esolar
-The solar thermal system from eSolar is part of Google's aim to produce a gigawatt of renewable energy that is cheaper than coal within the next few years.
-Google has said it believes it needs to get in the range of 1 to 3 cents per kilowatt hour for solar or other renewables to be competitive with coal.
- google invested 130 million ( with others )
- says: covering 1% of Sahara desert with esolar panels will power entire world
- asr: esolar needs 5 acres to generate 1 mega watt this seems lowest compared to Ausra ..( wind needs 15 acres for 1 mega watt )
- eSolar offers clean, carbon-free, peak power production based on unique modular Concentrating Solar Power technology.
- Our powerplants are structured on a 33 MW base unit, called a “power unit.” An eSolar™ power unit consists of several thermal receiver towers situated on a footprint of 160 acres (64 hectares), each with a field of dual-axis heliostat mirrors, and a central power block with steam turbine and generator. 33 MW power units can be replicated as many times as necessary to fit specific power requirements.
(for Wind Power: About 15 to 20 acres are needed for a 1-megawatt installation. see in Wind power post , where as esolar needs 5 acres per Megawatt )
- Software-controlled heliostats, or mirrors, reflect light onto a tower where the heat turns water to steam that turns a turbine.
- eSolar on Tuesday said that it will build solar thermal power plants that will make 245 megawatts of electricity for Southern California Edison.
- The plants will be built in the Antelope Valley of Southern California and begin operating in 2011.
- California is a hotbed for utility-scale solar power because the state has relatively aggressive renewable energy targets.
-The state's renewable portfolio standard mandates that utilities generate 20 percent of their electricity by 2010 and 33 percent by 2012.
10 Questions for eSolar’s CEO Asif Ansari
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Sunpower
That hasn't stopped Abu Dhabi's clean-tech fund, Masdar, from funding a $1.2 billion solar thermal company called Torresol. Another competitor in the market, Ausra, has received more than $40 million from blue-chip venture capitalists. Yet another player, Abengoa, recently signed a $4 billion deal with Arizona Public Utilities, and Brightsource recently landed a 900-megawatt deal with the California utility PG&E. Stirling Energy Systems, a company that has adapted the Stirling Engine, a 200-year-old invention, for concentrated solar power, even pulled in a $100 million investment.
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Ausra Utility-scale solar power. Market prices. Now. ( Vinod Khosla funded )
- SolarThermal 101 - showed the land useful for solar ( high heat lend whole country )
- specialty 1: Ausra’s Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar
collector uses commodity steel and flat glass as raw materials, eliminating supply
constraints, driving down the costs.
- specialty 2: An automated welding/assembly system developed by Ausra produces large high-precision solar reflectors more than 20 times faster than possible with manual production.
- Using Ausra's current solar technologies, all U.S. electric power, day and night, can be generated using a land area smaller than 92 by 92 miles.
- Myths about Solar Energy
-- All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines, and a tiny fraction of the land currently in agricultural use.
- In November 2007, Ausra and California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)announced a power purchase agreement for a 177-megawatt solar thermal power plant to be built in central California. The power plant will generate enough electricity to power more than 120,000 homes. (http://ausra.com/news/releases/071105.html)
The Las Vegas facility will employ a staff of 50. At full capacity, it will annually produce more than 700 megawatts of solar collectors – enough to power nearly half a million homes, and keep 1,400 construction workers employed building solar power plants.
Friday, July 25, 2008
SuZlon Wind Power
2008 , July 25
Eco Solutions - from CNN - select a topic in 'Archive' drop down at bottom
asr key takes:
- About 15 to 20 acres are needed for a 1-megawatt installation. Suzlon has built Asia's largest wind farm, with an installed capacity of 500 megawatts, near Kanyakumari, on India's southernmost tip, where trade winds of 15mph are common.
- Power from turbines costs about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour in the U.S., according to Energy Department data.
- That compares with 15 cents for solar energy
- and 4 cents for coal-fueled electricity.
- Utilities has to supply 20% of engery from renewable source by 2020 , Europe, china governments mandated it , it seems that is causing demand for wind even it is expensive than coal but cheaper than solar .
- See how founder Tanti built wind power as he realized cost savings after his Texttile mill saving . Great build up of a new industry
- seems Market cap is $6 billion
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Private firm to invest in wind power Sriram
Chennai-based Shriram group has announced to invest about Rs 60 crore in the current year in wind power sector. The investment was being made both because of the tax benefit (80 per cent depreciation in the first year), as well as the attractive returns post payback period.
The investment would be spread across the three listed finance companies of the group, viz., Shriram Investments Ltd, Shriram Transport Finance Ltd and Shriram City Union Finance Ltd. The group has already invested in the wind power sector and owns 16 windmills in Tamil Nadu and another 17 in Karnataka, with a total installed capacity of about 15 MW.
The current year investments that have been announced would most probably be made in Rajasthan, which has a "very friendly" wind power policy — a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA), power purchase at the rate of Rs 3.25 per unit with a five per cent escalation in the first ten years, permitted third party sales and wheeling charges of 10 per cent. The group is looking at Jaisalmer as a possible location.
Typically, investments in windmills are paid back in about seven years, and after that, there are enough profits to be made. The maintenance cost works out to roughly about Rs 5 lakh per MW, each MW can produce anywhere between 15 lakh and 25 lakh units, depending upon the capacity of the machine and the location. The cost per unit works out to be very cheap.
A critical factor is the availability of sub-station close-by, both to supply the power needed to start up the machines as well as to evacuate the power generated. All States, except Tamil Nadu, permit investors (or machine manufacturers) to set up their own sub-stations.
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Selling some family property, the Tantis put together $600,000 as seed capital to start Suzlon. They shopped around for technology in Europe, but no one was willing to give it without having an equity stake in the venture. Finally, Sudwind, a small German company agreed, provided Suzlon bought ten turbines. Tanti convinced IPCL, a petrochemicals company that had been supplying raw materials for his yarn business, to sign up as Suzlon's first customer. Suzlon completed IPCL's 3.5-megawatt project using Sudwind's turbines within the three-month deadline. Tanti claims that ten years on, this first wind farm continues to run at 97% efficiency.
But the brothers, all four engineers, wanted to prove their technical prowess by crafting their own turbine. Their research efforts got a boost when Sudwind went bust in 1997. They hired Sudwind's engineers and created an R&D center in Germany. The subsequent acquisition of a manufacturer of rotor blades in the Netherlands gave them access to technology for a key component.
With orders worth $600 million in hand from U.S., Chinese and Australian customers, Suzlon has invested in a service support facility and a workshop in Pipestone, Minnesota to manufacture rotor blades. At 140 feet these are longer than the wing of a 747 plane, so they are too expensive to transport across continents. Building them closer to the customer location obviates the logistical issues of transporting them from India."We're an Indian company that's creating 300 jobs in the U.S.," boasts Tanti
But Tanti is keen to expand abroad. "This is a global business, and we want to also grow in the global market," he insists. Worldwide the wind energy industry is worth $11 billion, growing 27% a year for the past five years. BTM Consult ApS, a renewable energy consultancy in Denmark, predicts that global installed capacity for wind power will more than double to 124,000 megawatts by 2009. Tanti is positioning Suzlon to get a fair chunk of that growth by being a low-cost producer and is collecting engineering talent so Suzlon can continually improve technology.
At home, where it still makes 90% of its sales, Suzlon has 35% of the market. The country is among the top five wind power users, which collectively account for 70% of global capacity. With its mission to provide "Power for all by 2012" India's federal government has introduced legislation making it compulsory for electricity distributors to get a specified quantum from renewable energy sources. There is a separate ministry for nonconventional energy, which has estimated the country's capacity to generate wind power at 45,000 megawatts, more than ten times current installed capacity.
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Pune Billionaire Chases GE With Wind Turning on Cracked Blades
July 25 (Bloomberg) -- The lights snap off in the five-story, gray-concrete building in Pune, India, where Suzlon Energy Ltd. -- the fastest growing of the world's top five wind turbine makers -- has its headquarters. After 30 seconds of darkness, the fluorescent bulbs flicker on as backup generators kick in.
``For us, it's routine,'' says Tulsi Tanti, Suzlon's billionaire founder. ``You have to understand the country's limitation and, within that, develop your business.''
Tanti, 50, made his fortune in a decade by supplying wind power to Indian companies struggling with blackouts and soaring energy costs. The entrepreneur got his start in 1993, when he bought two turbines to reduce the electricity bills at his textile company in the western state of Gujarat.
