[sacw] South Asians Against Nukes Dispatch 2. (3 Nov.99)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asians Against Nukes Dispatch #2
November 3, 1999
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#1. In the Comfort of Secrecy [at India's Nuclear Establishment]
#2. Nuclear power plants in India are money-guzzling disasters-in-the-making
#3. Indian De-Alerting Resolution in United Nations General Assembly=20
-----------------------------------------------

#1.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
November/December 1999
Vol. 55, No. 6, pp. 52-57
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/nd99/nd99gopi.html

IN THE COMFORT OF SECRECY [AT INDIA'S NUCLEAR ESTABLISHMENT]
By T. S. Gopi Rethinaraj

On March 26, a team of nuclear engineers was busy testing a special device
in the second unit of the Madras Atomic Power Station at Kalpakkam in
southern India. The device, called BARCCIS (short for Bhabha Atomic
Research Center Channel Inspection System), was designed to inspect the
reactor's coolant tubes, which had been routinely plagued by cracks and
vibration problems. On that day, Channel K-05 had been defuelled to enable
the inspection, but as an extension tube was being fitted, the plug slipped
away and huge quantities of radioactive heavy water leaked out.
Nearly 50 workers were nearby. Seven of the technicians who helped plug
the leak have since been removed from any duty involving radioactive
materials as they reportedly received heavy doses of radiation during the
operation. Though officials of the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation
(NPC) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) claim that the spilled
heavy water has been "recovered through leakage collection systems," what
remains to be recovered is confidence in India's nuclear safety standards.
Whether it's near accidents such as this one at Madras, fires caused by
failing equipment, or underground contamination due to aging welds, the DAE
has failed to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear infrastructure. Often
protected by claims of national security or a catch-all Official Secrets
Act, the country's nuclear establishment has long been shielded from the
scrutiny that would lead to better standards of safety.
=20
The countdown
For more than two weeks after the Madras incident, the nuclear
establishment sought to downplay the leak. The only version that was
immediately available to the press was from the workers' union at Madras,
which has lately become vocal on safety issues. The same union made
headlines in September 1997 after it refused to obey management orders and
went public with allegations of high levels of radioactivity in the plant.
Last April, after a determined media decided to go after the authorities
this time, the power corporation admitted that six tons of heavy water had
leaked during the incident. Strangely, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board,
India's nuclear watchdog, followed the DAE's say-nothing lead and refused
to answer general questions from the media. Power plant officials meanwhile
explained that the leak was an "insignificant" and "anticipated incident,"
claiming that the level of tritium released that day was "within
permissible limits." Madras station director Krishna Hariharan claimed the
operation had involved the "planned escape of heavy water from the fuel
machine vault."
But if the situation was not serious, why did management declare a plant
emergency when the reactor had already been shut down? Former regulatory
board chairman Adinarayana Gopalakrishnan told the Indian magazine
=46rontline, "Declaring [a] plant emergency is just a step short of
evacuating the personnel from the station under [an] extraordinary
situation. If the leak was only like that from the tap, why [declare an]
emergency? I think that a lot of radioactivity must have been released into
the plant."
In fact, the eight pressurized heavy water reactors at Rawatbhatta,
Kakrapar, Kalpakkam, and Narora have separate primary and secondary systems
to transport heavy water in the reactor. Two scenarios are possible. If the
coolant tube had ruptured, the primary coolant would have leaked out. On
the other hand, if the calandria tube had ruptured, the leak would have
been of moderator heavy water, which is more contaminated because of the
continuous formation of tritium as the fuel bundle is irradiated.
Authorities at Madras eventually clarified that it was coolant water that
spilled, which they described as "not radioactive."
Independent experts say, however, that the coolant heavy water is
radioactive because it runs close to the fuel. The same heavy water is in
the system from the time the reactor attains criticality, and the tritium
that is formed remains in the heavy water even if the reactor is shut down
for months. Although Hariharan told the media that it was only an
"insignificant" leak, six tons leaked out, nearly one-tenth of the total
amount of heavy water in the coolant tubes.
"Release of tritium was well within operational limits," explained
Manavendra Das, chief engineer for health, safety, and public awareness, in
an official release that explained the power corporation's position.
(Authorities point out that the reactor had been under annual shutdown
since February 15, but fuel continues to give off decay heat even when the
reactor is shut down.)
The NPC has not released any actual data about the radioactivity, however,
and there is no independent way of getting it. Even the regulatory board
does not have separate mechanisms to measure individual exposures; all
medical information originates from health physicists appointed by the NPC.
The Narora fire
The Madras heavy-water leak is not an isolated incident; it is one in a
long series of near-mishaps and other safety lapses. There are many glaring
examples that bear testimony to the DAE's poor safety record, and many
legendary tales are slowly coming to light from beneath the veil of secrecy
that shrouds India's nuclear establishment.
One incident occurred in the wee hours of March 31, 1993, when two blades
in the turbine generator of the first unit of the Narora Atomic Power
Station in Uttar Pradesh snapped under accumulated stress and sliced
through the other blades, destabilizing the rotor system and causing it to
vibrate excessively.
A major fire quickly broke out in the turbine room, knocking out the
electric supply to the reactor's cooling systems. The cables for the
stand-by power supply were also burned and total darkness engulfed the
plant within minutes. Some brave technicians-fearing a fuel
meltdown-climbed up the reactor in the dark with flashlights, cranked
opened the valves, and poured in a borated heavy water solution to bring
all nuclear chain reactions to a halt. This prevented what could otherwise
have been a "localized explosion."
That instinctive action by the technicians (in nuclear engineering
parlance, a "gravity addition of boron solution") was the fourth and last
level of safety protection. "The timely use of [the boron solution] saved
the day and the reactor was very close to a partial fuel meltdown that
day," Gopalakrishnan said in Frontline.
And why did the incident occur? Sources say that Britain's General
Electric Company-the firm that transferred the turbine blade technology to
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited-had warned authorities as early as 1989
