By
Published: 25th April 2013
On April 26, 1986, the world witnessed one of the major
nuclear disasters in the then Soviet Union.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant at Ukraine met with an explosion and a
vast amount of radioactive particles released in the atmosphere. After 27 years,
the world still remembers the disaster and commemorates the day with an annual
rally ‘Chernobyl Way’.
At this juncture, it is worth reviewing a book launched at a
meeting organised by PECOSE here, with critical and crucial information on
nuclear energy.
The book titled Nuclear
Energy Today: The Reality – A Critical Analysis was brought out by People’s
Committee for Safe Energy (PECOSE) recently. The book contains information
pertaining to the use of nuclear energy and the misconceptions over India’s atomic
obsession. The book exposes the demerits of nuclear energy at large, through
various incidents that happened in the past.
The book starts with early warnings such as the accidents at
Narora Nuclear Plant in Uttar Pradesh and Kakrapar Nuclear Plant in Gujarat and how the disasters were managed by the local
people and the workers of the nuclear plant. It alleges that those who put
their life at stakes to bring down the impact of the accidents “remained
unnamed” by those nuclear establishments.
A brief history of the emergence of ‘nuclear obsession’ in
the nation has also been traced in this book. It sheds light on the scientist
Meghnad Saha, who emphasised on the democratic participation of all
stakeholders like people, government and nuclear companies before embarking on
nuclear projects. It quotes historian Ramachandra Guha saying, ‘the most
secretive institution in India!’, referring
to the Atomic Energy Commission formed in 1948.
The book also brings the reasons and genuine pleas behind the
KKNPP struggle to focus. One of their concerns that nuclear accidents can
happen either in the form of operational errors as Chernobyl or mechanical
failures as the Three Mile Island or even a natural disaster like Fukushima, gets
prime focus in the book.
The topics of this book range from ‘untenable claims of using
nuclear energy’ to ‘reliable possibilities of using alternative sources’. But
the book limits itself on some of the topics such as working mechanism of VVER
used in KKNPP and India’s ‘3-Stage Nuclear Program’ by giving only little
information. If those topics were explained better, the book would definitely
be a guide for those interested in knowing the reality behind nuclear energy.
“While, the debate over nuclear energy has gripped the
intelligentsia as well as the common public, PECOSE feels that there should be
an effort to promote a rational discourse and not desk-thumping. As a first
step, we have brought out this book,” says Prof Dhruba Mukherjee, Convenor,
PECOSE, in the foreword of the book.
Courtesy: The New Indian Express