Tanti's employees dug the foundations, installed the towers and connected the turbines to India's overburdened power grid -- taking advantage of government incentives that let the firm swap the wind power it generated for the electricity it used.
``Within two years, we understood the economics and dynamics of the industry and realized wind is a good source,'' Tanti says. ``Why not focus on that industry?''
Suzlon Energy started in 1995 and now ranks as the No. 5 turbine maker worldwide. These are heady days for wind power producers. Companies can't keep pace with demand. With oil soaring above $147 a barrel in July and concern mounting about global warming, governments are enacting mandates to promote the use of alternatives like solar and wind.
Last year, utilities and other companies installed a record 20,000 megawatts of wind power, and the renewable energy source will make up 3 percent of the world's electricity production in 2012, up from 1 percent in 2007, according to the Brussels-based industry group Global Wind Energy Council.
Suzlon Stumbles
Suzlon began stumbling over its own rapid expansion last year. The company has been hit by management upheaval and the sale of faulty equipment, driving its shares down to 216 rupees yesterday from 387 rupees on Dec. 31, 2007.
The company's rotor blades shipped to customers in the U.S., Europe and Brazil developed cracks, prompting Edison International, California's largest utility owner, to cancel a large order. ``Suzlon came out of nowhere,'' says Daniel McClure, who manages $3.5 billion at I.G. Investment Management Ltd. in Toronto. ``They've executed very well under Tanti. The concerns I have for the company are management of their growth.''
The company's rapid ascent and recent setbacks present a cautionary tale for investors eager to clamber aboard the alternative energy bandwagon.
Volatile Stocks
``Volatility is high for the entire renewable energy sector, and you get a lot of headline news that can make or break a stock in a single day,'' says Brian Yerger, a renewable energy analyst at Jesup & Lamont Capital Markets in Wilmington, Delaware.
I.G. Investment sold its more than 7 million Suzlon shares in June following the departure of two of Suzlon's top executives: Chief Executive Officer Andre Horbach and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Krahenbuhl.
Like the entire wind industry, Suzlon is hooked on a growing number of incentives pushed by governments around the globe. In 1997, Massachusetts was the first of 21 U.S. states to begin mandating that utilities buy as much as 20 percent of their power from renewable sources. U.S. wind energy companies also get a 2- cent federal tax credit for each kilowatt-hour of power they produce.
Starting in 2004, Indian states enacted similar mandates as high as 10 percent for utilities, and companies can claim 80 percent depreciation on equipment costs in the first year.
China's Plan
China rolled out a plan last year requiring that 15 percent of the country's energy consumption be met with power from renewable sources by 2020. And in January, the European Union agreed that the region would get 20 percent of its power consumption from carbon- free sources by 2020 compared with about 6 percent in 2005.
To meet these clean energy rules, utilities are mostly buying wind power because it's cheaper than other renewable sources such as solar. Power from turbines costs about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour in the U.S., according to Energy Department data. That compares with 15 cents for solar energy and 4 cents for coal-fueled electricity.
``The main driver for wind energy is regulation coming in place in Europe and North America to obtain a greater amount of energy from clean sources,'' says Philippe De Weck, who manages the $1 billion Clean Energy Fund, which includes Suzlon shares, at Geneva- based Pictet & Cie. ``Solar is still very expensive today. Wind is really left as the only option to fulfill that goal.''
Farmer's Son
Tanti, the son of a wheat and peanut farmer, has little in common with other, flashier Indian billionaires such as Vijay Mallya, chairman of UB Group, which sells liquor and owns an airline.
After high school, Tanti attended small regional colleges, earning a business degree from the P.D. Malaviya Commerce College and electrical and mechanical engineering diplomas from a government polytechnic institute. Although Tanti and his family's net worth rocketed to $2.2 billion after Suzlon's initial public offering in 2005, he shuns the luxurious lifestyle.
The Suzlon chairman lives in a four-bedroom apartment with his wife in Pune's Koregaon Park neighborhood, where 4,000-square-foot (370-square-meter) units sell for about $1.3 million. His three younger brothers, also senior executives at Suzlon, live in apartments in the same building.
When globe-trotting on business, the chairman flies commercial, leaving the private jets, yachts and vintage car collections to high rollers like Mallya.
Connects With Workers
``Tanti is not looking to go out there and hobnob and be part of the scene,'' says Ashish Dhawan, a senior managing director at ChrysCapital Investment Advisors India, a private equity fund that had invested in Suzlon for four years, starting in 2004.
Dhawan remembers attending an annual gathering of Suzlon's managers and workers at the InterContinental hotel in the state of Goa by the Arabian Sea back in October 2004. The 5-foot-8-inch (1.7- meter), casually dressed Tanti mingled and laughed easily with a few hundred of his employees, Dhawan recalls.
``He's got that earthly feel to him that enables him to connect with factory floor workers,'' Dhawan says. As the workers who won performance awards approached Tanti to receive them, they bent and touched the top of his shoes, a way of showing respect for elders.
``It was incredible, the way this company celebrates its achievements,'' Dhawan says. ``There is this real cohesive culture. This is a guy who gets out there in the field, talks to his people.''
No Carbon Footprint
From his small office in Pune, Tanti says he's pushing his company to grow faster partly to reduce the threat of global warming. Suzlon -- which has 13,000 employees worldwide and markets its products in North and South America, Europe, Australia and China - - aims to control 25 percent of the market by 2013, making it the No. 3 wind turbine company.
Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S is No. 1 globally, followed by the GE Energy unit of Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric Co.
``With the climate change crisis looming, we have to work faster against it,'' says Tanti, sitting in front of an oil portrait of his father, Ranchhodbhai Tanti, that hangs on a wall. ``That is why high growth is the priority, not just the bottom line.''
As the company expands, it adds turbines to India's grid that produce more power than Suzlon uses to make the machines, which eliminates its carbon footprint, Tanti says.
First Producer
Suzlon's new, 11-acre (4.5-hectare) campus located 10 kilometers (6 miles) from its headquarters will be lit mostly by sunlight to reduce power consumption. The campus will also collect rainwater for use on lawns among the low-rise buildings.
Wind power's main drawback -- turbines don't work without a strong breeze -- has kept it from becoming a major source of energy for more than a century.
In 1887, American Charles F. Brush became the first person to produce power from wind, according to the Danish Wind Industry Association, a trade group. Brush built a windmill and used it for 20 years to charge batteries in the cellar of his mansion in Cleveland.
For decades, use of the renewable energy source remained limited because even in the best locations such as southeastern Wyoming, where winds consistently blow at speeds greater than 7 meters per second, turbines operate at only 30-40 percent of their capacity.
``The issue with wind power is that it's a variable source of electricity,'' says Keith Hays, a Barcelona, Spain-based research director at Emerging Energy Research. ``You just can't turn it off and on.''
Tanti's Textile Company
Tanti's interest in wind power was first nurtured at a business owned by his father. Tulsi was born in the small town of Rajkot in Gujarat in 1958, 11 years after India got its independence from British rule.
His father quit farming and started a business to distribute potatoes that required a freezer to store them. Tulsi returned from college in 1978 and joined his father's company, which was burdened with high energy costs.
He installed fins on cooling coils inside the freezer to increase efficiency and moved the condenser to the top of the building, where natural wind flow helped cool it. Within a year, he'd cut energy consumption by 30 percent.
In 1982, Tanti moved to Surat in Gujarat, a center for textile manufacturing, and, three years later, started his own company to make polyester filament yarn for clothing. Dhirubhai Ambani, the late billionaire founder of the Reliance group of companies, now one of India's biggest conglomerates, also got his start in textiles in Gujarat.
Hands-on Experience
Tanti named his company Suzlon Synthetics, using a combination of suz from the Hindi term soojh-boojh, which means intelligence, and lon from the word loan -- the two things he says are needed to be successful in business.
In an energy-intensive business like textile manufacturing, Tanti's profits also depended on controlling costs. In the early 1990s, Tanti learned that the state government of Gujarat, in trying to reduce blackouts that could last two days, was beginning to buy wind power and give producers tax breaks.
The incentives spurred Tanti to join an early wave of manufacturers in Gujarat that experimented with turbines. His employees had to install them because the maker, Vestas, didn't have enough manpower in Gujarat to do the job, Tanti says. His hands-on experience with the turbines was fortuitous, deepening his knowledge of a nascent industry in India that was about to boom.