that the blades might develop multiple cracks. General Electric advised
them to replace the blades and suggested design modifications after 10,000
running cycles. (The first unit at Narora had completed more than 16,000
cycles.) The power corporation failed, however, to heed these
recommendations.
Luckily, the 1993 fire in the turbine room did not spread to the two giant
oil tanks or the spare hydrogen tanks that were stored nearby. Otherwise,
things could have been much worse. According to Gopalakrishnan, the event
would not have happened if the blades had been replaced in time. The
regulatory board committee that probed the incident found that the total
loss of power led to other failures, such as loss-of-containment integrity.
Although the reactors at Narora were the first to be built with double
containment features, the nitrogen backup system reportedly failed to
function during the power failure.
Despite protests from NPC and DAE authorities, the regulatory board
classified the Narora fire as a serious incident meriting a "scale three"
rating-judging the incident the worst in India's nuclear history.
But there are other noteworthy incidents in the department's annals that
haven't received much public or media attention. In 1985, an overheated
cable joint at the second unit of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station caused
a fire that spread through the cable trays and disabled four pumps. In
1991, a fire in the first unit of the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station switch
gear room led to a complete loss of the emergency power system and partial
loss of the electrical power supply. Sadly, the department does not seem to
have learned from its past experiences and still paints a rosy picture of
its safety culture.
Inherited problems at Tarapur
Documents obtained from department sources clearly indicate the
preponderance of safety concerns even during the days of active Indo-U.S.
cooperation with the Tarapur Atomic Power Station project. The two
boiling-water reactors at the Tarapur station are of vintage U.S. design.
Although experts note that all similar reactors have been shut down for
safety reasons, the two at Tarapur dangerously share the same subsystems,
including a nitrogen emergency core cooling system, a method the DAE had
"long discontinued," as Gopalakrishnan told the Bulletin. He added that
operating in the present mode could lead to a containment explosion in case
of a loss-of-coolant accident.
The documents detail communications between the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission and then-chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission, Homi
Sethna, which clearly establish that the first unit at Tarapur has been
beset with a variety of problems from the beginning. "Leaking fuel
elements, end caps that became dislodged, and mechanically damaged reactor
fuel" are some of the problems mentioned in the communication. The cleanup
system was inadequate to the load, and in-plant radioactivity became very
high; liquid and gas effluent levels have also been very high.
The second unit at Tarapur has had similar problems. Department documents
claim that the plant's liquid effluents contain "about one curie of mixed
long-life radioactivity per day," and that there is substantial
radioactivity in the tidal area and in the local fish-eating population.
Cobalt, in the form of magnetic particles, was also found in the
environmental samples.
There seems to be no solution in sight to this mess. Many parts of the
Tarapur reactor are uninspectable, and the department lacks the equipment
and/or technology to correct its problems. The intergranular corrosion of
primary piping at the station is another well-known glitch. A regulatory
board report notes that due to a leaky emergency condenser tube in the
second reactor, about 11.9 curies of radioactivity were released into the
atmosphere in 1992.
After India caught the world by surprise by conducting its first nuclear
test in 1974, the United States cut off all spare parts and assistance.
Experts say that the Tarapur station cannot run without a supply of genuine
spares. The regulatory board doesn't know where the plant is currently
obtaining its spares, or if they are reliable.
European companies would be willing to manufacture spare parts, but only
if the power corporation provides drawings for them. This is no easy task.
Britain's General Electric, which no longer manufactures the parts, left no
instructions with Indian scientists when it severed ties in 1974. Fresh
drawings cannot be made because portions of the reactor are not
approachable because of accumulated radioactivity.
The plant's operators are aware of the unit's problems. Because of various
failures, the reactors have long been de-rated from 210 megawatts to 160.
According to Gopalakrishnan, however, they "should have been shut down in
the interest of public safety long back."
Problems at Rajasthan, Madras, and others
India's much-touted, three-stage nuclear program began at the Rajasthan
power station with two reactors built with Canadian assistance. The first
unit went critical in 1972, and the second in 1980, but because of various
technical problems neither unit worked at its installed capacity. A major
crack in the end shield of the first reactor's core forced the NPC to shut
it down for several years in the 1980s. The second unit also faced many
problems caused by tube leakage. It has spent one-third of its lifetime in
shutdown and repairs. It was restored last year after the much-publicized
replacement of 306 coolant channels.
Another deficiency in the Rajasthan and Madras reactors is the absence of
a high-pressure emergency-core cooling system for avoiding core meltdown in
the case of a loss-of-coolant accident. No pressurized heavy-water reactor
in the world operates with as "obsolete and unsafe" testing as at Rajasthan
and Madras, observed Gopalakrishnan.
In the 1980s, the discovery of bits and pieces of zircalloy in the first
unit at Madras was traced to substantial cracking of the reactor's inlet
tubes. The same problem also surfaced in the second unit. Instead of
welding the tubes as an integral unit as the Canadians advised, the
department ordered them welded in three sections. Poor welding reportedly
led the inlet tubes to crack, forcing the NPC to de-rate the Madras
reactors from 235 megawatts to 175. Experts note that continued operation
in this mode is not safe, even at lower levels.
A regulatory board report observed that the problem was caused by the
composition of the pressure tubes. The pressure tubes of the first seven
pressurized heavy-water reactors were made of zircalloy-2, which was later
found to be "prone to creep deformation under irradiation." Canada, from
whom India borrowed the technology, long ago changed over to tubes made of
a zirconium-niobium alloy. "All the Indian reactors have to be retubed en
masse" or a serious loss of coolant accident could take place as happened
in Canada in 1984, warned Gopalakrishnan in a press conference.
Flooding has also been a concern at various sites. For example, in June
1994 flood waters entered the condenser pit and the turbine building
basements in the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station because sealing arrangements
were not provided to prevent water from getting through the cable trenches
