Nuclear simplicity

This refers to the article, ‘Nuclear needs’ (July 25) by Muhammad Umar. The writer has tried to build his case for the two nuclear power plants near Karachi on a set of very weak arguments. First, if extra precautions after a nuclear accident were enough to obviate new ones then we would not have witnessed Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents after the Three Mile Island tragedy. Second, the fact that China or some other country will install the new ACP-1000 technology does not prove that it is a perfectly safe technology because it has not been field tested in actual operating environment anywhere in the world. Third, on the basis of levelised cost, nuclear electricity might be cheaper than that from certain fossil fuel-based plants but even in China, according to a recent IEA survey, electricity from nuclear plants is more expensive than that from hydroelectric plants. In terms of upfront capital outlays, however, the nuclear option is still the most expensive technology worldwide – a real constraint in the prevailing financial markets.
A critical point is that the safety of a technological system, in particular of a high-risk facility like nuclear, should always be seen in the environment in which it has to operate and the supportive infrastructure and means that will be available to deal with any potential mishap. In a country that is struggling to even effectively deal with predictable surprises like prolonged power interruptions, heavy rains and seasonal floods, hoping to safely manage the catastrophic consequences of an unpredictable accident from a nuclear facility in or near one of the world’s major and most-densely urban centres is rather simplistic, to put it mildly.
M Shahid Rahim
Riyadh
Saudi Arabia