``The same way we wanted to hedge our power cost by using wind, we thought others would be interested in freezing their cost as well,'' says Kirti Vagadia, Suzlon's acting CFO.
One-Stop Shop
With only about 1 percent of India's power generation coming from wind energy, Tanti visited installations and talked with equipment makers and potential customers to figure out the products and services he might sell. In addition to building turbines, Tanti decided to also install and operate them, since buyers in India included manufacturers that didn't have the capacity to put up the turbines.
``The one thing unique about India is that the company that produces the components and turbines also develops the wind farm site,'' Hays says.
While holding on to his textile company, Tanti started Suzlon Energy with 20 employees in the basement of an office building in the western city of Ahmedabad. The firm had $1 million, mostly from bank loans, and a licensing agreement to use German technology.
Early on, sales trickled in: In 1996, Suzlon installed 10 turbines producing a total of 3 megawatts of power in Gujarat for Indian Petrochemicals Corp., the nation's second-biggest chemicals maker.
Power for Tata
Suzlon's sales didn't take off until about 1999, when it began developing and operating large wind farms for companies such as Tata Finance Ltd., a part of India's Tata Group, a $55 billion conglomerate, and Bajaj Auto Ltd., the nation's second-biggest motorcycle maker. Tanti sold his textile firm to a partner for an undisclosed amount a year later.
To build the wind farm in Supa, 90 kilometers west of Pune, Suzlon had to do more than erect 60-meter-tall steel towers and install 65-metric-ton (72-U.S.-ton) turbines on top of them. The firm had to carve a single-lane winding road over undulating brush to a curved ridge where the towers would stand. It also built a control center to monitor the farm's performance and offices and dorms for the site's managers and workers.
In 2001, Suzlon's one-stop-shop service made it India's No. 1 turbine maker, capturing about 50 percent of the market for new installations. By March 2004, the firm had installed a total of 600 megawatts of wind power.
Soaring IPO
At that point, Suzlon had only dipped its toe into much larger overseas markets, working with DanMar & Associates on a wind farm in Minnesota, starting a rotor blade research center in the Netherlands and opening a turbine design firm in Germany, the world leader in installations.
To compete with global heavyweights such as Vestas, Suzlon needed money and brand exposure.
``We were a small company and weren't publicly listed,'' Tanti says. ``That's when we decided to do an IPO.''
The initial public offering in 2005 in India raised $338 million. The shares were oversubscribed almost 46 times and rose 94 percent on the Bombay Stock Exchange in the first year of trading. Tanti and his family own 66 percent of the company.
Armed with IPO riches, Tanti began expanding through acquisitions to tap the world's largest wind power markets in Europe, the U.S. and China. In 2006, Suzlon bought Belgium's Hansen Transmissions International NV, a maker of gearboxes that magnify the motion of the blades to generate more power, for $566 million.
The move put Tanti in control of a key turbine component that was in short supply.
`Smart Move'
``Hansen was up for grabs,'' ChrysCapital's Dhawan says. ``While others were asleep at the switch, Tanti pounced. Later, it was the talk of the industry, saying 'very smart move.'''
Suzlon also invested in manufacturing, opening nine plants in India, China and the U.S. to support soaring global sales. By March 2007, it had installed 3,768 megawatts of wind power, a sixfold increase over 2004.
Vagadia says lower labor and material costs have given the company the ability to undercut the prices of rivals and still make a profit. Suzlon's revenue has almost doubled each year since 2004, topping out at $3.4 billion in the 12 months ended on March 31. That's when the company hit some turbulence.
Suzlon's V2 blades supplied to John Deere Wind Energy, a part of Moline, Illinois-based Deere & Co., and customers worldwide began to crack under the stress of certain wind conditions. In June, Edison International, one of Suzlon's biggest customers, canceled an order for 150 turbines after discovering the flaw.
``We thought it was prudent to not purchase more turbines until the analysis for the cracked blades is completed,'' says Douglas McFarlan, a spokesman for Edison. ``In a business that is growing as rapidly as this, it is not unheard of for these types of problems to occur.''
Bidding War
Vagadia says the faulty blades have affected Suzlon's reputation and the company is working with customers to limit the damage. Suzlon has set aside $139 million to compensate customers for the cracked blades and now ships a stiffer product called V3, made of fiber-reinforced plastic, that hasn't broken.
``We have taken our customers into confidence,'' Vagadia says. ``We are giving the right information to whoever is asking - - the media, analysts or investors.''
Suzlon's investment in Hamburg-based Repower Systems AG is also a concern for investors.
In May 2007, Suzlon won a bidding war with French nuclear power giant Areva SA with a $1.6 billion offer for Repower, a turbine maker that also produces supersized offshore rigs. Since then, Suzlon has raised its stake in Repower to 66 percent by buying out Areva's interest in the company even as the offshore wind farm business has been in the doldrums.
Offshore Wind Farms
Projects worth $120 billion are stalled partly because of a shortage of construction ships and the soaring cost of steel used in the turbines. Repower's 5-megawatt turbine stands on a tower about 90 meters tall, holds blades that are 61.5 meters long and can only be serviced using a helicopter.
Material costs have driven up turbine prices about 20 percent since about July 2007.
In the U.S., public opposition to offshore wind farms that may obstruct panoramic views is such a big obstacle that none have been built. The Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts has been stymied by lawsuits. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, whose family owns property within sight of the proposed turbines, has objected to the potential impact on tourism and the fishing industry.
``Two years ago, I wouldn't have expected an offshore system in the U.S. until 2020 or so,'' says Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, a Washington-based industry group. ``But with surging fuel costs and the cancellation of so many coal plants on carbon concerns, especially in the Northeast we could see developments move forward much quicker than that.''
China Acquisition
Suzlon is also confronting strife within its ranks. In April, CFO Krahenbuhl quit because of disputes with CEO Horbach, says Vagadia, who's a former director. A month later, the company's leader left after 16 months on the job to spend more time with his family, Vagadia says. Suzlon responded by naming an insider, international corporate development vice president Toine van Megen, as CEO to try to restore order.
``All is not hunky-dory at Suzlon,'' says Ambareesh Baliga, a vice president at Mumbai-based Karvy Stock Broking Ltd. ``The departures are a cause for concern.'' Krahenbuhl and Horbach couldn't be reached for comment.
Tanti's trip-ups haven't made him more cautious as he pushes further into China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, after the U.S. China's wind power capacity will exceed 30 gigawatts by 2020 compared with 2.6 gigawatts in 2006, according to the government-run Chinese Wind Energy Association.
Not a Family Business
Tanti, who set up a plant in China in 2006 to make components and put together wind turbines, agreed to buy China's Honiton Energy Holdings Plc with Manama, Bahrain-based investment bank Arcapita Bank BSC for $2 billion in July.
Honiton owns the rights to land in China's Inner Mongolia region with the potential to generate 1,650 megawatts of wind power. Only 50 megawatts have been developed there so far, Vagadia says.
As Tanti builds his clean energy empire, he stands out from Indian entrepreneurs in another way. When he retires, he's not going to hand Suzlon to either his son, Pranav, 23, or daughter, Nidhi, 22. Pranav works at Merrill Lynch & Co., and Nidhi works at Credit Suisse Group, both in Hong Kong.
``I have not followed my father and run that business,'' Tanti says. ``They will not follow me. Suzlon is completely run by a professional team. On the board, there is one family member. It's run like American or European companies.''
Share Price
Those executives must find a way to lift a stock that had fallen 44 percent since the start of the year. That compared with an 8.7 percent rise for Vestas and a 1 percent fall for the ISE Global Wind Energy Index.
``The most concerning issue for me is not whether they hit their No. 3 market share but how quickly they put this blade issue behind them,'' I.G. Investment's McClure says.
Even with high oil prices, a company that draws on a resource as abundant and ubiquitous as air still has to make a product that customers want to buy at a price they're willing pay.
To contact the reporter on this story: Abhay Singh in New Delhi at abhaysingh@bloomberg.net.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Nuclear power in France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
Nuclear power in France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pressurized_Reactor
Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
- In the spring of 2007 China National Nuclear Corp. selected the Westinghouse/Shaw consortium to build four nuclear reactors for an estimated US$8 billion, the largest International nuclear contract in history.