and valve pits. Similar flooding occurred twice at Rajasthan, in 1976 and
1982, caused by the same construction error.
Another major incident struck the nuclear establishment five years ago at
Kaiga in Karnataka, where two 220-megawatt units were being built. The
Kaiga project, which will be commissioned late this year or early next
year, was delayed after a section of its prestressed concrete dome
collapsed on May 13, 1994, during the final stages of construction. (When I
visited the site three years ago, officials preferred the term
"delamination" to "collapse.") All construction activities at Kaiga halted
after a regulatory board order. The NPC and the board were at loggerheads
for a long time before work was allowed to continue.
Subsequent investigations proved that the dome fell because of a design
flaw and not because of the use of substandard construction materials by
Larsen & Toubro, as was generally believed at the time. In all the power
projects, the regulatory board had directed that integrated emergency core
cooling tests be carried out in each reactor before startup, that proof and
leakage tests be carried out on the reactor containment, and that a
full-scope simulator be installed for operator training. Gopalakrishnan
alleges that none of these tests has been carried out.
Research community fares no better
India's nuclear research establishments are in no better shape. Even when
compared to the nuclear power stations, the safety culture at the Bhabha
Atomic Research Center is extremely poor.
One horrific example took place in October 1989 when a reactor technician
was inadvertently locked inside a shielded room at Dhruva. The reactor had
been hurriedly prepared for startup and no one had checked to see that all
the staff had been accounted for. Radiation from a fully operational Dhruva
could have killed the worker within minutes. Only the technician's
extraordinary presence of mind saved his life. He repeatedly shut off the
coolant pump, causing the reactor to trip several times in a row. He was
discovered by chance almost an hour later when another technician decided
to find out why the reactor was shutting down so frequently.
Then there was the time in 1991 when Dhruva operated for almost a month
with a malfunctioning emergency cooling system. Or the time in July 1995
when the inlet hose of a temporary ion exchange unit was disconnected and
huge amounts of water drained from the wet storage block containing the
submerged uranium fuel rods. Had someone not noticed the reduced water
level, the radioactive fuel would have been exposed to open air,
potentially causing a major disaster.
A similar incident happened in November 1994 when technicians transferring
an irradiated fuel rod from the reactor pile to a wet storage block forgot
to connect the hose that supplies water for cooling the fuel.
Aside from these near catastrophes, there are more insidious problems
lurking at Bhabha. For example, bursting underground pipelines carrying
radioactive waste within the campus have contaminated tons of subsoil. Then
there are the two million tons of liquid waste stored in tanks that are
reportedly leaking because of aging, corrosion, and faulty welds. And in
1991, an underground pipeline near the reactor developed a crack, leaking
lethal radioactive isotopes.
The regulatory board also found that radioactive water was being pumped
through a leaky pipeline. In 1992, underground soil at the facility became
contaminated by liquid waste leaking from the pipeline of the effluent
treatment plant. Even the waste immobilization plant witnessed radioactive
leakage from cracked pipelines in 1995. The situation in the fuel
reprocessing units and fuel fabrication units is similar.
There have also been complaints that workers at the uranium mines and the
extraction plant in Jaduguda, Bihar, and the Nuclear Fuel Complex in
Hyderabad-which churns out 50,000 tons of contaminated wastes every day-are
not adequately protected from radiation intake and external exposure. The
threat posed by dumping wastes into a storage pond (known as the "lagoon")
is already causing grave environmental concerns. The public-sector Uranium
Corporation of India, Ltd. mines the ore in Jaduguda and transports it to
the Nuclear Fuel Complex. After the ore is processed, radioactive waste is
discharged, collected, and brought all the way back to Jaduguda, where it
is dumped amid tribal villages.
Although the Uranium Corporation has acknowledged that 31 people suffered
from the possible effects of radiation, it is not yet prepared to admit
that the deaths of 53 workers on its payroll during the past four years
were caused by radiation intake while dumping the waste into ponds. Though
the Bihar government initiated a health survey, the findings have not yet
been released.
Questionable commitments
Clean and cheap have been the selling points of nuclear power industries
worldwide. Still, the countries that pioneered and helped develop these
technologies are now realizing that nuclear power is no longer economical,
and public pressure is mounting to phase out existing nuclear power plants.
However, the DAE is determined to prove that nuclear energy is the "natural
and inevitable choice" to supplement dwindling fossil resources. It has
even succeeded in convincing the government to invest heavily in various
nuclear power projects in the next century. Department head Rajagopalan
Chidambaram has set a target of reaching "20,000 megawatts by 2020."
Concerned critics say it would be "counterproductive" to have a big
nuclear power base without a competent and independent regulatory mechanism
in light of the department's prevailing safety culture, which experts feel
is "much below international standards." An even greater concern, as of
today, is the department's ambivalent stand in matters of nuclear safety
and regulation. India is sorely in need of an autonomous nuclear watchdog,
which the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board is supposed to be, but for all
practical purposes is not.
The state of the regulatory board would never have come to light if it
were not for the controversial exit of its former chairman, Adinarayana
Gopalakrishnan. In 1996, Gopalakrishnan ordered the regulatory board to go
ahead with a "comprehensive stock-taking" of safety issues and deficiencies
at the department's installations. The inquiry committee found to its
surprise that a large number of "significant" issues had accumulated over
the years.
"In a major departure from the past, all these shortcomings were
documented, along with references," and submitted to the highest levels of
the government, much to the ire and discomfort of the department,
Gopalakrishnan recounted in Frontline.
Gopalakrishnan set the ball rolling by disclosing to the media that there
were 130 safety-related issues in various nuclear facilities, of which 95
belonged to the NPC alone. He has yet to elaborate on the specifics because
he is still bound by India's Officials Secrets Act.
Following a public outcry and a flood of editorials that appeared in
various newspapers in the ensuing period, Bombay's Sarvodaya Mandal and the
People's Union for Civil Liberties filed a petition in August 1996 in the
Bombay High Court, demanding that the complete report be made public. To
date, the department has avoided making the report public by hiding behind
the cover of the Atomic Energy Act and the Official Secrets Act.
