Tag Archives: Urenco

In Search of a Nuclear Vision

09 Fri Oct 2015

Posted by in India, Nuclear, South Asia

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Few things are as confounding as watching India mismanage its nuclear energy policy. The Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008 raised hopes that the country might be on the verge of a nuclear renaissance but Delhi handled subsequent steps with about as much aplomb as a tapdancing platypus. The latest fallout of this ham-handed approach to nuclear policy has been General Electric’s announcement that it will not participate in the Indian nuclear market until the country’s nuclear liability laws meet international standards.

The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act is but a symptom of a far greater malaise that has plagued Indian nuclear thinking for decades. In the early years after independence, India’s nuclear tsar, Homi Bhabha, had a close relationship with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Consequently, he could count on Nehru’s support in his ambitions for India’s nuclear programme. The prime minister himself was also a devotee of high technology for it signalled to him a way in which India might leapfrog several stages of development.

Bhabha used the fact that he had the prime minister’s ear to dream big: he formulated the three-stage programme which would eventually see the country powered by thorium reactors and free from external dependencies. To reach this goal, India would first have to build a fleet of pressurised heavy water reactors and fast breeder reactors that would produce the fuel for the third stage. The chutzpah is astonishing when one considers that India did not even have a single nuclear reactor then.

Post Nehru, Indian leaders have been distant of the nuclear programme. It was difficult, however, to disavow the programme entirely. This was partly because the energy programme was inextricably interwoven with a weapons programme and India’s principled opposition to international nuclear apartheid linked the political fortunes of both to each other. The closeness between Bhabha and Nehru, not to mention the latter’s childlike fascination and wonder at big science, created a dynamic that has not since been replicated.

One thing India’s political class has never been accused of is possessing in-house expertise and this shows in the way Delhi seems lost at sea when it comes to nuclear energy. The drastic adjustment of the growth target for nuclear energy in the country – from 63 GW to 27.5 GW – by 2032 betrays a worrying incompetence in the Indian bureaucracy, or at the very least a complete disconnect between scientists and policy makers. The plan had been to build 16 domestic and 40 foreign reactors but fumbling on nuclear liability, viewed only through a prism of political expediency rather than technical criteria, repelled desperately needed foreign investment in India’s nuclear energy sector. Even if foreign vendors were forthcoming, the cost of their products has also shot up due to the convoluted bypassing of nuclear liability via the suppliers’ insurance pool. In the seven years since the epochal nuclear deal, the only good news the nuclear establishment can boast of is the securing of uranium supplies for the next decade or so.

The nuclear liability quagmire aside, Indian nuclear energy is still in complete disarray. Only six reactors are under construction in the country presently, a 1,000 MW VVER at Kudankulam, two 700 MW pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) at Kakrapar, two more similar reactors at Rawatbhata, and the 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor (FBR) at Kalpakkam. All have seen significant delays in construction – an inter-governmental agreement between India and the Soviet Union was signed in 1988 but construction only began in 2002; Kakrapar and Rawatbhata were approved in 2005 but construction started in 2010, and the PFBR is at least three years behind schedule. These are among the faster projects – the nuclear power project in Gorakhpur was sanctioned in 1984 but finally broke ground only in 2014!

Delays are rampant across the industry. Yet most are due to political or bureaucratic inefficiencies such as trouble with land acquisition, unforeseen hurdles in financing, and at times, protests and litigation. Once the reactors are built, however, the nuclear enclave seems to have done a splendid job in operating and maintaining them – in 2003, Kakrapar was recognised by the CANDU Owners Group of being the best performing PHWR. Similarly, an IAEA team that visited Rawatbhata in 2012 reported that the reactors they inspected were safe and impressive; in 2014, one of the reactors at the same plant set a world record for the longest continuous operation.

Admittedly, some delays do arise due to technical shortcomings. For example, the design and construction of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) for the PFBR took Larsen & Toubro almost three years more than anticipated; any increase in the power rating of future FBRs will again require a similar timeframe to re-design the RPV. The reason Indian manufacturing lags behind nuclear industry needs, P. Chellapandi – Chairman & Managing Director of Bhavini – explained, is that there is little incentive to pre-empt demand given how small and infrequent it is. India has built some 21 reactors in the 70 years since independence; by contrast, France built 60 reactors in just 20 years from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s under the Messmer Plan; the United States built 100 reactors before the lull that set in under President Jimmy Carter; the European Union’s nuclear trade association, Foratom, has just called for 100 new reactors by 2050; China has 25 reactors under construction presently, has plans for 43 more, and is sitting on proposals for 136 more by 2030!

