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India pushes for NSG membership
- Nuclear Suppliers Group is 48-member nuclear club.
- NSG members can trade in and export nuclear technology.
- India hopes for membership in NSG Group, MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) and Australian and Wassenaar Arrangement.
- NSG works by consensus, not majority, India is reaching out to every possible country, much like the push at the UNGA for reforms.
Positives
- Being a signatory of Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is an unofficial prerequisite to be a member of NSG.
- India has not signed NPT but its undisputable Non Proliferation credentials can help India get a membership in NSG.
- India has also cooperated with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) when it comes to inspection of civilian nuclear facilitates.
- India – USA nuclear deal, 2008 is a mile stone in India’s nuclear regime. India USA deal has also improved the changes of India’s entry into NSG.
- Indian officials are hopeful that India would get a membership in both NSG and MTCR by 2016.
- Norway supports for India's membership to the NSG and MTCR regimes. Previously it took a tough stand against India’s entry into NSG.
- Just like Norway, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland have also changed their stance. This will definitely boost India’s chances.
- At present these countries insist only want India to align its civil nuclear safeguards with NSG guidelines.
- India hopes to conclude its nuclear deal with Australia this year. (this is easy)
- A nuclear deal with Japan (this is tough because nuclear technology related issues are very sensitive ones in Japan) related issues that has been hanging for several years may also be concluded soon. These deals make India’s entry into NSG easier.
- U.S. and Russia have already pledged their support any they can be helpful in getting more supporters. [They have lot of old outdated (Gujri) Nuclear technologies and they want to make better gains out of such technologies by selling them to India. India’s energy needs are very vast and there is no time to invest in new technologies. So it wants to buy outdated reactors from Russia, USA, France etc. Also it needs U-235 fissile material which has to be imported from foreign nations. To import fissile material easily, India has to be a part of NSG]
Negatives
- Norway is the outgoing MTCR chair, and had said there was “broad consensus for Indian membership in MTCR, but regrettably no consensus yet.”
- India’s biggest worry remains possible opposition from China which offers full support to Pakistan’s aspirations for the same.
India’s APEC membership not on the agenda, says U.S.
- India’s desire for membership is not on the agenda of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum meeting in Manila in Philippines, on November 18 and 19, the U.S. said.
- U.S. President Barack Obama had “supported” India’s desire for membership of the forum during his 2015 visit to India on Republic Day.
- U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region released during Mr. Obama’s New Delhi visit had said: “the United States welcomes India’s interest in joining the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, as the Indian economy is a dynamic part of the Asian economy.”
- The statement was widely interpreted as U.S. support for India’s membership in the APEC.
APEC
- APEC is an organization which is consensus based. So each of the APEC members has to agree to expansion of the APEC membership.
- The 21-member APEC, established in 1989, has nearly half of the world trade among the members and India has been lobbying for its membership for the last two decades.
Observer status since 2011
- India has been an observer at the forum since 2011
- A membership would have been in tune with the Modi government’s ‘Act East Policy.’ [Previously ‘Look East Policy.’]
- U.S. diplomat had said influential sections within the Obama administration considered India as an “obstructionist” force in multilateral forums. [India is the prime reason behind the failure of Doha Round Negotiations (WTO). This seriously damaged India’s image in international forums]
Thorium-fuelled reactors (Very Very Important but too much science will crack your brain)
- What is the single greatest factor that prevents the large-scale deployment of thorium-fuelled reactors in India?
- The construction of the advanced heavy-water reactor (AHWR) — a 300 MWe, indigenously designed, thorium-fuelled, commercial technology demonstrator — has been put off several times since it was first announced in 2004
- Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have successfully tested all relevant thorium-related technologies in the laboratory, achieving even industrial scale capability in some of them.
- In fact, if pressed, India could probably begin full-scale deployment of thorium reactors in ten years.
- The single greatest hurdle, to answer the original question, is the critical shortage of fissile material (NSG membership is so important for India).
Too much science below
- A fissile material is one that can sustain a chain reaction upon bombardment by neutrons.
- Thorium is by itself fertile, meaning that it can transmute (change in form, nature, or substance) into a fissile radioisotope but cannot itself keep a chain reaction going.
- In a thorium reactor, a fissile material like uranium or plutonium is blanketed by thorium.
- The fissile material, also called a driver in this case, drives the chain reaction to produce energy while simultaneously transmuting the fertile material (thorium) into fissile material.
3 Stage Nuclear Programme
- India has very modest deposits of uranium and some of the world’s largest sources of thorium.
- It was keeping this in mind that in 1954, Homi Bhabha envisioned India’s nuclear power programme in three stages.
- In the first stage, heavy water reactors fuelled by natural uranium would produce plutonium.
- The second stage would initially be fuelled by a mix of the plutonium from the first stage and natural uranium.