Claiming that the report contained sensitive information regarding nuclear
installations, the department invoked secrecy and privilege. After the
court expressed the view that safety issues were a matter of public
concern, the department found a way out by promising to look into the
matter of restructuring the regulatory board. Upon this assurance, the
court dismissed the petition but kept the "doors of the court open."
The subsequent appointment of Raja Ramanna, who served as chairman of the
Atomic Energy Commission from 1983 until 1987, to head the inquiry
committee was a sequel to this assurance. The People's Union for Civil
Liberties questions Ramanna's appointment because he was the one who
structured the regulatory board in 1983. The union claims it is
unreasonable to expect Ramanna to overhaul and criticize a system that he
himself built.
The union's complaint was that the regulatory board's powers are
effectively clipped. The issue surfaced again after a long hiatus in the
Supreme Court due to the initiatives taken by the union in Delhi. In
response, the department filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court (again
invoking the Atomic Energy Act and the Official Secrets Act) and explained
its difficulty in making the controversial report public. "The documents
and other information, the disclosure of which has been sought by the
petitioners, belong to a class which is per se classified. The respondents
are entitled to withhold the information."
Furthermore, the department maintains that not every document can be made
public as most of them are "highly technical and sensitive in nature." The
department maintains that "due to the sensitive nature of the technology,"
transparency must be subservient to the interests of national security. The
affidavit also asserts that technical issues related to nuclear
installations "cannot be a matter of judicial review."
Even before the issue surfaced in court, the department was severely
criticized for mixing the issue of nuclear safety and national security on
the ground that it was a ploy to cover up the department's lapses in
matters relating to safety.
"The Indian nuclear establishment is not alone in the world to use the
smokescreen of national security to cover up the damage caused to the
people and environment by nuclear pollution," says Buddhi Kota Subbarao,
who argued for the People's Union in the Bombay High Court. Subarrao told
me that "while in other countries there are laws to disallow the national
security argument to block public scrutiny on these issues, there are no
such laws" in India.
Subbarao feels that the court ignored the public right to life and health
and gave undue weight to the secrecy clause on grounds of national
security. Moreover, the department's argument that disclosing the
regulatory board report would be tantamount to disclosing sensitive
technical information about nuclear facilities is meaningless, because all
the existing power plants in India are based on foreign designs and
information about those designs is freely available in the open literature.
The regulatory board's present organizational structure is also central to
the current dispute. The board is not effectively separated from the
department it regulates, and it relies on the DAE for money, manpower,
technical expertise, and material resources.
This organizational anomaly has crippled India's nuclear regulatory
process in many ways. Interestingly, the Atomic Energy Commission chairman
plays a dual role. As DAE secretary, he is the head of all the nuclear
installations in the country and is answerable to the regulatory board
chairman on safety issues. But he also sits in the judgment chair because
the regulatory board chairman reports to the Atomic Energy Commission.
"It's just like a slave judging its master," Subbarao quipped.
Chidambaram, however, dismisses these allegations. "Even today," he said
in a 1998 press conference, if the regulatory board "asks us to shut down
all the reactors for safety reasons, we have no other option but to comply
with it." But he was evasive when asked about the union petition and the
regulatory board report. "I can't comment on this as the matter is now
pending in the Supreme Court, and we have filed our affidavit explaining
our point of view," he said.
Where to go from here
Dae authorities take pride in the fact that India has never had a Three
Mile Island or Chernobyl incident, but the numerous near accidents at
India's nuclear facilities suggest that the department's "excellent safety
record" has more to do with luck than with the competence of its scientists
and engineers. "The fact [that a disaster] has not happened so far is not a
guarantee that it will never happen. Any reactor that's going to cause
havoc is not going to show itself as a limping reactor. The Chernobyl
reactor was as good as a new one till the fateful day," Gopalakrishnan said
in a bbc radio interview last June.
For the past three years, the regulatory board has been nearly invisible
in policing the nuclear establishment. It has not even carried out routine
work, and an NPC source said that for some strange reason the board's most
recent annual reports have not been released. Board sources counter that
the Atomic Energy Commission has sat on the annual report for a long time.
Present Board Chairman P. Rama Rao would only say that the reports "will be
published soon," and refused to say why there was an unusual delay, or if
the delay has anything to do with Gopalakrishnan's controversial exit.
Experts feel it's time to remove regulatory board operations from the
purview of the Officials Secrets Act so that the regulatory mechanism will
have public visibility and participation, as in the United States and
European countries. The DAE, however, refuses to free the regulatory board
from its clutches. The absence of any distinction between India's civil and
military nuclear programs compounds the situation by allowing the DAE to
use weapons-related activities to cover up its failures and pathetic
performance on the civilian power and safety front. A recent survey in
Nuclear Engineering International listed India's reactors in the lowest
bracket in terms of efficiency and performance.
Subbarao said that during its evolution, the DAE "gathered a culture in
which its top bosses believed that none in the country was capable of
questioning them in matters of nuclear technology." The department feels
comfortable remaining in a shell, while at the same time cultivating the
press and politicians in power to see that there is no damage to its public
image.
And why is the DAE adamant on this issue? According to Subbarao, "an
independent regulatory board will expose the DAE's false claims and is
bound to be a hindrance to them."
The department has happily exploited the ignorance of India's judiciary
and political establishment on nuclear issues. In the past, it has even
used the Atomic Energy Act to prevent nuclear plant workers from accessing
their own health records. While nuclear establishments everywhere have been
notorious for suppressing information, nowhere is there an equivalent of
India's Atomic Energy Act in operation. Over the years, in the comfort of
secrecy, India's nuclear establishment has grown into a monolithic and
autocratic entity that sets the nuclear agenda of the country and yet
remains virtually unaccountable for its actions.