In the last couple of years, Areva, Toshiba, and Urenco have all looked for outside investors in their nuclear divisions. India has let the opportunities by without so much as a whimper. While India has secured nuclear fuel for the next decade, uranium prospecting or acquisition of mines abroad – especially when prices are so low – does not seem to have factored high on the Indian agenda.

In terms of technological cooperation too, India is nowhere on the international scene. China is the hot destination for nuclear vendors and startups – the size of Beijing’s orders has persuaded GE to share its AP1000 technology with Chinese firms, and Bill Gates’ TerraPower recently signed a deal with China National Nuclear Corporation to build the first of a new generation of reactors, the travelling wave reactor (TWR), a 1,150 MW liquid sodium-cooled fast reactor that uses depleted uranium as fuel. This type of reactor will generate less waste, be cheaper, and safer. In the meantime, India postponed the start of its PFBR again and the advanced heavy water reactor is nowhere in sight.

Like any large national project, say, for example, the highways or the railways, the utility and efficiency of nuclear power increases with scale. Furthermore, the high upfront cost of nuclear power demands a clear set of short and medium-term goals with a long-term vision. It is, therefore, essential that the government, either in partnership with the private sector or on its own, have a considered and clear-eyed policy for the industry. The urgency to meet deadlines, the impetus to remove roadblocks, must come from the top to galvanise the entire chain. Indian nuclear fingerprints appear nowhere in the various international nuclear ventures, from mining through construction to development.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has outlined an environmentally friendly trajectory for Indian development that is mindful of climate change, air quality, and other environmental concerns. It is unclear how he intends to meet these goals and grow the economy at eight per cent per annum at the same time without substantial help from nuclear power. Admittedly, plans for nuclear reactors at ten sites were announced in April 2015 but it is unlikely any of this will come to fruition in a timely manner without developing Indian manufacturing and bringing the CLNDA in line with international practices. Thankfully not ubiquitous, the attitude that the world needs India more than vice versa is far too common among Indian bureaucrats, planners, and citizens. They are in for a rude surprise. As former commerce secretary Rahul Khullar succinctly explained in a recent article, this attitude, combined with domestic calculations, narrow ministerial interests, a fundamental lack of understanding of negotiating give and take beset India’s negotiations with the outside world.

Even more helpful would be to rekindle the relationship between the prime minister’s office and the heads of the nuclear community to the same level as that between Bhabha and Nehru – after all, nuclear energy does fall under the PMO and not the Power or New and Renewable Energy ministries. Modi seems to be the point source for visions and thinking big in the ruling party and were senior nuclear scientists to have the prime minister’s ear, it may be just the sort of thing to accelerate growth in Indian nuclear energy. With their domain expertise and confidence of the prime minister’s support, an ambitious yet realistic nuclear expansion programme can be launched. To be clear, there is no Indian century without nuclear power – clean air, carbon emissions control, plentiful energy, employment, economic growth, energy security…in one industry can India find solutions to so many of its needs. We just need a little vision. Desperately.

This post appeared on FirstPost on October 29, 2015.

The Jewel and the Crown

22 Fri Feb 2013

Posted by in Europe, India, South Asia, United Kingdom

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The visit of Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom to India in the immediate footsteps of French President François Hollande generated less excitement. Part of it was certainly the more glamorous recent French sales of high-tech weaponry and nuclear reactors, but there was the palpable sense that the South Asia behemoth had outgrown the need for its former colonial master. There are two problems with Britain trying to court India – one is that it has no unique selling point, and the second is that the Tories and Cameron do not seem to have any long-term strategy.

After World War II, Britain was content to play Berthier to the new American Napoleon. As long as the United States remained the economic powerhouse and a military colossus, Britain enjoyed relevance and importance in world affairs. However, the shift of the political centre of gravity from Europe back to Asia after the end of the Cold War and a more fragile US economy has demanded that Britain rediscover itself in the new global order that has many more players  such as Brazil, China, and India at the high table.