Economics of new nuclear power plants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABWR
Civaux in southwestern France is a stereotypical rural French village with a square, a church and a small school. On a typical day, Monsieur Rambault, the baker, is up before dawn turning out baguettes and croissants. Shortly after, teacher Rene Barc opens the small school. There is a blacksmith, a hairdresser, a post office, a general store and a couple of bars. But overlooking the picturesque hamlet are two giant cooling towers from a nuclear plant, still under construction, a half-mile away. When the Civaux nuclear power plant comes on line sometime in the next 12 months, France will have 56 working nuclear plants, generating 76% of her electricity.
In France, unlike in America, nuclear energy is accepted, even popular. Everybody I spoke to in Civaux loves the fact their region was chosen. The nuclear plant has brought jobs and prosperity to the area. Nobody I spoke to, nobody, expressed any fear. From the village school teacher, Rene Barc, to the patron of the Cafe de Sport bar, Valerie Turbeau, any traces of doubt they might have had have faded as they have come to know plant workers, visited the reactor site and thought about the benefits of being part of France's nuclear energy effort.
France's decision to launch a large nuclear program dates back to 1973 and the events in the Middle East that they refer to as the "oil shock." The quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC nations was indeed a shock for France because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. France had and still has very few natural energy resources. It has no oil, no gas and her coal resources are very poor and virtually exhausted.
French policy makers saw only one way for France to achieve energy independence: nuclear energy, a source of energy so compact that a few pounds of fissionable uranium is all the fuel needed to run a big city for a year. Plans were drawn up to introduce the most comprehensive national nuclear energy program in history. Over the next 15 years France installed 56 nuclear reactors, satisfying its power needs and even exporting electricity to other European countries.
There were some protests in the early 70s, but since then (with one important exception discussed below), the nuclear program has been popular and remarkably non controversial. How was France able to get its people to accept nuclear power? What is about French culture and politics that allowed them to succeed where most other countries have failed?
Claude Mandil, the General Director for Energy and Raw Materials at the Ministry of Industry, cites at least three reasons. First, he says, the French are an independent people. The thought of being dependent for energy on a volatile region of the world such as the Middle East disturbed many French people. Citizens quickly accepted that nuclear might be a necessity. A popular French riposte to the question of why they have so much nuclear energy is "no oil, no gas, no coal, no choice."
Second, Mandil cites cultural factors. France has a tradition of large, centrally managed technological projects. And, he says, they are popular. "French people like large projects. They like nuclear for the same reasons they like high speed trains and supersonic jets."
Part of their popularity comes from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America. Many high ranking civil servants and government officials trained as scientists and engineers (rather than lawyers, as in the United States), and, unlike in the U.S. where federal administrators are often looked down upon, these technocrats form a special elite. Many have graduated from a few elite schools such as the Ecole Polytechnic. According to Mandil, respect and trust in technocrats is widespread. "For a long time, in families, the good thing for a child to become was an engineer or a scientist, not a lawyer. We like our engineers and our scientists and we are confident in them."
Thirdly, he says, the French authorities have worked hard to get people to think of the benefits of nuclear energy as well as the risks. Glossy television advertising campaigns reinforce the link between nuclear power and the electricity that makes modern life possible. Nuclear plants solicit people to take tours--an offer that six million French people have taken up. Today, nuclear energy is an everyday thing in France.
Many polls have been taken of French public opinion and most find that about two-thirds of the population are strongly in favor of nuclear power. It's not that the French don't have a gut fear of nuclear power. Psychologist Paul Slovic and his colleagues at Decision Research in Eugene, Oregon, discovered in their surveys that many French people have similar negative imagery and fears of radiation and disaster as Americans. The difference is that cultural, economic and political forces in France act to counteract these fears.
For example, while French citizens cannot control nuclear technology anymore than Americans, the fact that they trust the technocrats that do control it makes them feel more secure. Then there is need. Most French people know that life would be very difficult without nuclear energy. Because they need nuclear power more than us, they fear it less.
Civaux baker Jacques Rambault, admits that this technology is potentially dangerous and needs skillful management. As Chernobyl showed, the Russians, he says, were not "up to the task. But the French scientists and engineers are." For other citizens, rubbing shoulders with workers at the plant has made this once exotic technology an everyday thing. Many other risks concern them more. Madame Schoumacher, who has lived in Civaux most of her life, says "I would be much more frightened living next to a dam [France has about 12% hydroelectric power] or getting into her car in the morning." Others like bar owner Alain Cauvin cite "mad cow disease as being much scarier than nuclear power.
Ironically, the French nuclear program is based on American technology. After experimenting with their own gas-cooled reactors in the 1960s, the French gave up and purchased American Pressurized Water Reactors designed by Westinghouse. Sticking to just one design meant the 56 plants were much cheaper to build than in the US. Moreover, management of safety issues was much easier: the lessons from any incident at one plant could be quickly learned by managers of the other 55 plants. The "return of experience" says Mandil is much greater in a standardized system than in a free for all, with many different designs managed by many different utilities as we have in America.
Things were going very well until the late 80s when another nuclear issue surfaced that threatened to derail their very successful program: nuclear waste.
French technocrats had never thought that the waste issue would be much of a problem. From the beginning the French had been recycling their nuclear waste, reclaiming the plutonium and unused uranium and fabricating new fuel elements. This not only gave energy, it reduced the volume and longevity of French radioactive waste. The volume of the ultimate high-level waste was indeed very small: the contribution of a family of four using electricity for 20 years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. It was assumed that this high-level waste would be buried in underground geological storage and in the 80s French engineers began digging exploratory holes in France's rural regions.
To the astonishment of France's technocrats, the populations in these regions were extremely unhappy. There were riots. The same rural regions that had actively lobbied to become nuclear power plant sites were openly hostile to the idea of being selected as France's nuclear waste dump. In retrospect, Mandil says, it's not surprising. It's not the risk of a waste site, so much as the lack of any perceived benefit. "People in France can be proud of their nuclear plants, but nobody wants to be proud of having a nuclear dustbin under its feet." In 1990, all activity was stopped and the matter was turned over to the French parliament, who appointed a politician, Monsieur Bataille, to look into the matter.
Christian Bataille resembles the French comedian Jacques Tati. His face breaks into a broad grin when asked why he was appointed to this task. "They were desperate," he says. "In France, executive power dominates much more than in Anglo-Saxon countries. So that if the Executive asks parliament to do something it means they are really at the end of their ideas."
Bataille went and spoke to the people who were protesting and soon realized that the engineers and bureaucrats had greatly misunderstood the psychology of the French people. The technocrats had seen the problem in technical terms. To them, the cheapest and safest solution was to permanently bury the waste underground. But for the rural French says Bataille, "the idea of burying the waste awoke the most profound human myths. In France we bury the dead, we don't bury nuclear waste...there was an idea of profanation of the soil, desecration of the Earth."
Bataille discovered that the rural populations had an idea of "Parisians, the consumers of electricity, coming to the countryside, going to the bottom of your garden with a spade, digging a hole and burying nuclear waste, permanently." Using the word permanently was especially clumsy says Bataille because it left the impression that the authorities were abandoning the waste forever and would never come back to take care of it.
Fighting the objections of technical experts who argued it would increase costs, Bataille introduced the notions of reversibility and stocking. Waste should not be buried permanently but rather stocked in a way that made it accessible at some time in the future. People felt much happier with the idea of a "stocking center" than a "nuclear graveyard". Was this just a semantic difference? No, says Bataille. Stocking waste and watching it involves a commitment to the future. It implies that the waste will not be forgotten. It implies that the authorities will continue to be responsible. And, says Bataille, it offers some possibility of future advances. "Today we stock containers of waste because currently scientists don't know how to reduce or eliminate the toxicity, but maybe in 100 years perhaps scientists will."
Bataille began working on a new law that he presented to parliament in 1991. It laid plans to build 3-4 research laboratories at various sites. These laboratories would be charged with investigating various options, including deep geological storage, above ground stocking and transmutation and detoxification of waste. The law calls for the labs to be built in the next few years and then, based on the research they yield, parliament will decide its final decision. Bataille's law specifies 2006 as the year in which parliament must decide which laboratory will become the national stocking center
Bataille's plan seems to be working. Several regions have applied to host underground laboratories hoping the labs will bring in money and high prestige scientific jobs. But ultimate success is by no means certain. One of these laboratories will, in effect, become the stocking center for the nation and the local people may find that unacceptable. If protesters organize, they can block shipments on the roads and rail. The situation could quickly get out of hand.
Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."