=A91999 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

__________________
#2.
Outlook
Nov.8, 1999
http://www.outlookindia.com/19991108/affairsrl6.htm
=46OCUS

CLOSE TO A CRITICAL MESS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IN INDIA ARE MONEY-GUZZLING DISASTERS-IN-THE-MAKING=20
By By A.S. Panneerselvan

Major Accidents

Interview [with] : Dr A. Gopalakrishnan

People on both sides of the divide have argued themselves hoarse on whether
the Indian nuclear power programme is a white elephant. But that this
money-guzzling pachyderm of a programme can also go on a destructive
rampage has come to light only recently. Technical experts are gravely
concerned about the safety of India's nuclear plants which had promised
20,000 MWe of power by year 2000, but are down to roducing 1,840 MWe. The
alarm, therefore, is not with the worthless spending of thousands of
crores, it's got to do with human lives.

A close look at various nuclear power stations in the country unsettles the
comforting picture.

The recent nuclear accident at Tokaimura nuclear plant, 110 km off Tokyo,
which shocked the world, could well happen in India, they point out. These
are not anti-nuke voices. They belong to the proponents of the nuclear
energy programme. India, according to them, has been saved from a nuclear
disaster by dint of luck.

A. Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
(AERB), says, "The threat of a serious accident at nuclear plants is real.
The emergency cooling systems of reactors in atomic power plants of Chennai
and Rajasthan are inadequate. Besides, the two reactors at Tarapur must be
closed immediately."