So far, Downing Street does not seem to have a clear policy with regard to the new world order. Cameron’s passage to India betrays this inchoate policy. Foreign leaders with dozens of businessmen in tow are a common sight in Indian metropoleis, but Delhi’s recent partnerships have sought more than just trade. Be it with the United States or Japan, France or Australia, South Block has openly shown interest in strategic ties, though in its own understated way.

Britain must ask itself what it can offer India besides trade. Having remained in the shadows of the Untied States for so long, an independent British policy is hard to discern. Though London has supported New Delhi’s bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council and in the Nuclear Suppliers Group for an India-specific waiver, it neither took the lead nor did it show the enthusiasm and support evinced from Moscow and Paris. Britain’s secondary role to France, Canada, Russia, and the United States in nuclear commerce, not to mention its unremarkable defence and high-tech industries does not make it an attractive option to India for a strategic partnership.

There is also this to be asked: what motivates Cameron’s India policy? Analysts suggest that domestic concerns have pushed the prime minister’s hand more than strategic considerations. Hemmed in by potential Scottish independence, the Falklands ruffle, and Britain’s relationship with the European Union, a substantial arms deal with India – such as the replacement of the Rafale with the Typhoon in India’s $20 billion MMRCA contract – would show Britain to be an international player of some influence and power in the 21st century. Better relations with India would also better position the Tories to benefit from the inevitable positive upswell among Britain’s large immigrant South Asian minority too.

Unfortunately, Cameron stepped into a minefield even before he embarked on his trip to India – meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf at 10, Downing Street, just days before, Cameron declared, “your friends are our friends, and your enemies are our enemies.” This is unlikely to be taken well in New Delhi, particularly with general elections coming up and a fear of appearing weak on cross-border terrorism. While the statement may be only rhetoric, it is unlikely that Britain has been living under a rock since the 1980s and does not know of the intricate and multitudinous ties Islamabad has with terrorist outfits…which only raises the question again if Downing Street has a clear India or South Asia policy.

None of this is to suggest that India should not have close relations with the United Kingdom. As a developing nation that needs to spend $1 trillion in infrastructure alone over the next decade, the UK has much to offer India in transportation, health, education, environment, finance, and other fields. Close cooperation and coordination on counter-terrorism, piracy, cyber security, and defence is always welcome. Yet a simple trading partner is not a strategic partner, with access to and influence in the innermost circles of Raisina. For that, Downing Street must decide whether it is willing to step out of the United States’ shadow and make an offer New Delhi cannot refuse.

One possible avenue might be a stronger push for India to be a part of the NSG, allowing it to participate in nuclear commerce and not be a mere consumer of the nuclear market. One interesting possibility is a stake in Urenco, perhaps in combination with others such as Areva and GE-Westinghouse. There are many members of the NSG, not to mention the non-proliferation ayatollahs, who’d be aghast at the suggestion, but India has always viewed technology denial regimes poorly. India is already a quasi-member of the nuclear club since the 2008 nuclear treaties, and British support in actualising some of the clauses would generate much good will for it.

Much ink is spilled over Britain’s ties to India – the Commonwealth, cricket, and curry. India, however, has a new generation today, one that does not share those same ties with affection or fondness but remembers Jallianwala Bagh, Bhagat Singh, and the Temple wage. Despite English, there is little to no advantage Britain has over France, Japan, or others; in fact, the converse is truer. What Cameron needs is an extraordinary gesture to show India that the UK can be more than just another trading partner. There is no need for shyness on India’s part either – New Delhi can actively lobby for strategic benefits it sees in ties with Britain than wait for Downing Street to offer it. Despite the recent downturn in India’s ties with Britain, they are not up for debate – the question is only how close each side is comfortable with becoming.

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I wish to acknowledge the generous help of Dr. Matthew Ford with this post.

This post appeared on Tehelka Blogs on February 26, 2013.

Lessons in Hegemony

12 Thu Nov 2009

Posted by in Nuclear, Pakistan, Security, South Asia

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Giovanni Arrighi defines hegemony in his essay, “The Three Hegemonies of Historical Capitalism” (Stephen Gill eds., Gramsci, Historical Materialism, and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), as the power of a state to exercise governmental functions over a system of sovereign states. This power is something more and different from dominance pure and simple. It is the power associated with dominance expanded by the exercise of intellectual and moral leadership. Of course, when the use of force is too risky and the exercise of moral leadership problematic, corruption and fraud may temporarily step in as surrogates of power. In any case, hegemony is the additional power that accrues to a dominant group in virtue of its capacity to pose on a universal plane all the issues around which conflict rages.

