Comment: Uses of nuclear energy. (1998, 20 Marks)
Nuclear energy is the energy released when atomic nuclei split (fission) or fuse (fusion). Since the first controlled chain reaction in 1942 it has been a dual-use technology: the same reactor that makes electricity can make plutonium. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace speech (1953) led to the IAEA (1957), and Article IV of the NPT calls peaceful use an inalienable right. For India, Homi J. Bhabha and Jawaharlal Nehru saw the atom chiefly as a tool of development, though Nehru told the Constituent Assembly in April 1948 that a nation compelled to use it otherwise would not be stopped by pious sentiments.
Electricity generation
- Global: reactors produced a record 2,702 TWh in 2025 (World Nuclear Association), about 9% of world electricity and one of the largest low-carbon sources. The technology offers dispatchable baseload power that solar and wind cannot yet supply.
- India’s three-stage programme: Bhabha set it out in the mid-1950s around modest uranium and about 846,000 tonnes of thorium, roughly a quarter of the world total.
- Stage one uses pressurised heavy water reactors and is mature and indigenous.
- In stage two, the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam reached first criticality on 6 April 2026.
- Stage three, thorium reactors, is still distant.
- Scale and ambition: about 24 reactors and 8.78 GW supply only about 3% of India’s power. The target is 100 GW by 2047, supported by the Nuclear Energy Mission (Budget 2025-26) for small modular reactors. The SHANTI Act, 2025 opened generation to private firms and joint ventures, while imported fuel flows under the 2008 waiver, most recently through a Cameco contract (March 2026) and an India–Australia arrangement (July 2026). Nuclear power is central to India’s net-zero 2070 pledge, since few credible paths to that goal leave it out.
Non-power uses
- Medicine: radioisotopes for diagnosis and cancer therapy. BARC’s indigenous Bhabhatron teletherapy unit has made treatment cheaper.
- Agriculture and food: mutation breeding has produced many crop varieties, including pulses and oilseeds. Irradiation extends shelf life and meets phytosanitary rules, for example for mango exports.
- Water: the nuclear desalination plant at Kalpakkam uses reactor heat. Isotope hydrology maps groundwater.
- Industry and research: non-destructive testing, sterilisation of medical products and radioisotope power for spacecraft.
- Strategic uses: deterrence, and naval propulsion for submarines such as INS Arihant and INS Aridhaman (2026), which give India a survivable second strike.
Limits and risks
- Cost and delay: the PFBR came over fifteen years late, and its cost rose from about ₹3,492 crore to about ₹8,181 crore.
- Safety and consent: Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) show a small chance of disaster with enormous consequences. Local resistance at Kudankulam and Jaitapur reflects what Ulrich Beck called the risk society (1986), in which modern technology produces risks that cross borders and generations.
- Waste: permanent disposal of high-level waste is still largely unsolved worldwide.
- Proliferation: India’s own 1974 test used plutonium from the CIRUS reactor, which was supplied for peaceful purposes. The result was NSG denial until the 2008 waiver.
- Accountability: the SHANTI Act narrowed operators’ recourse against suppliers just as private operators entered, and a Supreme Court challenge is pending.
Conclusion
Nuclear energy serves development as much as security. Its peaceful uses are why India experienced technology denial as an injury to development, not only to its strategic position. Its value is real but conditional: necessary for clean baseload power and for medicine and agriculture, and acceptable only with independent regulation, honest costing and strict separation of civil and military uses.