 Hello and welcome to news click. Just months since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, an event that is still playing itself out, everything on nuclear programs has happened across the world. Some countries have retrenched their nuclear program and some have even halted the plans for nuclear energy. Only a few months ago we had protests in Jaidapur in Maharashtra against a nuclear plant that was supposed to be imported from France and that has been followed by protests against a long pending and soon to be commissioned VVER plant imported from Russia in Kudankulam in South Tamil Nadu. We have with us here T. Raghunandan, president of the Poland International Science Network. Prabhu, welcome to news click. Tell us something about this VVER reactors imported from Russia. The nuclear power cooperation of India limited says that these reactors are quite safe. In fact, they have forced the Russians to actually modify the reactors so as to keep up with safety standards following the Fukushima incident. How credible are these claims to do things? See, the VVER reactor is a much later design reactor than the Fukushima one. So, it stands to reason that it would be safer than earlier models or earlier reactors. I do not think that is the issue so much in terms of the safety aspects themselves, because what I think Fukushima, before that Chernobyl, before that Three Mile Island have all shown is that each time a nuclear accident takes place, it has been due to new factors. So, the issue is not that yesterday Chernobyl happened so you do something so that a Chernobyl type accident does not repeat or Fukushima happened and then you do something that in case a tsunami comes then what happens. I think these are different circumstances, different contexts in which the nuclear plant exists and to say that the VVER reactor is safer than the one at Fukushima is true, but it is does not say much. But at the same time, the location of the reactor is Kurankun, it is close to an area where it was affected by a tsunami not long ago. So, do you think the authorities have done enough to allay the fears? See that is the 64 million dollar question right now. There are fears whether the authorities have done enough in terms of design, in terms of safety precautions, one is not sure and that is precisely the worry. The fact that people are scared is a reality, people are scared after Fukushima because supposedly this was taking place Fukushima that is in a society and a context where a lot of safety measures had been taken yet the disaster took place. Now, this site Kalpakkam had also been visited by the tsunami last time although by the time the tsunami had reached Indian shores the effect was not that much and some precautions have been taken here. You do not have a force feed cooling system, you have a gravity fed cooling system, but we do not know what is the capacity of the gravity fed cooling system, how many hours or days will it be able to cool the reactor because what we saw happen in Fukushima is that the coolant circulatory system had collapsed because there was no power, but even if they had been power what is the water they would have had access to that also we do not know. The same question might arise here. The real issue I think to me is the fact that the question you asked have the authorities done enough to allay fears I think the answer is very clearly no. And that has given rise to heightened sense of insecurity in terms of fishermen protesting that having a nuclear reactor close by would result in their catchment area getting destroyed and fishing not being made possible and so on and so forth. So are there valid concerns in something sir? See I am not too sure about those honestly because even in Jaitapur in Tarapur and so on I am not sure the real concerns were these the extent to which localized heating of the water takes place would affect some fishing in a small area perhaps a kilometer on either side by the time you get further than a kilometer I think dilution by the seawater would have taken account of the rising temperatures. In that sense a nuclear power plant located on the coast is no more or less disruptive than a port which is perhaps a port may even have a larger impact in terms of displacing fishermen displacing normal activities. So to that extent any industrial plant located on the sea is bound to have some impact on local economic traditional economic activities but I do not think that is the major concern here. The major concern here still pertains to safety and there we have had in the last month or so assurances from the NTPC assurances from the atomic energy regulatory board and now assurances from the prime minister himself that everything is alright everything is safe I am afraid this no longer convinces anybody. This no longer convinces anybody because the functioning of the nuclear energy sector is so non-transparent right? For both for two reasons if you look at Fukushima and Japan. Japan is a society where people have traditionally respected those in authority whether it is the government whether it is technocrats it comes as a big shock to them if there is failure of governance failure in other ways malfeasance of any sort even after Fukushima people took the authorities at their word going along with precautions that were taken displacement and so on it was only after a month or so that even the traditionally quiescent and extremely tolerant Japanese people finally realized that the wool was being pulled over their eyes that people were not being forthcoming about the reality about how much damage was being caused how much damage was caused to dairy products to vegetables to habitation to the sand lots in which children were playing outside schools and today I believe the biggest impact in Japan apart from the radioactivity has been the shattering of confidence in authority as a result of Fukushima in India neither are people so traditionally tolerant of authority nor have authority commanded such respect both due to the sociological conditions in this country as well as the behavior of people in authority and people of late in the last year two years have developed a very deep suspicion of those in authority whether it is in these various scams that have taken place whether it is in addressing poverty issues why should the public take the prime minister's assurance on kudankulam seriously when a similar assurance that everything is alright with the 2g scam rules were followed was shown not to be true when those in authority today say if you earn more than 35 rupees a day you are alright you are not poor so people have today a very deep suspicion and in the nuclear field we have just seen the government having come out with a draft bill for the nuclear regulatory authority which far from giving the autonomy and independence to the nuclear regulatory authority which should have been done and which activists have been demanding for such a long time has actually gone in the reverse direction and has created a nuclear regulatory authority which is answerable to the government in every single way so under circumstances like this an assurance by the prime minister that everything is safe I am afraid will not cut any ice. Having said that so the lack of the credibility gap that is present in governance now that has resulted in a situation where there is deep skepticism about not just the way the government has functioned but about nuclear energy itself. Now there are demands of moratorium on any new projects that have to happen unless safety reviews are done of the existing plants and so on and there is also a deep antithetical attitude towards nuclear energy per se to share that attitude. See I think there are two aspects in this one is there are those who have decided a long time ago before Fukushima before Chernobyl that nuclear energy is unsafe and should not be allowed to happen in this country. Chernobyl and Fukushima reinforced their views and their convictions. After Chernobyl and Fukushima there are many people who are shall we say on the fence who are undecided about an in principle objection to nuclear energy who now seem to have come to the opinion that look if things can go so wrong then maybe it is better to err on the side of caution than to err on the side of bravado. My own feeling is that the last word has not been said on the subject of nuclear energy. In particular for example India is soon going to commission is fast breeder reactor. This will be a milestone in nuclear energy production and research it is ultimately a research reactor being taken up to commercial scale. Now would one take a stand against that? I would still go back to what I believe is the formulation appropriate for the current context which is you need a thorough safety audit of all nuclear plants. You need complete separation of the nuclear energy establishment from government and the powers that be. You need the veil of secrecy lifted from nuclear energy and you need a credible and completely independent nuclear regulatory authority. Today the country is clamoring for an effective lochpal bill because there is a belief that corruption will not be checked by people from inside the system. Similarly there is no reason to believe that any wrongdoings or malpractices within the nuclear establishment are going to be corrected from within the system. So you must create credible independent bodies outside the system. The government today says it has conducted a safety audit after Fukushima. Nobody knows what the safety audit is. The safety audit should be made public. There are people today who are retired nuclear engineers and scientists who are amongst us who can review those who are independent experts. Then there is a possibility of confidence being restored. Without these measures I believe it will not be possible even for those who have strong convictions that nuclear energy can be made safe to convince people that this is so. So you are arguing for accountability in the system and that being a prerequisite for sustaining this program. Unless you have a truly credible and accountable system which takes the public into confidence which includes public participation as a major element in planning for and citing of an operation of nuclear reactors and in conducting periodic safety reviews. I think this problem will not be solved and in fact the history of nuclear accidents show that those countries which have maintained the maximum secrecy and the least transparency in running of nuclear power plants are those which have had the most problems.