear waste, and vague information on the fresh water needs of the KKNPP".

See also

• Nuclear Power Corporation of India

External links

• Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd