Table of Contents
When we talk about nuclear power, we often think about bombs and devastation, but nuclear power can be used positively to push human growth and make life easier. We will see India’s clear approach while dealing with nuclear power and energy.
It was 1947, and India had just won its independence, while we were feeling the first fresh air of freedom, on the other side the world had witnessed the most horrific side of human evilness in World War 2.
- It is estimated that almost 6 million Jews were killed during World War 2.
- It was fought on 6 of the seven continents.
- 50 million people perished into oblivion.
- The World War 2 is the largest land invasion in human history.
Furthermore, the event that shook the world was when the U.S.A., to put an end to World War 2, dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- The temperature at the center of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki reached a staggering 120 Million degrees.
- 70,000 Japanese were killed.
- Japan surrendered, and the war ended but not the dying.
The entire world was shocked to see how the two nuclear bombs turned two live cities into dust within minutes. The effects of the radiation were so devastating that it astounded the most powerful nations in the world.
It was the day every single leader in the world began to realize that nuclear weapons would be the main reason if even mankind came to an end. While the rest of the world saw nuclear bombs as a threat, one man saw it as an opportunity that would benefit humankind, he wasn’t any American or Russian. He was an optimistic Indian who went by the name “Homi Jehangir Bhabha” he was a nuclear scientist recognized for making various impacts on the nuclear journey of India.
==Pic of Homi Bhabha==
This was the time when India had just gotten its independence, we were such a poor country that 80% of our population was living in poverty, struggling for food and energy, and the entire world looked down on us as a hopeless nation that would part away because of the various internal issues. Out of many challenges one of the biggest was that early India faced was the lack of energy, healthcare, and food. We needed a miracle to recover from the destructions of the British Raj.
India had just gained its independence, and more than 80% of Indians were living in poverty struggling for food and energy, the entire world looked down on us as a hopeless nation that would soon fall. We were under the shackles of misery and hopelessness.
This is where Homi Bhabha comes and presents his wisdom, he knew that even though nuclear bombs are dangerous, the process of making one is similar to the miracle that India needed desperately to cure its energy needs. Bhabha had studied and knew the power of nuclear energy.
Look at this image I created on Canva.com.
One-inch eraser-sized uranium pellet can produce energy worth 1 ton of coal, 564 Litres of Oil, and about 17,000 cubic feet worth of natural gas. Homi Bhabha knew that nuclear energy could make India Independent of coal and oil, he knew that it would position India as a global leader in Science and Technology and most importantly, he knew if India had to become a developed nation, it would need nuclear energy.
Energy generated with Nuclear Power is by far the Cleanest source of energy.
Energy generated by nuclear power becomes even more important because it is by far the cleanest source of energy in the 21st century.
Look at this data on Greenhouse Gas Emission by Energy Source.
While coal produces 970 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per gigawatt hour of electricity, oil produces 720 tons, solar 53 tons, and wind 11 tons, whereas nuclear energy only produces 6 tons of greenhouse gas. So to Homi Bhabha, nuclear power was not just an option but an absolute necessity.
But despite the vision and ambitions of Homi Bhabha, we are way behind in nuclear energy. As of 2020 data, France produced 70% of its energy needs from nuclear, Russia 20%, Pakistan 7.1%, and India just 3.3%.
But the question is, why is India so far behind in Producing Nuclear energy to meet its requirements?
In 2022 during the COP-26 (Conference of Parties)summit in Glasgow, Indian Prime Minister Modi committed India to achieving the target of becoming a net-zero emissions country by 2070. When net zero carbon emission is such a big deal, why are we so far in nuclear energy development?
Because He Died in a Plane Crash
Just when Homi Bhabha was about to make a breakthrough in India’s nuclear vision, he died in a plane crash. Just 13 days before, our PM Lal Bahadur Shastri had died in mysterious circumstances in the USSR when he had gone to make a peace agreement with Pakistan.
Both of these leaders were about to achieve a breakthrough in India’s nuclear program and both died in a mysterious circumstance within two weeks. In the case of PM Shashtri there was no postmortem done, while Bhabha’s plane crash investigation was left incomplete.
- So what was Dr. Bhabha’s nuclear plan for India that could have changed India’s history forever?
- Why did India fall behind today?
- And, What are the challenges that are paralyzing India’s growth in nuclear energy today?
- Most importantly, Where does India’s nuclear energy program stand today?
Back to the Past The year 1947
India in 1947 was in such a sensitive state that it was dependent on imports to meet its energy needs. We need to be energy-independent so that we can run our country smoothly without much external pressure. There were only two things that could have been done, either we had to generate energy or we had to buy it from other countries. But when it came to buying energy, it was a very big risk back then. World War 2 had just ended and the world had seen how energy could be weaponised. So if India bought oil from Saudi Arabia there was a constant threat that they could cut off the oil supply any day and choke India’s economy.
