Debate over nuclear power plant gains steam in Kerala as state explores options

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala is witnessing a debate over nuclear power plant as the Kerala State Electricity Board Limited (KSEB) is exploring the options of setting up a nuclear power plant in the state.

While an expert from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday highlighted the pros of having a nuclear power plant, activists raised concerns mainly over the health hazards posed by the radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants.

Opposition Congress is of the view that it would take a stand on the matter only after a detailed study.

Even as a formal decision on the matter was yet to come, officials of the KSEB and state power department already held preliminary talks with NPCI exploring the scope of setting up the first nuclear power plant in the state, which now produces only around 30 percent of its power requirement.

It was learnt that Athirappilly in Thrissur, where a hydel power project planned earlier had to be kept in abeyance owing to the protest from environmentalists, as well as Kasargod are among the spots being considered by the KSEB.

Participating in a debate organised by Sastra Vedi, a pro-Congress science organisation, in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, officer in-charge of the nuclear information centre at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu, Sathish A V, dismissed the safety concerns.

Radiation from KKNPP was much below the prescribed limits and highest levels of safety measures are made by taking lessons from mishaps like the one at Fukushima in Japan and Chernobyl in Ukraine.

"The local people who earlier staged agitation against KKNPP are now pressing for jobs at the plant," Sathish said.

Former principal of government engineering college and known science activist R V G Menon accepted the view that nuclear power was an option to reduce carbon emission, but raised serious concerns over the disposal of radioactive waste of nuclear plants.

Countering the NPCI official's version that there were no deaths in the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant mishap, he said that the long term health hazards and the evacuation of over 1.5 lakh people around 30 kilometres of the plants should not be ignored.

"Even several decades after the first nuclear power plant was set up in the world, so far there is no stable permanent system for disposing off the radioactive waste," said Menon.

Menon also suggested that focus should be given for advancements in renewable energy sources like solar power and green hydrogen.

Opposition leader V D Satheesan of the Congress, who inaugurated the debate, said that even as nuclear power was an option to meet the increasing power demand, the safety concerns of the people over nuclear power plants need to be addressed.