Nuclear power in France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pressurized_Reactor
Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
- In the spring of 2007 China National Nuclear Corp. selected the Westinghouse/Shaw consortium to build four nuclear reactors for an estimated US$8 billion, the largest International nuclear contract in history.
Economics of new nuclear power plants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABWR
Civaux in southwestern France is a stereotypical rural French village with a square, a church and a small school. On a typical day, Monsieur Rambault, the baker, is up before dawn turning out baguettes and croissants. Shortly after, teacher Rene Barc opens the small school. There is a blacksmith, a hairdresser, a post office, a general store and a couple of bars. But overlooking the picturesque hamlet are two giant cooling towers from a nuclear plant, still under construction, a half-mile away. When the Civaux nuclear power plant comes on line sometime in the next 12 months, France will have 56 working nuclear plants, generating 76% of her electricity.
In France, unlike in America, nuclear energy is accepted, even popular. Everybody I spoke to in Civaux loves the fact their region was chosen. The nuclear plant has brought jobs and prosperity to the area. Nobody I spoke to, nobody, expressed any fear. From the village school teacher, Rene Barc, to the patron of the Cafe de Sport bar, Valerie Turbeau, any traces of doubt they might have had have faded as they have come to know plant workers, visited the reactor site and thought about the benefits of being part of France's nuclear energy effort.
France's decision to launch a large nuclear program dates back to 1973 and the events in the Middle East that they refer to as the "oil shock." The quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC nations was indeed a shock for France because at that time most of its electricity came from oil burning plants. France had and still has very few natural energy resources. It has no oil, no gas and her coal resources are very poor and virtually exhausted.
French policy makers saw only one way for France to achieve energy independence: nuclear energy, a source of energy so compact that a few pounds of fissionable uranium is all the fuel needed to run a big city for a year. Plans were drawn up to introduce the most comprehensive national nuclear energy program in history. Over the next 15 years France installed 56 nuclear reactors, satisfying its power needs and even exporting electricity to other European countries.
There were some protests in the early 70s, but since then (with one important exception discussed below), the nuclear program has been popular and remarkably non controversial. How was France able to get its people to accept nuclear power? What is about French culture and politics that allowed them to succeed where most other countries have failed?
Claude Mandil, the General Director for Energy and Raw Materials at the Ministry of Industry, cites at least three reasons. First, he says, the French are an independent people. The thought of being dependent for energy on a volatile region of the world such as the Middle East disturbed many French people. Citizens quickly accepted that nuclear might be a necessity. A popular French riposte to the question of why they have so much nuclear energy is "no oil, no gas, no coal, no choice."
Second, Mandil cites cultural factors. France has a tradition of large, centrally managed technological projects. And, he says, they are popular. "French people like large projects. They like nuclear for the same reasons they like high speed trains and supersonic jets."
Part of their popularity comes from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America. Many high ranking civil servants and government officials trained as scientists and engineers (rather than lawyers, as in the United States), and, unlike in the U.S. where federal administrators are often looked down upon, these technocrats form a special elite. Many have graduated from a few elite schools such as the Ecole Polytechnic. According to Mandil, respect and trust in technocrats is widespread. "For a long time, in families, the good thing for a child to become was an engineer or a scientist, not a lawyer. We like our engineers and our scientists and we are confident in them."
Thirdly, he says, the French authorities have worked hard to get people to think of the benefits of nuclear energy as well as the risks. Glossy television advertising campaigns reinforce the link between nuclear power and the electricity that makes modern life possible. Nuclear plants solicit people to take tours--an offer that six million French people have taken up. Today, nuclear energy is an everyday thing in France.
Many polls have been taken of French public opinion and most find that about two-thirds of the population are strongly in favor of nuclear power. It's not that the French don't have a gut fear of nuclear power. Psychologist Paul Slovic and his colleagues at Decision Research in Eugene, Oregon, discovered in their surveys that many French people have similar negative imagery and fears of radiation and disaster as Americans. The difference is that cultural, economic and political forces in France act to counteract these fears.
For example, while French citizens cannot control nuclear technology anymore than Americans, the fact that they trust the technocrats that do control it makes them feel more secure. Then there is need. Most French people know that life would be very difficult without nuclear energy. Because they need nuclear power more than us, they fear it less.
Civaux baker Jacques Rambault, admits that this technology is potentially dangerous and needs skillful management. As Chernobyl showed, the Russians, he says, were not "up to the task. But the French scientists and engineers are." For other citizens, rubbing shoulders with workers at the plant has made this once exotic technology an everyday thing. Many other risks concern them more. Madame Schoumacher, who has lived in Civaux most of her life, says "I would be much more frightened living next to a dam [France has about 12% hydroelectric power] or getting into her car in the morning." Others like bar owner Alain Cauvin cite "mad cow disease as being much scarier than nuclear power.
Ironically, the French nuclear program is based on American technology. After experimenting with their own gas-cooled reactors in the 1960s, the French gave up and purchased American Pressurized Water Reactors designed by Westinghouse. Sticking to just one design meant the 56 plants were much cheaper to build than in the US. Moreover, management of safety issues was much easier: the lessons from any incident at one plant could be quickly learned by managers of the other 55 plants. The "return of experience" says Mandil is much greater in a standardized system than in a free for all, with many different designs managed by many different utilities as we have in America.
Things were going very well until the late 80s when another nuclear issue surfaced that threatened to derail their very successful program: nuclear waste.
French technocrats had never thought that the waste issue would be much of a problem. From the beginning the French had been recycling their nuclear waste, reclaiming the plutonium and unused uranium and fabricating new fuel elements. This not only gave energy, it reduced the volume and longevity of French radioactive waste. The volume of the ultimate high-level waste was indeed very small: the contribution of a family of four using electricity for 20 years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. It was assumed that this high-level waste would be buried in underground geological storage and in the 80s French engineers began digging exploratory holes in France's rural regions.
To the astonishment of France's technocrats, the populations in these regions were extremely unhappy. There were riots. The same rural regions that had actively lobbied to become nuclear power plant sites were openly hostile to the idea of being selected as France's nuclear waste dump. In retrospect, Mandil says, it's not surprising. It's not the risk of a waste site, so much as the lack of any perceived benefit. "People in France can be proud of their nuclear plants, but nobody wants to be proud of having a nuclear dustbin under its feet." In 1990, all activity was stopped and the matter was turned over to the French parliament, who appointed a politician, Monsieur Bataille, to look into the matter.
Christian Bataille resembles the French comedian Jacques Tati. His face breaks into a broad grin when asked why he was appointed to this task. "They were desperate," he says. "In France, executive power dominates much more than in Anglo-Saxon countries. So that if the Executive asks parliament to do something it means they are really at the end of their ideas."
Bataille went and spoke to the people who were protesting and soon realized that the engineers and bureaucrats had greatly misunderstood the psychology of the French people. The technocrats had seen the problem in technical terms. To them, the cheapest and safest solution was to permanently bury the waste underground. But for the rural French says Bataille, "the idea of burying the waste awoke the most profound human myths. In France we bury the dead, we don't bury nuclear waste...there was an idea of profanation of the soil, desecration of the Earth."
Bataille discovered that the rural populations had an idea of "Parisians, the consumers of electricity, coming to the countryside, going to the bottom of your garden with a spade, digging a hole and burying nuclear waste, permanently." Using the word permanently was especially clumsy says Bataille because it left the impression that the authorities were abandoning the waste forever and would never come back to take care of it.
Fighting the objections of technical experts who argued it would increase costs, Bataille introduced the notions of reversibility and stocking. Waste should not be buried permanently but rather stocked in a way that made it accessible at some time in the future. People felt much happier with the idea of a "stocking center" than a "nuclear graveyard". Was this just a semantic difference? No, says Bataille. Stocking waste and watching it involves a commitment to the future. It implies that the waste will not be forgotten. It implies that the authorities will continue to be responsible. And, says Bataille, it offers some possibility of future advances. "Today we stock containers of waste because currently scientists don't know how to reduce or eliminate the toxicity, but maybe in 100 years perhaps scientists will."
Bataille began working on a new law that he presented to parliament in 1991. It laid plans to build 3-4 research laboratories at various sites. These laboratories would be charged with investigating various options, including deep geological storage, above ground stocking and transmutation and detoxification of waste. The law calls for the labs to be built in the next few years and then, based on the research they yield, parliament will decide its final decision. Bataille's law specifies 2006 as the year in which parliament must decide which laboratory will become the national stocking center
Bataille's plan seems to be working. Several regions have applied to host underground laboratories hoping the labs will bring in money and high prestige scientific jobs. But ultimate success is by no means certain. One of these laboratories will, in effect, become the stocking center for the nation and the local people may find that unacceptable. If protesters organize, they can block shipments on the roads and rail. The situation could quickly get out of hand.
Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Vinod Khosla, smartest guy in Silicon Valley!
-good source to see all kinds of Green projects in one place funded by one VC
http://www.khoslaventures.com/index.html
-click on left hand side menu to get all Startups involved in Renewable energy and Green projects
our renewable portfolio ( this power point has all kind of green stratups )
Over the past four years, Khosla has become the world's foremost investor in
environmental startups. He has committed an estimated $450 million of his personal fortune to financing 45 ethanol factories, solar-power parks, and makers of environmentally friendly lightbulbs, batteries, and automotive components.
These investments have made him the most prominent of an increasingly rare breed, the so-called angel investors who put their own funds into the youngest of companies -- including outfits that are pursuing the most innovative, but not yet commercially viable, approaches to serious problems such as global warming. It's a kind of seed-stage investing that traditional venture funds have largely abandoned.
And rightly so, Khosla says. "If somebody comes to you with a cold-fusion idea, you should not be funding it as an investor with other people's money. Funding it, if they're credible people, as a science experiment, as a hobby, is perfectly okay -- as long as it's your own money."
Khosla's green investing has made him something of a celebrity, mentioned in the media with the likes of mogul Richard Branson, former President Bill Clinton, Hollywood producer Stephen Bing, and General Motors chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner.
http://www.khoslaventures.com/index.html
-click on left hand side menu to get all Startups involved in Renewable energy and Green projects
our renewable portfolio ( this power point has all kind of green stratups )
Over the past four years, Khosla has become the world's foremost investor in
environmental startups. He has committed an estimated $450 million of his personal fortune to financing 45 ethanol factories, solar-power parks, and makers of environmentally friendly lightbulbs, batteries, and automotive components.
These investments have made him the most prominent of an increasingly rare breed, the so-called angel investors who put their own funds into the youngest of companies -- including outfits that are pursuing the most innovative, but not yet commercially viable, approaches to serious problems such as global warming. It's a kind of seed-stage investing that traditional venture funds have largely abandoned.
And rightly so, Khosla says. "If somebody comes to you with a cold-fusion idea, you should not be funding it as an investor with other people's money. Funding it, if they're credible people, as a science experiment, as a hobby, is perfectly okay -- as long as it's your own money."
Khosla's green investing has made him something of a celebrity, mentioned in the media with the likes of mogul Richard Branson, former President Bill Clinton, Hollywood producer Stephen Bing, and General Motors chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner.
What does Indo-US nuclear deal mean?
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam today (June 26) favoured India signing the nuclear deal with the U.S.A., saying that it would benefit the country which needs uranium supplies till thorium reactors are ready.
“We need a supply of uranium till our thorium reactors are ready,” Kalam said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Aerospace Science and Technology, organised by the National Space Laboratories to mark the institute’s golden jubilee celebration.
“The pact will help us,” he said.
--------------------------------------
The 75-year-old nuclear scientist also did not feel that the scientists were being ignored. “I didn’t feel like that at all.”
“Whatever has happened is (for) good,” Mr. Kalam responded when his view was sought on the deal on which the Prime Minister had consulted him.
Mr. Kalam said he had met the Prime Minister before “finishing my assignment (as President)” and highlighted the importance of thorium reactors.
“I told the Prime Minister that thorium reactors are very important,” he said.
The Prime Minister too agreed that progress must be made on that front, the former President said.
-------------------------------------
He pointed out that India has a total installed capacity of 135,000 megawatts, mostly comprised of thermal power, which is carbon-emitting, causing global warming, and that India's Nuclear Power Corporation has a goal of augmenting this capacity by as much as 30,000 megawatts to 60,000 megawatts over the next 20 years, "requiring investments in excess of $100 billion."
(asr: this is international take )
Washington, July 27, 2007 : The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to approve a landmark deal that will allow the United States to sell civilian nuclear technology to India.
Here is an overview of the deal and its implications:
WHAT IS THE PACT?
* The legislation amends Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. It lets the US make a one-time exception for India to keep its nuclear weapons without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The amendment overturns a 30-year-old US ban on supplying India with nuclear fuel and technology, implemented after India's first nuclear test in 1974.
* Under the amendment, India must separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities, and submit civilian facilities to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?
* Critics say it undermines the NPT, which holds that only countries which renounce nuclear weapons qualify for civilian nuclear assistance.
* The accord sends the wrong message: it could undercut a US-led campaign to curtail Iran's nuclear program, and open the way for a potential arms race in South Asia.
* India says 14 of its 22 nuclear facilities are civilian. Critics say the pact could make bomb making at the other eight easier, as civilian nuclear fuel needs will be met by the US
WHAT DO THE DEAL'S SUPPORTERS SAY?
* US President George Bush calls the deal necessary to reflect the countries' improved relations. It strengthens international security by tightening US ties to ally India, the world's biggest democracy. It also ensures some of its nuclear industry will undergo international inspection.
* New Delhi, which relies on imported oil for some 70 per cent of its energy needs, says nuclear power will help feed its rapidly expanding economy.
* France, which signed a similar deal with India in February 2006, says the move will help fight climate change and aid non-proliferation efforts.
HOW IS PAKISTAN INVOLVED?
* Pakistan sought a similar civilian technology deal with the US but was refused last in March. It is the only other confirmed nuclear power not to have signed the NPT - saying it will join after India does.
* Pakistan's own expanding nuclear program could fan the rivalry between India and Pakistan.
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRIES?
* China is said to have supported Pakistan's nuclear weapons program since the 1980s. Some analysts see the Indo-US deal as part of attempts by larger powers, the US and China, to shore up influence in South Asia by building up rival arsenals.
* The IAEA said in 2004 that Libya and Iran's nuclear programs were based on Chinese technology provided by Pakistan.
“We need a supply of uranium till our thorium reactors are ready,” Kalam said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Aerospace Science and Technology, organised by the National Space Laboratories to mark the institute’s golden jubilee celebration.
“The pact will help us,” he said.
--------------------------------------
The 75-year-old nuclear scientist also did not feel that the scientists were being ignored. “I didn’t feel like that at all.”
“Whatever has happened is (for) good,” Mr. Kalam responded when his view was sought on the deal on which the Prime Minister had consulted him.
Mr. Kalam said he had met the Prime Minister before “finishing my assignment (as President)” and highlighted the importance of thorium reactors.
“I told the Prime Minister that thorium reactors are very important,” he said.
The Prime Minister too agreed that progress must be made on that front, the former President said.
-------------------------------------
He pointed out that India has a total installed capacity of 135,000 megawatts, mostly comprised of thermal power, which is carbon-emitting, causing global warming, and that India's Nuclear Power Corporation has a goal of augmenting this capacity by as much as 30,000 megawatts to 60,000 megawatts over the next 20 years, "requiring investments in excess of $100 billion."
(asr: this is international take )
Washington, July 27, 2007 : The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to approve a landmark deal that will allow the United States to sell civilian nuclear technology to India.
Here is an overview of the deal and its implications:
WHAT IS THE PACT?
* The legislation amends Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. It lets the US make a one-time exception for India to keep its nuclear weapons without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The amendment overturns a 30-year-old US ban on supplying India with nuclear fuel and technology, implemented after India's first nuclear test in 1974.
* Under the amendment, India must separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities, and submit civilian facilities to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?
* Critics say it undermines the NPT, which holds that only countries which renounce nuclear weapons qualify for civilian nuclear assistance.
* The accord sends the wrong message: it could undercut a US-led campaign to curtail Iran's nuclear program, and open the way for a potential arms race in South Asia.
* India says 14 of its 22 nuclear facilities are civilian. Critics say the pact could make bomb making at the other eight easier, as civilian nuclear fuel needs will be met by the US
WHAT DO THE DEAL'S SUPPORTERS SAY?
* US President George Bush calls the deal necessary to reflect the countries' improved relations. It strengthens international security by tightening US ties to ally India, the world's biggest democracy. It also ensures some of its nuclear industry will undergo international inspection.
* New Delhi, which relies on imported oil for some 70 per cent of its energy needs, says nuclear power will help feed its rapidly expanding economy.
* France, which signed a similar deal with India in February 2006, says the move will help fight climate change and aid non-proliferation efforts.
HOW IS PAKISTAN INVOLVED?
* Pakistan sought a similar civilian technology deal with the US but was refused last in March. It is the only other confirmed nuclear power not to have signed the NPT - saying it will join after India does.
* Pakistan's own expanding nuclear program could fan the rivalry between India and Pakistan.
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRIES?
* China is said to have supported Pakistan's nuclear weapons program since the 1980s. Some analysts see the Indo-US deal as part of attempts by larger powers, the US and China, to shore up influence in South Asia by building up rival arsenals.
* The IAEA said in 2004 that Libya and Iran's nuclear programs were based on Chinese technology provided by Pakistan.
N-deal prize for US firms? Over $100 billion!
This is called 123 Agreement because this comes under USA's Atomic Power
Act Section 123.
(1) After this Agreement USA will supply all fuel, machinery / equipment
& technology to India for producing Nuclear Power.
(2) All these days from about 22 Nuclear Power Plants, India is
producing power as well as Atom. It's a high security / secret that
from where which is produced, how much is produced, where it is
supplied, what research is being done with that, etc. to anybody. But
if we sign this Agreement, we have to disclose these secrets and also
agree to 14 of our Nuclear Power Plants to be under the scanner of
International Atomic Power Organisation.
(3) The fuel utilised to produce Atomic Power can be recycled for reuse
and this plant will be under direct supervision of IAPO.
If India does nuclear test, this agreement gets cancelled.But
(1) USA will take back all the machinery / equipments / technology
supplied to India thus far.
(2) Those 14 plants will continue to be under scanner irrespective of
the status of the agreement.
On the other hand, if any of the commitments given by USA is breached by
them, then there is no clause for cancelling this agreement.
The agreement is apparently like this... USA can either hug India or
slap India. India will not ask why are we hugged or why are we slapped.
On the other hand, India cannot hug or slap USA for breach of agreement.
This is only capsule so that easy to read and digest.
-------------------
Some people don't want India to catch up with China: Chidamabaram
The Finance Minister said China, which draws only two per cent of its energy requirements from the nuclear sources, has mega plans to augment its atomic reactors. By 2020, China wants to build 50,000 MW capacity for nuclear energy and it plans to take it further to 1,20,000-1,60,000 MW by 2030.
(asr: by 2020 India wants to bulild N-capacity of 40,000 MW comparable to China's , see below)
Chidambaram said he wants India to emulate China without envying the neighbouring country. "I have no hesitation in saying that I do not want to envy China...I want to emulate China...I want India to become an economic power and economic super power".
He said a country as large as India should be compared with China. "When we talk about India, we should talk about countries which are as large and as complex as India and that is China...We cannot talk about countries which are smaller than India and poorer than India."
Chidambaram claimed the United Progress Alliance government has only taken the 'dialogue' of the previous National Democratic Alliance government further.
"Do we want to come out of nuclear isolation," the Finance Minister asked the Lok Sabha.
----------------------------
For the past three years, eager executives from US-based producers of nuclear power plants have been making a beeline for New Delhi, meeting with Indian government officials and coming back to America to lobby for the passage of a controversial nuclear deal between the US and India.
The agreement, first announced in June 2005 but still awaiting approval by Indian lawmakers, would allow India -- which has been subject to sanctions since testing a nuclear weapon 10 years ago -- to buy and sell nuclear technology in the international marketplace in exchange for opening up its civilian reactors for inspections.
The prize for the American companies? More than $100 billion in new reactor construction contracts in just the next 10 years, in a market that has always been closed off to American companies such as GE Energy, USEC and Westinghouse Electric.
India's economy hits the wall
Global banks target Indian investors
"Everyone knows that this is big," says GE's India CEO, Tejpreet Chopra. "At this point, we're just waiting to see how much capacity the government is willing to add and where."
The deal has been on hold for months, thanks to opposition from members of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government. Singh's decision to continue with the deal plunged the country into a parliamentary crisis two weeks ago, as his communist allies withdrew their support, decrying the deal as American imperialism.
The Congress-led coalition faces a confidence vote in Parliament on July 22. If the government survives -- and it's expected to, having replaced the left parties with smaller regional allies -- it will take the deal to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which must approve it before the US Congress can vote on it.
Waiting for India to sign the CSC
The delays have taken their toll, though. For the US executives who have been impatiently awaiting the deal's passage, it's becoming clear that when the Indian government finally hands out contracts for up to 30 new nuclear reactors of up to 1,200 megawatts each, US companies might not be at the front of the line.
Instead, French and Russian companies like Areva NP SAS, Atomenergoproekt, and ZAO Atomstroyexport are already taking advantage of their long-standing ties with India's nuclear community, and the fact that India has yet to sign the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC).
That's an international treaty that created a global pool of money to pay victims of nuclear disasters, and since India's not a party to it, any American-built reactors would have to shoulder their own civil liabilities -- a cost that would likely prove prohibitive.
Russian and French state-owned competitors wouldn't have that problem, since those companies could claim sovereign immunity in case of an accident.
"GE may never sell a reactor to India if they don't get the civil-liabilities issues taken care of," says George Perkovich at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation.
Companies have had difficulty penetrating India thanks to sanctions that date back a decade. In 1998, India tested a nuclear bomb near the border with Pakistan.
The resulting international trade sanctions, led by the US, starved India's nuclear reactors of uranium and its elite scientific institutes of superfast computers and other equipment that Washington deemed sensitive, or dual-use technology.
The current deal, nicknamed the 123 Agreement, was championed by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a way to bring theUS and India closer, and also for India to do business with the cliquish club of international nuclear suppliers. India is supposed to open up its 14 civilian reactors to international inspectors, and in return will be allowed to buy and trade nuclear fuel, reactors, and spares with the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group. Its military reactors will stay off-limits.
For American companies, this sounded like a blessing. Governments in the US have not approved a nuclear reactor for construction since 1979's Three-Mile Island accident, even though American companies have been involved in about 60 reactors in Japan, South Korea, Finland, and elsewhere.
India's energy needs are vast -- as its economy booms, the country plans to quintuple its nuclear energy production to as much as 40,000 megawatts by 2020. At an estimated $2.5 billion per 1,000 megawatts, the nearly 30 new reactors India will commission could signal the beginning of a "nuclear renaissance" that American nuclear companies have been waiting for, says the US-India Business Council's Ron Sumers.
France, Russia Stand to gain more
First, the deal needs to win approval in India's Parliament, though. India's Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has had to swap out its communist allies with those from a smaller regional party. And the deal is no sure thing in Washington, either.
The White House is pushing hard to get the deal on the legislative calendar in the House and Senate. For an embattled President, bringing India into the nuclear fold would be a rare foreign policy success for the Bush Administration.
Even if the deal does finally go through, it could be as late as 2009 when India finally gets around to signing the CSC; until it does, no American nuclear company can afford to take the risk of doing business in India.
"That's the kind of protection that companies look for when they decide to invest in countries," said Omer Brown, a Washington-based lawyer who helped push the treaty on behalf of the Contractors International Group on Nuclear Liability.
Meanwhile, both Areva and the Russian companies have leaped to the front of the queue, Atomenergoproekt and Atomstroyexport are already helping India build a nuclear reactor in Kudankulam, in southern India.
France's Areva has been in site-specific negotiations with the state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India, says a senior official at the Indian company who declined to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the deal; Areva has exploratory agreements in place that almost assure it of a site in western India.
The prospect of losing more lucrative contracts to the French and Russians has US companies worried. "Signing the CSC would be a way for India to say that they are prepared to play a full role in the international nuclear renaissance," says Dennis Hays, vice-president of governmental affairs at Thorium Power, a specialist in nuclear-fuel design based in McLean, Va., that considers India to be crucial for growth. India has one-third of the world's known thorium deposits.
Large enough playing field for everyone
At the same time, the argument in India goes, why should India commission reactors from American companies that aren't even making sales at home?
"I can easily see the Indians going for French or Russian reactors because they are seen as more advanced," said Padmanabha Chari of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, a Delhi-based think tank. "In the US, the entire industry has stopped growing, and they aren't into the most modern technology."
That's a misconception, say executives from US companies, but it's one they have to fight hard against. Indian officials have tried to assure the companies that the pie is large enough that they will eventually get a decent-sized piece.
"Irrespective of any understanding or quid pro quo, the current situation in India is that the demand for electricity is so large, that we can accommodate all countries," says RB Grover of India's Bhabha Atomic Research Center and India's chief negotiator for the nuclear deal.
