America
Why chain India to the past with n-energy, asks Indian-American expert
Washington, Feb 3
Noting that the US has not
set up a new nuclear installation for decades, an Indian-American
academic has accused President Barack Obama of hypocrisy in pushing
India on a technology the US won't even touch.
"Why chain India
to the past and risk another Chernobyl, Fukushima, or Bhopal when it
could be leapfrogging into the future?" asked Vivek Wadhwa, Director of
Research, CERC, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, in a
column in the Washington Post.
The rate at which solar and other
clean technologies are progressing, by the time the first nuclear plant
is operational in India, it will be far more expensive than the
alternatives, he said.
"The White House is claiming victory for a
breakthrough in the impasse with India over nuclear energy," Wadhwa
wrote suggesting "This is hardly a victory for the United States or for
India.
"It no longer makes sense for any country to install a
technology that can create a catastrophe such as Chernobyl or Fukushima -
especially when far better alternatives are available," he wrote.
In
places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia and parts of the
United States and India, residential-scale solar production has already
reached "grid parity" with average residential electricity prices, he
wrote
"In other words, it costs no more in the long term to
install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies -
without government subsidies," Wadhwa wrote.
In the late 2020s,
solar energy will cost a fraction of what fossil fuel - and
nuclear-based alternatives do,' he predicted suggesting, "This is the
reality - believe it or not."
Solar, wind, biomass, thermal,
tidal, and waste-breakdown energy, and a host of newer energy
technologies, are becoming increasingly practical to install worldwide,
Wadhwa noted.
Obama, he suggested, "should not be prescribing medicine that he would not take himself.
Germany
is working towards phasing out all of its nuclear plants by 2022 and
many other developed countries are looking to follow its lead, he said.
"So why subject India and other developing countries to these dangers?" Wadhwa asked.
Instead
of trying to chain India to the past with technologies such as nuclear,
Obama should help the country leapfrog into the future with clean
energy, he wrote.
"This will benefit not only India, but also the world."