In the post-Cold War era, the only state that has had the means to exercise hegemony (or attempted to do so) has been the United States. Without going into a critique of American foreign policy and its underlying motives and assumptions, suffice it to say that American presidents since have had at best a lacklustre track record when it comes to knitting together coalitions for international goals. The primary reason for this is that they have not been able to convince their potential partners that their interests are, as Arrighi says, universal. Largely, for other countries to do so would require an element of trust, something the US is in very short supply of anywhere in the world. The removal of all restrictions placed on the mercenary (at best, jihadist at worst) nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is a case in point: it does not serve the interests of the United States at any level, especially when the Obama government is in the process of strengthening the non-proliferation regime and putting pressure on India to accede to the Comprehensive test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In the New World Order under George W Bush, the United States was trying to steer closer to India. By offering to supply the Indians with F-18s and the required blueprints for indigenous manufacture, the United States signalled that a significant change in policy was in the works. The Americans also offered India a nuclear deal by which the exchange of civilian technology and material could take place, provided of course, that India clearly demarcate its military and civilian reactors and ensure no flow of resources to the military side from the civilian side. Admittedly, there is much to gain for American firms in this as well as for India, but that never resulted in nuclear cooperation of the magnitude planned ($100 billion in 10 years) before now. Further, the strengthening of India would create a thorn in China’s back, drawing Chinese resources away from the international arena to protect its South Asian flank. Bush also indicated a dehyphenation of Indo-American relations from US-Pakistani relations, something India has tried to do since independence. Pushing for transparency and accountability on Pakistan’s border with India, Bush sent a signal to India that he meant business.

It is not clear what role the Obama Presidency wishes India to play in South Asia or world affairs, but the re-hyphenation of India and Pakistan has not been a positive first step. To compound that, the lax handling of proliferation concerns when it comes to Pakistan and China is sure to be of concern in India. AQ Khan sold weapons to states high on America’s threat radar – Libya, N. Korea, and Iran. By their own admission, former CIA director George Tenet described Khan as being “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden.” (New York Times, November 24, 2004). After the story of the Khan network broke in February 2004, the nuclear watchdogs did nothing. The inconsistency in their attitudes deserves some further analysis: for suspicion of possessing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the United States and Britain passed sanctions against Iraq for twelve years. The Nuclear Suppliers Group ostracised India for decades in retaliation to the 1974 test at Pokhran despite conceding that India had one of the best non-proliferation records. Even in the Pakistani case, AQ Khan did not materialise out of nowhere; there had been ample evidence against him and complicity in his activities by the United States and other nations. Dutch intelligence, for example had been monitoring Khan since 1972 when he first joined Physical Dynamic Research Laboratory (FDO), a subcontractor of Ultra Centrifuge Nederland (UCN) – UCN is the Dutch partner in the Urenco uranium enrichment consortium. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, American intelligence officials convinced Dutch authorities, according to former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, on two occasions not to arrest Khan for the purposes of monitoring his activities further. However, the Dutch government tried and sentenced AQ Khan in absentia in 1983 for espionage (four years imprisonment). Finally, in 1979, Pakistan was cut off from economic and military assistance by the United States after U.S. intelligence learned of the newly commissioned enrichment facility at Kahuta. However, the strategic importance of Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ensured that no meaningful sanctions would be imposed. This policy was consolidated following the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In 1981, the CIA learned of preparations for a Cold Test (detonation of a nuclear mock-up without the fissionable core). This was after Indian and Israeli intelligence noticed tunnels being dug in the Ras Koh mountains in a manner suited only for nuclear tests. However, given Pakistan’s new importance in the US assistance to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets, Secretary of State Alexander Haig declared that as long as Pakistan did not test a nuclear device, the United States was perfectly willing to look the other way. Over the next few months, Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance James Buckley and other US officials travelled back and forth between Washington and Islamabad, refining the back-channel deal on the Pakistan nuclear program.