There's more than just nuclear reactor business on the line. The deal is seen as a proxy for Indo-American relations, and if it survives, it augurs well for future strategic defense and economic ties. One defense deal delayed until the 123 agreement is signed is the nearly $11 billion purchase of 126 fighters for India's Air Force, a bellwether for US-India military acquisitions. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have horses in that race.
Who
Act Section 123.
(1) After this Agreement USA will supply all fuel, machinery / equipment
& technology to India for producing Nuclear Power.
(2) All these days from about 22 Nuclear Power Plants, India is
producing power as well as Atom. It's a high security / secret that
from where which is produced, how much is produced, where it is
supplied, what research is being done with that, etc. to anybody. But
if we sign this Agreement, we have to disclose these secrets and also
agree to 14 of our Nuclear Power Plants to be under the scanner of
International Atomic Power Organisation.
(3) The fuel utilised to produce Atomic Power can be recycled for reuse
and this plant will be under direct supervision of IAPO.
If India does nuclear test, this agreement gets cancelled.But
(1) USA will take back all the machinery / equipments / technology
supplied to India thus far.
(2) Those 14 plants will continue to be under scanner irrespective of
the status of the agreement.
On the other hand, if any of the commitments given by USA is breached by
them, then there is no clause for cancelling this agreement.
The agreement is apparently like this... USA can either hug India or
slap India. India will not ask why are we hugged or why are we slapped.
On the other hand, India cannot hug or slap USA for breach of agreement.
This is only capsule so that easy to read and digest.
-------------------
Some people don't want India to catch up with China: Chidamabaram
The Finance Minister said China, which draws only two per cent of its energy requirements from the nuclear sources, has mega plans to augment its atomic reactors. By 2020, China wants to build 50,000 MW capacity for nuclear energy and it plans to take it further to 1,20,000-1,60,000 MW by 2030.
(asr: by 2020 India wants to bulild N-capacity of 40,000 MW comparable to China's , see below)
Chidambaram said he wants India to emulate China without envying the neighbouring country. "I have no hesitation in saying that I do not want to envy China...I want to emulate China...I want India to become an economic power and economic super power".
He said a country as large as India should be compared with China. "When we talk about India, we should talk about countries which are as large and as complex as India and that is China...We cannot talk about countries which are smaller than India and poorer than India."
Chidambaram claimed the United Progress Alliance government has only taken the 'dialogue' of the previous National Democratic Alliance government further.
"Do we want to come out of nuclear isolation," the Finance Minister asked the Lok Sabha.
----------------------------
For the past three years, eager executives from US-based producers of nuclear power plants have been making a beeline for New Delhi, meeting with Indian government officials and coming back to America to lobby for the passage of a controversial nuclear deal between the US and India.
The agreement, first announced in June 2005 but still awaiting approval by Indian lawmakers, would allow India -- which has been subject to sanctions since testing a nuclear weapon 10 years ago -- to buy and sell nuclear technology in the international marketplace in exchange for opening up its civilian reactors for inspections.
The prize for the American companies? More than $100 billion in new reactor construction contracts in just the next 10 years, in a market that has always been closed off to American companies such as GE Energy, USEC and Westinghouse Electric.
India's economy hits the wall
Global banks target Indian investors
"Everyone knows that this is big," says GE's India CEO, Tejpreet Chopra. "At this point, we're just waiting to see how much capacity the government is willing to add and where."
The deal has been on hold for months, thanks to opposition from members of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government. Singh's decision to continue with the deal plunged the country into a parliamentary crisis two weeks ago, as his communist allies withdrew their support, decrying the deal as American imperialism.
The Congress-led coalition faces a confidence vote in Parliament on July 22. If the government survives -- and it's expected to, having replaced the left parties with smaller regional allies -- it will take the deal to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which must approve it before the US Congress can vote on it.
Waiting for India to sign the CSC
The delays have taken their toll, though. For the US executives who have been impatiently awaiting the deal's passage, it's becoming clear that when the Indian government finally hands out contracts for up to 30 new nuclear reactors of up to 1,200 megawatts each, US companies might not be at the front of the line.
Instead, French and Russian companies like Areva NP SAS, Atomenergoproekt, and ZAO Atomstroyexport are already taking advantage of their long-standing ties with India's nuclear community, and the fact that India has yet to sign the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC).
That's an international treaty that created a global pool of money to pay victims of nuclear disasters, and since India's not a party to it, any American-built reactors would have to shoulder their own civil liabilities -- a cost that would likely prove prohibitive.
Russian and French state-owned competitors wouldn't have that problem, since those companies could claim sovereign immunity in case of an accident.
"GE may never sell a reactor to India if they don't get the civil-liabilities issues taken care of," says George Perkovich at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation.
Companies have had difficulty penetrating India thanks to sanctions that date back a decade. In 1998, India tested a nuclear bomb near the border with Pakistan.
The resulting international trade sanctions, led by the US, starved India's nuclear reactors of uranium and its elite scientific institutes of superfast computers and other equipment that Washington deemed sensitive, or dual-use technology.
The current deal, nicknamed the 123 Agreement, was championed by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a way to bring theUS and India closer, and also for India to do business with the cliquish club of international nuclear suppliers. India is supposed to open up its 14 civilian reactors to international inspectors, and in return will be allowed to buy and trade nuclear fuel, reactors, and spares with the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group. Its military reactors will stay off-limits.
For American companies, this sounded like a blessing. Governments in the US have not approved a nuclear reactor for construction since 1979's Three-Mile Island accident, even though American companies have been involved in about 60 reactors in Japan, South Korea, Finland, and elsewhere.
India's energy needs are vast -- as its economy booms, the country plans to quintuple its nuclear energy production to as much as 40,000 megawatts by 2020. At an estimated $2.5 billion per 1,000 megawatts, the nearly 30 new reactors India will commission could signal the beginning of a "nuclear renaissance" that American nuclear companies have been waiting for, says the US-India Business Council's Ron Sumers.
France, Russia Stand to gain more
First, the deal needs to win approval in India's Parliament, though. India's Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has had to swap out its communist allies with those from a smaller regional party. And the deal is no sure thing in Washington, either.
The White House is pushing hard to get the deal on the legislative calendar in the House and Senate. For an embattled President, bringing India into the nuclear fold would be a rare foreign policy success for the Bush Administration.
Even if the deal does finally go through, it could be as late as 2009 when India finally gets around to signing the CSC; until it does, no American nuclear company can afford to take the risk of doing business in India.
"That's the kind of protection that companies look for when they decide to invest in countries," said Omer Brown, a Washington-based lawyer who helped push the treaty on behalf of the Contractors International Group on Nuclear Liability.
Meanwhile, both Areva and the Russian companies have leaped to the front of the queue, Atomenergoproekt and Atomstroyexport are already helping India build a nuclear reactor in Kudankulam, in southern India.
France's Areva has been in site-specific negotiations with the state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India, says a senior official at the Indian company who declined to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the deal; Areva has exploratory agreements in place that almost assure it of a site in western India.
The prospect of losing more lucrative contracts to the French and Russians has US companies worried. "Signing the CSC would be a way for India to say that they are prepared to play a full role in the international nuclear renaissance," says Dennis Hays, vice-president of governmental affairs at Thorium Power, a specialist in nuclear-fuel design based in McLean, Va., that considers India to be crucial for growth. India has one-third of the world's known thorium deposits.
Large enough playing field for everyone
At the same time, the argument in India goes, why should India commission reactors from American companies that aren't even making sales at home?
"I can easily see the Indians going for French or Russian reactors because they are seen as more advanced," said Padmanabha Chari of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, a Delhi-based think tank. "In the US, the entire industry has stopped growing, and they aren't into the most modern technology."
That's a misconception, say executives from US companies, but it's one they have to fight hard against. Indian officials have tried to assure the companies that the pie is large enough that they will eventually get a decent-sized piece.
"Irrespective of any understanding or quid pro quo, the current situation in India is that the demand for electricity is so large, that we can accommodate all countries," says RB Grover of India's Bhabha Atomic Research Center and India's chief negotiator for the nuclear deal.
There's more than just nuclear reactor business on the line. The deal is seen as a proxy for Indo-American relations, and if it survives, it augurs well for future strategic defense and economic ties. One defense deal delayed until the 123 agreement is signed is the nearly $11 billion purchase of 126 fighters for India's Air Force, a bellwether for US-India military acquisitions. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have horses in that race.
Who
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