In fact, in the 1940’s the Middle East was controlled by the British and American oil companies, so the leader in India had to be very cautious while putting their dependence on Western countries. The matter became much worse when Pakistan attacked us in 1948 for an illegal invasion of Kashmir.
This is the time two legends from India came together with a vision to support scientific research for India, Dr Bhabha and JRD Tata. Both of these saw the need for advanced scientific research institutes in India. With the help of JRD Tata, Dr Bhabha set up the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).
Dr. Bhabha proposed the Dorabji TataTrustt envisioning a new Institute, a place where talented scientists would have the scope to realize their potential.
Dorabji’s reply was encouraging; if you and or some of your colleagues in the scientific world put up a concrete proposal backed by a sound case. I think that there is a very good chance that the Dorabji Tata Trust will respond.
Both Dr. Bhabha and JRD Tata realized that nuclear is the best energy to produce because it’s clean, it’s super efficient and the best part is unlike wind and solar you don’t have to wait for the perfect weather to operate a nuclear plant.
While Bhabha was struggling to get government approvals to set up the research facility, there was a looming threat of another major global war due to various countries conducting nuclear tests one after the other.
It was the U.S. that first did the nuclear test in 1945 soon it was followed by the Soviet Union in 1949, The U.K. did it in 1952, France in 1960, and by 1964 even China had a nuclear bomb.
The US did it in 1945, the Soviet Union did it in 1949, the UK did it in 1952, France did it in 1960 and by 1964 even China had a nuclear bomb. Now India desperately needed a nuclear strategy not only for producing energy but also to safeguard its existence. The reason was the Indo-China conflict of 1962 where India faced a loss. This prompted India to conduct a nuclear test as soon as it can.
Where does Nuclear Energy come from?
Nuclear energy is generated by Uranium, let’s understand a little bit of science here. A uranium atom is made up of Proton and Neutrons and there are 92 protons and 143 neutrons in a uranium atom.
A neutron is thrown at a uranium atom, it absorbs a neutron and this makes nuclear extremely unstable and it splits into two smaller nuclei. The splitting releases a huge amount of energy and we use this energy to heat water which turns into steam which then spins a turbine that generates electricity. This process takes place inside something called a light water reactor and almost all countries use this method to generate elecytricity using nuclear.
But, even with uranium, there was a big problem, Homi Bhabha knew that we had to import nuclear reactors from other countries. The reason was India only had 1 to 2% of uranium reserves. Mr. Bhabha realized that we could replace uranium with another element that is readily available on the sandy beaches of India. This element was Thorium.
Thorium is another element that is silvery and slightly radioactive and which is, even more, cleaner and more energy efficient than uranium the best part is that India has one of the world’s largest reserves of Thorium we have 25% of the entire world’s thorium.
So Mr. Bhabha knew that thorium could replace uranium for India but there was a problem no other country had previously used thorium for producing energy so there was no blueprint available anywhere about thorium being used and researched to generate nuclear energy.
Mr. Bhabha’s Three-Step Nuclear Program
So this prompted Dr. Bhabha to come up with his unique three-step nuclear program as a way to develop nuclear energy using thorium.
- One was to use uranium in reactors to produce electricity and generate plutonium as a byproduct.
- In the second stage, the plutonium will be used to generate a lot of electricity and produce more plutonium by using uranium itself. Secondly, Uranium will be produced by the thorium itself.
- Thorium will be used along with uranium that was produced in stage two to produce even more energy required.
For all three stages we needed different types of reactors, more importantly back then all these stages required extensive research and development. And if we had completed the work it would have turned India into an energy superpower. Homi Bhabha achieved such quick success that in 1956 India got its first light water reactor called Apsara and we developed two more by 1961.
The Indo-Chinese War
This is when the India-China war broke out in 1962 and then followed by the India-Pakistan war in 1965. On October the 20th 1962, the first Chinese shell came screaming down and the war had begun. Soon after this war concluded Pakistan attacked India in 1965.
Nuclear Bomb for India
Due to continuous war, there was a shortage of resources for research and the development of nuclear energy slowed down. During the Indo-China war, Homi Bhabha understood that unless India has a nuclear bomb these nations will keep on attacking us. In fact on 4th October 1964 Just two weeks before the Chinese tested their nuclear weapons, Homi Bhabha declared that India could develop its atom bomb within 18 months with a decision to do so.
So did we make the nuclear bomb?