- This uranium would transmute into more plutonium and once sufficient stocks have been built up, thorium would be introduced into the fuel cycle to convert it into uranium 233 for the third stage.
- In the final stage, a mix of thorium and uranium fuels the reactors.
- The thorium transmutes to U-233 which powers the reactor.
- Fresh thorium can replace the depleted thorium in the reactor core, making it essentially a thorium-fuelled reactor.
- After decades of operating pressurised heavy-water reactors (PHWR), India is finally ready to start the second stage.
- A 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam is set to achieve criticality any day now.
- Four more fast breeder reactors have been sanctioned, two at the same site and two elsewhere.
- However, experts estimate that it would take India many more FBRs and at least another four decades before it has built up a sufficient fissile material inventory to launch the third stage.
NSG is a Solution
- The obvious solution to India’s shortage of fissile material is to procure it from the international market.
- As yet, there exists no commerce in plutonium though there is no law that expressly forbids it.
- In fact, most nuclear treaties such as the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material address only U-235 and U-233.
- This is because plutonium is not considered a material suited for peaceful purposes.
- The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) merely mandates that special fissionable material — which includes plutonium — if transferred, be done so under safeguards.
- Thus, the legal hurdle for safeguarded sale of plutonium already exists.
- The physical and safety procedures for moving radioactive spent fuel and plutonium also already exists.
- If India were to start purchasing plutonium, it would immediately get it from Japan and the U.K. who are looking to reduce their stockpile of plutonium.
Advantages of Thorium technology (important for prelims)
- One, thorium reactors produce far less waste than present-day reactors.
- Two, they have the ability to burn up most of the highly radioactive and long-lasting minor elements that makes nuclear waste from Light Water Reactors.
- Three, the minuscule waste that is generated is toxic for only three or four hundred years rather than thousands of years.
- Four, thorium reactors are cheaper because they have higher burn up.
- And five, thorium reactors are significantly more proliferation-resistant than present reactors.
- This is because the U-233 produced by transmuting thorium also contains U-232, a strong source of gamma radiation that makes it difficult to work with.
- Its daughter product, thallium-208, is equally difficult to handle and easy to detect.
- The mainstreaming of thorium reactors worldwide thus offers an enormous advantage to proliferation-resistance as well as the environment.
- For India, it offers the added benefit that it can act as a guarantor for the lifetime supply of nuclear fuel for reactors.
Obstacles in harnessing Thorium
- There is little doubt that India will one day have a fleet of FBRs and large quantities of fissile material that can easily be redirected towards its weapons programme.
- The U.S. could perhaps emerge as the greatest obstacle to plutonium commerce.
- Although the U.S. cannot prevent countries from trading in plutonium, it has the power to make it uncomfortable for them via sanctions.
- The strong non-proliferation lobby in the U.S. will stop a non-signatory of the NPT (India) from regulating trade in plutonium.
- The challenge for Delhi is to convince Washington to sponsor rather than oppose such a venture.
- Scientists predict that the impact of climate change will be worse on India.
- Advancing the deployment of thorium reactors by four to six decades via a plutonium market might be the most effective step towards curtailing carbon emissions.
Misuse of sedition law
- Once again the law of sedition has been misused, this time in Tamil Nadu.
- A folk singer associated with a radical leftist group has been charged with sedition and committing an act with an intent to cause a riot.
- His offence: disseminating two songs pillorying (attack or ridicule publicly) Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her government for its policy of retailing liquor.
- I have previously given a detailed post on Sedition Law.
Chinese ‘Water Bomb’: Downstream concerns on the Brahmaputra
- China’s largest hydroelectric dam, Zangmu hydroelectric dam on the Brahmaputra, or Yarlung Tsangpo, became fully operational in Oct, 2015.
- Tere are growing concerns over worsening environmental degradation.
- Yarlung Tsangpo, Lhasa river and Nyangchu basins in central Tibet are worst hit by Chinese aggressive water diversion strategy.
- Gyama valley, situated south of the Lhasa river has large polymetallic deposits of copper, molybdenum, gold, silver, lead and zinc (China is fully exploiting these regions).
- Chinese scientists are pointing to the possibility of a high content of heavy metals in the stream sediments could pose a potential threat to downstream water users (India and Bangladesh).
- Global warming could further accelerate the movement of these heavy metals.
- By 2050, the annual runoff in the Brahmaputra is projected to decline by 14 per cent. This will have significant implications for food security and social stability.
- The dangers of water accumulation behind dams could also induce devastating artificial earthquakes in the highly fragile region.
Data-sharing protocols
- China supplies flood-forecasting data from three measuring stations on the Brahmaputra, namely Nugesha, Yangcun and Nuxia. (China can manipulate data and is the most obvious threat. Trust Deficit)
- India pays China Rs. 82 lakh annually to receive advance flood data.
- India provides such data to Pakistan and Bangladesh free of cost.
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