Unwilling to leave matters entirely in the hands of the Reagan Government, the Mossad bombed a German company that supplied parts for A. Q. Khan’s nuclear weapons program in Pakistan. The company had been doing business with Khan through one of his representatives in Paris since 1976 and had sold Pakistan lead shielding and remote-controlled equipment to maneuver radioactive substances. The Israelis even considered a strike on Kahuta but cancelled at the last-minute due to intense American pressure. As Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark reveal in their book, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, Pakistani Foreign Minister Agha Shahi met US Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance James Buckley in Islamabad in 1981 following a large grant of US aid. The aid was conditional on Pakistan stopping its nuclear weapons program, but, according to Agha Shahi: “I mentioned the nuclear caveats and emphasized that if we had a bomb and wanted to test it there was nothing the US could do. Buckley shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I understand. Yes, we know.’” Thus, the Reagan White House circumvented Congressional legislation that demanded that the White House certify that Pakistan was not making nuclear weapons before any aid could be given to them (1985-1990). Furthermore, from 1983 to 1987, Pakistan also purchased some 40 nuclear-capable F-16s, ostensibly for use against the Soviet threat to make good on their desire for a warm water port. In 1989, they purchased 60 more.

In late 1990, shortly after Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait and the UN Security Council imposed an embargo on Iraq, Khan offered to help Baghdad produce gas centrifuges and design nuclear weapons (Iraqi nuclear officials, ironically suspecting that the offer was a sting operation because Pakistan was a U.S. ally, proceeded cautiously and requested a sample of what Khan could provide). In 1997, the Clinton administration gave the Chinese government a clean bill of health over the sale of nuclear technology and material to Pakistan despite concerns and warning signs since 1977. In fact, Khan had received the bomb blueprints from China’s fourth nuclear test in 1966 in the early 1980s. The year after, after the tit-for tat nuclear tests in South Asia, former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the event and emphasised that the real dangers to American security were Iran, Iraq, and N. Korea. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, brought Pakistan back into America’s good books and all sanctions were removed to help recruit Pakistan for the War on terror.

It was only in 2003 that the world came to know of the Khan network when reports emerged from Iran and Libya of Pakistan’s assistance to their nuclear programmes. Also in 2003, in April, German authorities intercepted a ship in the Suez Canal with a large cargo of strong aluminum tubing en route to North Korea, intended for use as outer casings for P-2 centrifuges. In October, the German cargo ship BBC China was intercepted en route to Libya with components for 1,000 centrifuges. Even more damaging was the discovery that although the US had known about this as early as the early 1990s, not much was done to stop it (David Albright, “An Iranian Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 51, no. 4 (July/August 1995): 20–26). When news broke out, the Pakistani government nonetheless initially resisted arresting Khan, whom most Pakistanis considered a national hero. It was only after Colin Powell personally met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that Khan was finally arrested. Although many Pakistanis have been detained since the scandal broke, none have been prosecuted. The Government of Pakistan (GoP) has also not allowed anyone outside the Pakistani government to interview Khan or the others that were detained. And on August 29, 2009, AQ Khan is yet again a free man.

So what message does that give America’s present and potential future allies? Two lessons are clear from all this: 1. the United States will do anything within its means to pursue a short-term goal, however costly it may turn out to be in the future, and 2. it will do so clandestinely with no regard to the security of its allies. As a result of Reagan’s monumental obtuseness, there is at least one other nuclear power in the world (N. Korea) endangering a US ally (Japan), and another potential nuclear power (Iran) threatening yet another one of America’s allies (Israel). A nuclear Pakistan, to which the United States played midwife, is, needless to say, a threat for a potential US ally (India).

With the release of AQ Khan and not as much as a murmur from Foggy Bottom, it must be clear to New Delhi and Tel Aviv that the United States is not in touch with the realities on the ground in their respective regions. If this is the case, it makes it very hard for either country to forge a close and functional relationship with the US – trade in civilian and military goods not withstanding (the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 demonstrates this clearly). It is going to be more difficult for the United States to convince regional actors that the interests of the United States and of its allies are congruent if the United States continues to undermine its allies for ill-conceived goals and thoughtless action. If the United States wishes to forward a hegemonic discourse successfully, it is about time they took a good look at their assets and liabilities in different regions of the world and did a quick rethink. Otherwise, the Pax Americana will be over sooner than they think.