Why This Modi-Putin Agreement Should Worry Us

From the detritus of the diplomatic fiasco at BRICS, where Putin refused to back Modi on Pak-based terrorism, Modi was able to rescue Russian commitment to two additional units, Nos 5&6, for the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.

But before we all start cheering, a sober evaluation of the safety of such plants is essential. This is not because the Russians or the Indians are particularly incompetent at commissioning and running nuclear plants but because a local body election in Japan on 16 October 2016, at about the same time as the BRICS summit, has revealed the extent of popular revulsion in Japan against nuclear power in one of the most industrialized and reputed countries in the world. The Japanese "reputation" relates to both its technological aptitude and its integrity and honesty. Both were called into question in this election, throwing serious doubt on Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe's policy of ramping up nuclear power in a country where only two of its 42 nuclear power plants remain operational after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The election of 16 October was held in the Niigata prefecture, where Japan's largest seven-unit nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa (K-K), run by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), is located. Premier Abe's candidate was Mayor Tamio Mori, a former head of the Japanese Association of City Mayors, backed by the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito. The challenger, Ryuchi Yoneyama, was an academic holding degrees in medicine and law but with few political credentials, backed principally by the Japanese Communist Party (that has few adherents), the Social Democrats and the Liberals.

The sole issue was whether or not to fall in with Premier Abe's declared intention of authorizing TEPCO to restart the closed K-K nuclear plant, one of the largest in the world. For this reason alone, this local body gubernatorial election acquired national significance with international ramifications. The challenger, Yoneyama, declared that as Governor he would not agree to K-K being restarted as it was the same operator, TEPCO, that was responsible for the disaster at Fukushima. Echoing his predecessor Governor's charge that TEPCO had deliberately delayed announcing the meltdown at Fukushima No.1, Yoneyama demanded that there must first be a thorough scrutiny of "TEPCO's Fukushima no. 1 plant, its impact and the challenges it highlighted."

Amid shouts of 'Banzai' (victory, a much-heard cry in the Second World War as Kamikaze pilots swept down on naval ships), Yoneyama was elected by a decisive margin of 53 per cent of the votes cast. In his victory speech, he declared: "under current circumstances, where we can't protect your lives and your way of life, I declare clearly that I can't approve a restart". The electorate, that a poll suggested approved this stand by 73%, cheered wildly. Premier Abe reacted sourly: "very regrettable," he said, while a senior colleague of his mourned, "This is a heavy blow". It is being suggested that this local body result might even lead to the dissolution of the Japanese Diet (parliament) and fresh elections.

At least one other gubernatorial election has been decided on similar grounds. In July, Satoshi Mitazano was elected Governor of Kagoshima on a platform of rejecting the restart of the Sendai nuclear complex, units 1&2, that fall in his prefecture and demanding that the plant "be taken offline" - at least temporarily.

Chernobyl and Fukushima have been fused in the public mind. Why? Well, principally because of the scandal surrounding yet another nuclear plant, Monju, at Tsuruga in Fukui prefecture. Construction at the plant site started in 1980 but the plant was ready only 14 years later. If one discounts the decade of the 90s as the Soviet Union was being transformed into the Russian Federation, unit 1 at Kudankulam took a somewhat similar 14 years to go from construction to criticality. The comparison does not end there.

Monju went critical, that is, it started generating electricity, in 1994 but had to be closed down about a year later on 8 December 1995 when "intense vibration caused a thermowell inside a pipe carrying sodium coolant to break". Owing to the management "falsifying reports", "editing a video-tape" and "issuing a gag order to its employees", the plant could not be restarted for 15 years pending disposal of cases filed against the operators and regulators in local courts.

Finally, the Japanese Supreme Court ordered that the plant be restarted. On 8 May 2010, the plant reached criticality but had to be stopped after an accident occurred just three months later, on 26 August 2010, when an "in-vessel transfer machine" fell with a loud thud. It was not recovered till nearly a year later, on 23 June 2011. Within a year, there was a sodium-heat failure that was not made public. When, however, in June 2013, it was revealed that there had been no degradation assessments of the thickness of sodium casting pipes since 2007, and of 2300 pieces of equipment not having been checked for safety, as also the falsification of inspection reports, public anger reached boiling point. Basing itself on the earlier November 2012 revelation that the operator had failed to check some 10,000 components at Monju, Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Authority removed the operator saying it was "not qualified as an entity to safely operate" Monju.

Meanwhile, and approximately over the same period, Kudanakulam suffered "accidents, repeated failures of the reactors and serious concerns and safety questions raised by security experts", as summed up by Arun Janardhan in The Indian Express, 10 August 2016, on the occasion of Jayalalithaa, Modi, and Putin getting together "virtually" to dedicate unit 1 of Kudankulam to the nation. The full story, however, bears a remarkable resemblance to Monju. After being connected to the grid in April 2014, Kudankulam 1 went commercial on 31 December 2014. Less than six months later, it had to be closed down on 24 June 2015. So serious were the faults requiring to be rectified that it took "seven times longer than the earmarked duration" for the reactor to be reconnected to the grid on 31 January 2016. Another three months lapsed before the reactor reached 100% Full Power. In consequence, the machine was off-grid for 49% of 2015.