NPC chairman Prasad has a different logic for de-rating of nuclear power
plants. According to him, it puts safety above everything else.

In 1985, India had six units running with a total capacity of 1,360 MWe. A
15-year plan with the "20,000 MWe by 2000 AD" target was set into gear.
Today, India has 10 operating reactors with a combined capacity, well below
the rojected level.

What lends credence to critics of India's nuclear power rogramme is the
secrecy that shrouds it. The Indian Atomic Energy Act, '62, gives the
department of atomic energy (DAE) enormous power as well as the right to
withhold information; it is not even accountable to Parliament.
Consequently, the department has neither listed out the accidents nor has
it been forthcoming on the real status of reactors.

However, the nuclear establishment has gone on record saying that it is
open to questioning and that it gives safety top priority. Says Y.S.R.
Prasad, chairman and managing director of the Nuclear Power Corporation and
a member of the Atomic Energy Commission: "I'm operating the plants and my
people are working there. The onus is on me to see that they are safe. I
can assure you that our plants are fail-proof. If anything happens, the
reactor shuts down. Besides, if one shut-down operation fails, the other
comes to rescue."

Major Accidents

1976 RAPS-2
Reactors were flooded due to construction errors. Emergency Core Cooling
System got obstructed and this could have led to a meltdown.

1980 MAPS
Zircalloy pieces found in the moderator pump following cracking of the
reactor inlet. This led to de-rating of the reactor from 235MWe to 175MWe,
resulting in colossal economic loss.

1988 MAPS
Heavy water leak exposed workers to high radioactivity and forced the
plant to shut down.

1992 RAPS-2
Fire spread through 4 out of 8 pumps. Had the potential to affect the
cooling system leading to a meltdown - a serious nuclear accident.

1993 NAPS-1
Fire triggered by broken turbine blades led to near-meltdown. This could
have led to a artial explosion.

1994 Kaiga-1
The pre-stressed concrete dome collapsed resulting in dispersal of
radioactivity.

KAPS-1 & 2
Flood water entered condenser pit and turbine building basement. The
soaked cable trenches threatened the secondary safety system endangering
the entire safety back-up.=20

1999 MAPS
Four tonnes of heavy water leaked exposing workers to high radioactivity.

Recurring TAPS
Extensive tube failures have resulted in de-rating of the reactor and
massive losses.

But the AERB compiled a Safety Issues Document in 1995 which lists 134
items relating to accidents, weaknesses in the safety systems, procedural
flaws and equipment failures. It is a classified document and has never
been released. "I do not understand how we can release it. The Bombay High
Court has also upheld the department's view-point," says Prasad.

A close look at various nuclear power stations in the country, however,
unsettles the comforting picture drawn by Prasad. Here are our key power
lants:

Tarapur Power Station (TAPS 1 and 2): These two reactors, with an original
power rating of 210 MWe, constructed with US cooperation and commissioned
in 1969, are still operational. Currently, however, no similar reactors
function anywhere in the world.

The problems with the two Tarapur reactors are manifold. First, they share
the same emergency core cooling system, in violation of all safety
standards. Besides, parts of TAPS are out of bounds for inspectors, and nor
do the Indian scientists have the technology to inspect it. This has been
compounded by zero US assistance after Pokhran-I in 1974. The two steam
generators in each unit are totally disabled owing to extensive tube
failures and because of this TAPS has been de-rated from 210 MWe to 160
MWe. The most disturbing aspect, however, is that the use of nitrogen to
make the containment unreactable (inert) has been discontinued. Therefore,
if the coolant does not perform its function, an explosion is quite likely
to occur, leading to reactor meltdown.

But the npc chairman argues that de-rating is good because it puts safety
above everything else. Says Prasad: "We've developed our own testing
systems and tools. In our opinion, TAPS has a life of another seven to 10
years." He also explains the suspension of nitrogen use in the containment
saying that it is obsolete in the West. But what he fails to mention is
that the US, for instance, has moved to higher capacity reactors and the
ones similar to those at TAPS have long been shut down there.

Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS 1 and 2): These were the first
pressurised heavy water reactors in the country, supplied by Canada. Though
they were rated at 220 MWe, their efficiency was very low to begin with.
Explains Prasad: "In Canada, the temperature of water is about four degrees
centigrade whereas it is as high as 30 degrees centigrade in Rajasthan. The
temperature variance led to its de-rating." The real reason, however, is
not just the difference in temperature.

One of the end-shields at raps-1 developed cracks, leading to leakages. If
the de-rating was only due to the temperature difference it would not have
been more than 20 MWe, but poor quality control forced the plant to be
de-rated from 220 Mwe to just 100 Mwe.

'Threat of a serious nuclear accident is real'

Dr A. Gopalakrishnan was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
between '93 and '96. In July '95, he and his team produced a secret report,
"Safety issues in DAE installations", which covered 134 safety issues. He
spoke to Outlook. Excerpts:

How do you assess India as a nuclear ower-producing country?
The problem with us is we pretend to know everything. Most people at the
department of atomic energy (DAE) have a chip on their shoulders. The
threat of a serious nuclear accident is real.

You've been talking about not learning from past mistakes...
The '93 Narora fire was investigated by an independent AERB committee. The
fire resulted from the failure of two steam turbine blades. It could've
caused a partial meltdown of the core. The blade failure was identical to
several failures observed more than three years rior to the accident. GEC,
which manufactured these turbines, had intimated these failures and sent
corrected blade designs to bhel, who were their collaborators in
manufacturing the turbines. bhel urgently conveyed to npc the need for
blade replacement in the turbines at Narora, Kakrapar and Kaiga plants.
Though this advice was given to the DAE/npc a couple of years prior to the
Narora fire, no action was taken.

Why do you doubt the AERB's autonomy?
Organisationally and functionally, the AERB is not independent of the DAE.
More than 95 er cent of the total members of the regular AERB safety
evaluation committees are DAE engineers who are often instructed by the top
management of DAE on crucial issues.

How does that affect the functioning of the AERB?
When, as chairman, I appointed an independent expert committee to
investigate the containment collapse at Kaiga, the aec chairman wanted its
withdrawal and matters left to the committee formed by the npc MD. DAE also
complained to a minister in the pmo who tried to force me to back off.

The DAE says that of the 134 items in your report, action has been taken on
a number of issues and only 44 items remain. Of these, 23 are mostly of a
long-term nature. Comment.
As long as they don't say what the long-term items are, I can't comment.
But I know that 'long term' is a euphemism for leaving things undone. What
I've said in the '95 report was identified by the DAE as early as '79. The
'79 report, which was prepared after the Three Mile Island accident and the
subsequent one in '87, have the same problems.

Another issue, which is of grave concern, is the status of the pressure
tubes. The nuclear fuel is housed within a pressure tube which asses
through another tube with the gap between the two filled with a gas. In the
first seven instances, the pressure tubes were made of Zircalloy-2 which
was later found to be rone to deformation under irradiation. The Canadian
model, along which the Indian tubes were developed, has fully changed to a
better zirconium-niobium alloy. This, however, has not been carried out at
raps1. Besides, there is no adequate high-pressure emergency core cooling
system (ECCS) there. This system is crucial to prevent core melt-down.

Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS 1 and 2): These two reactors have created
a world record of sorts by being in the gestation phase for more than 15
years. maps1 was commissioned in '84 and MAPS 2 in '86. Within a couple of
years of commissioning, both their reactor inlets cracked. This happened
because the DAE didn't heed Canadian advice on how to set the reactors up.
And they didn't have a clue.

The MAPS reactors were de-rated from 235 MWe to 175 MWe because of this and
their continued operation even in this mode is not considered safe. The
various safety issues in MAPS 1 and 2 puts this Tamil Nadu station in a
risk category unacceptable anywhere else in the world. MAPS has also
witnessed many instances of heavy water leak.

Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS 1 and 2): These two reactors with a
capacity of 235 MWe each were commissioned in 1991 and 1992 respectively. A
major fire at NAPS 1 helped in foregrounding a problem with the original
turbines in the ressurised heavy water reactors. The General Electric
Company (GEC), which designed the turbines, discovered that there was a
problem with the turbine blades. In 1989, GEC romptly provided a revised
blade design to Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (bhel). bhel, in turn,
prepared detailed drawings for new blades for Narora, Kakrapar and Kaiga.
But the DAE did not take action till a fire on March 31, 1993, brought the
Narora Unit 1 very close to a meltdown. Consequently, the AERB ordered
closure of all heavy water reactors in the country. Says Gopalakrishnan:
"It was a case of callous management. At other lants, the blades were
cracking exactly at the same point as in MAPS-1." Efficient handling of the
crisis by the shift engineers at the plant saved the day.

Kaiga 1 and 2: In 1994, a concrete containment dome collapsed, thanks to
faulty design, during the construction of the Kaiga power station in
Karnataka. This collapse led to a delay of nearly four years. In September
last year, Kaiga 2 was commissioned ahead of Kaiga 1. According to AERB
sources, the DAE is refusing to learn from its mistakes.

AERB had directed the DAE to carry out an integrated ECCS testings in Kaiga
1 and 2 as well as raps 3 and 4 before start up. It also wanted proof and
leakage tests conducted on the reactor containments. And finally, a
full-scope simulator to be installed for operator training. None of these
directives have been complied with so far.

Kakrapar Atomic Power station (KAPS 1 and 2): These plants with a capacity
of 220 MWe each were commissioned in May 1993 and May 1995. They house the
first indigenously-developed microprocessor-based control system. Most
experts feel that Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), which has developed
these systems, did not test them thoroughly for lack of equipment. In this
station too there was flooding in 1994 like at raps.

The only way, therefore, to tackle these safety threats is to make the AERB
a truly autonomous body. Right now it's an organisation held captive by the
DAE. Prasad, however, is unwilling to even concede this and cites a couple
of instances to substantiate his case.