No, this was when the first prime minister of India Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru passed away and Lal Bahadur Shashtri became the prime minister of India. Dr. Homi told PM Shashtri that India must have its own nuclear bomb and research facility as soon as possible. PM Shashti was hesitant at first but still gave the green signal for India’s nuclear program in 1965. Unfortunately, terrible things started to happen just when we began to achieve breakthroughs in our thorium processing journey.
On 11th of January 1966 when PM Shashtri went to the Soviet Union to have peace talks with Pakistan. Just one day after signing the peace treaty he was said to have mysteriously died due to a heart attack.
And you know why mysterious?
The death of Pm Lal Bahadur Shashtri
- No Postmortem was done in the USSR
- Postmortem done in India was inconclusive.
- Speculations mention his body turned blue and there were cut marks on his body that suggested he might have been poisoned.
The Plane Carsh of Dr Bhabha
- India was trying to cope with the death of PM Shashtri and just 13 days later on 24th January 1966, Homi Bhabha died in a plane crash in Switzerland.
The death of Dr Bhabha was also mysterious because the investigation was left incomplete. This is how Dr Bhaha’s dream of making India energy independent remains a distant dream.
Non-Proliferation treaty
In 1968 after China, The UK, France, The US, and the Soviet Union all these powerful Nations conducted their nuclear test they made everyone sign something called the Nonproliferation Treaty. This treaty meant that no other country could conduct nuclear tests which meant only China, the UK, the US, France, and the Soviet Union could have nuclear bombs but nobody else could have it.
Despite it being such a stupid policy, 191 countries signed it and only three countries did not sign it concerns were Israel, India, and Pakistan.
If you study Homi Bhabha’s life during this period, he feared three things
- Powerful nations will attack us without fear if we do not develop a nuclear bomb
- No nuclear energy resource means oil-rich nations can paralyze us anytime
- Lastly, with time passing developing an atomic bomb will become more and more difficult due to international pressure
And unfortunately, all three events happened.
In 1971 when Pakistan waged a war in East Pakistan, it entered India’s airspace. In reply India wages a war against Pakistan. During this time the United States sent its Navy to the Bay of Bengal and then US President Richard Nixon was even planning to drop a nuclear bomb on India. USSR Navy had come to protect us at that time due to an agreement.
So yes the big nations did try to mess with us exactly like Dr homie thought then in 1973 and 1979 when the Arab-Israeli War broke out what did the oil Nations do? They spiked the oil price so much that oil prices quadrupled by 1974 and again in 1979 which caused an energy and food crisis in India and paralyzed the Indian economy just the way Dr Bhabha predicted. The same happened two years ago in 2022 during the Russia-Ukraine war as well and it will happen again during the Iran-Israel tensions.
Even today just like we were dependent on oil back then, today we are dependent on China for solar cells we are dependent on China for our EV cells, and most important of all we are still largely dependent on the Middle East for most of our oil supply.
So did our dependence on other countries paralyze our economy? Yes. Lastly, Dr. Bhaba also feared that as time passed international pressure would make it more and more difficult for India to conduct a nuclear test. Did it happen? Well, Yes. When our Prime Minister Indra Gandhi approved the nuclear test, in 1974 India conducted its first peaceful nuclear explosion called Smiling Buddha.
This was not a weapon-grade nuclear test but a peaceful nuclear explosion which is why it was called Smiling Buddha. But what happened after was the international societies of the West cut our access to critical nuclear technology. They cut our access to uranium and the scientists from the US and Canada stopped working with India.
India reconducted the nuclear tests in May 1998 under the Bajpai government which is 32 years after Homi Baba’s death. India made history by conducting a series of five nuclear tests known as Phokharan 2. While we were proudly celebrating science and security what did the US do they imposed economic sanctions and tried to kill our economy again.
Did the international pressure keep on increasing with time just like Dr Homie had feared? Absolutely Yes! Even today 58 years after Homi Bhabha’s death we are yet to solve the second problem for India which is energy dependence we are still dependent on the Middle East and we still don’t use nuclear energy for our energy production as much as we should.
So this makes the question of what the hell are we doing about the thorium reserves and why are we not using it?
Well if you remember Dr. Homi Bhabha had a three-step process. And we are still left to complete the three-step process. Shockingly, Out of these three steps, for the first step, India has 24 operable reactors. For stage two our first fast breeder reactor was just completed this year. But for the third stage we still do not have a thorium reactor at all, and you know which country has it it is none other than China, China is the only country that has this Technology and it has yet to be tested. I have explained all the main reasons why we are so far behind in our nuclear energy that only 3% of our energy comes from nuclear.
This was the story of the dent in India’s nuclear Superpower Ambitions.
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