Autonomy for nuclear power regulatory bodies is essential if they are to
have some teeth. And the only way to ensure this is to make nuclear energy
rogramme in India more transparent and subject to public scrutiny.

=A9 Copyright Outlook 1999
__________________
#3.
=46rom: John Hallam
X-Sender: foesyd4@p... (Unverified)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 14:28:09 +1000
To: Harsh Kapoor <aiindex@m...>
=46rom: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@f...>
Subject: Indian De-Alerting Resolution in United Nations General Assembly

Dear Harsh Kapoor,

I am sure the indian govt's motives in this are all the wrong ones.
However, I do think it's important to recognise and support the right
moves, for the right reasons.

I've been helping to coordinate a global de-alerting campaign. The Indian
resolution says all the things I'd like it to say.

Dear De-Alert Folk,

This is I think, something important that has been buried amongst the vast
and confusing mass of resolutions that jostle for attention amongst the
thirteen or so resolutions dealing with disarmament in the First Committee
of UN General Assembly.

India has sponsored a resolution in the UN General Assembly, that asks for
nuclear weapons to be taken off hairtrigger alert.

Similar but more watered -down language is also included in the text of the
New Agenda resolution.
However, the Indian resolution deals SPECIFICALLY with de-alerting.

As such I think it deserves recognition and support of some kind.

Press Release
GA/DIS/3154

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRAFT RESOLUTION CALLING FOR REVIEW OF NUCLEAR DOCTRINES ONE OF THIRTEEN
TEXTS INTRODUCTED IN FIRST COMMITTEE

19991027
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Among Others, Texts Also Address South-Eastern Europe, Indian Ocean,
Disarmament and Development, Environmental Norms

The General Assembly would call for a review of nuclear doctrines and in
that context, immediate and urgent steps to reduce the risks of
unintentional and accidental use of nuclear weapons, according to one of 12
draft resolutions and one draft decision introduced this afternoon in the
=46irst Committee (Disarmament and International Security).

Introducing the text entitled =D2Reducing Nuclear Danger=D3, by which the
Secretary-General would be requested to report to the Assembly at its next
session on specific measures to significantly reduce the risk of nuclear
war, the representative of India said that the elimination of nuclear
weapons would require complex negotiations, but there was no justification
for having thousands of those weapons on hair-trigger alert, creating an
unacceptable risk with catastrophic consequences. The international
community must recognize the need for urgent and practical steps to diminish
the prospects for such a catastrophe.

Under a draft resolution sponsored by India, on reducing nuclear danger
(document A/C.1/54/L.31), the Assembly would call for a review of nuclear
doctrines and, in that context, immediate and urgent steps to reduce the
risks of unintentional and accidental use of nuclear weapons. It would
request the five nuclear-weapon States to undertake measures towards
implementation of that provision.

SAVITRI KUNADI (India) introduced the draft resolution on reducing nuclear
danger (document A/C.1/54/L.31). As her delegation had highlighted last
year, with the end of the cold war more than a decade ago, there had been no
justification for thousands of nuclear weapons in a state of hair-trigger
alert posing risks of their use, unintentional or accidental. Her delegation
had, therefore, initiated the introduction of the draft text, which had
received widespread support in the General Assembly last year. The
resolution had put forward a modest and practical proposal calling for a
review of nuclear doctrines. In that context, immediate and urgent steps
should be taken to reduce the risk of the unintentional and accidental use
of nuclear weapons.

She said that many nuclear-weapon States and their allies had opposed the
text on the grounds of a number of technical aspects associated with it.
While she had acknowledged those technical complexities, those could be
overcome by the necessary political commitment. The elimination of nuclear
weapons, under a multilateral and verifiable treaty, would require complex
negotiations. Nonetheless, there was no justification for having thousands
of those weapons on hair-trigger alert, creating an unacceptable risk that
could have catastrophic consequences for mankind. It was imperative that the
international community recognize the need for urgent and practical steps to
diminish the prospects for such a catastrophe. In addition, the
international community had legitimate cause for concern over what had been
called the =D2Y2K problem=D3. The most important objective of the policies o=
f
nuclear-weapon States should be to remove the danger of nuclear war and
reduce the risk of the accidental or unintentional use of those weapons.

A number of groups aimed at promoting global nuclear disarmament had also
attributed the highest priority to the need for reducing such risk, she
said, including the Canberra Commission, which had identified as a first
step, taking nuclear forces off alert. The Tokyo Forum report also
recognized the importance of moving in that direction. It was well known
that several incidences of the near- accidental launch of nuclear weapons
had occurred, often triggered by incomplete or inaccurate information. Those
had demonstrated the dangerous character of maintaining large arsenals in a
state of high alert. Her delegation would, therefore, introduce the draft
resolution with expectation that international community would take action,
both individually and collectively, to reduce such risks. In view of the
urgency of the situation, the text also proposed a request that the
Secretary-General report to the next session on its implementation. The text
was simple and free from references to contentious issues. It advocated a
desirable objective and would hopefully receive widespread support.