India To Open Nuclear Industry to Private Firms

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00:00Oil makers have passed a bill to open up the country's nuclear industry to private investment that could be worth more than $200 billion.

00:07It's part of government efforts to support the economy and wean itself off carbon.

00:12For more, let's get back to Stephen Stapchinski, who leads our Asia Energy Coverage out of Singapore.

00:17So, Stephen, can you tell us a little bit more about the details of these law changes

00:22and how they're going to alter the current states of nuclear power generation in India?

00:26Sure. There's two major pieces of this.

00:32One is it gets rid of the decades-old nuclear operating monopoly within India.

00:39So, it allows other companies to own, operate, build a nuclear reactor set,

00:45allows others to bring money in and to take on those projects.

00:48The second thing is it also gets rid of the liability laws or lessens them for the technology providers.

00:55So, in 2010, India introduced basically rules that made technology providers,

01:01that's like Westinghouse or any produced company from Europe or China that sells the technology to India,

01:10they would be liable in the case of an accident like a nuclear meltdown or any other operational issue.

01:16And that would open them up for litigation and other sorts of penalties.

01:21And that held up a lot of import deals between India and foreign suppliers.

01:30A lot of projects stalled because of that.

01:32And so, reducing that liability rule and also essentially opening up the sector,

01:38the idea is to pave the way for projects to move forward.

01:43Now, of course, there are a lot of questions that remain.

01:46These are not cheap projects.

01:48These are projects that cost billions of dollars.

01:52It requires banks to get on board.

01:54It requires towns and companies to get involved.

01:58So, while this is one of the barriers, there are a number of other things that need to kind of get cleared

02:05before we really see projects ramp up.

02:09Yes, Stephen, there's only about seven nuclear power plants in India at the moment.

02:13I mean, realistically speaking, where are we likely to see those numbers head?

02:18And is it going to put a dent in India's carbon footprint?

02:21So, there are – I guess you can look at it two ways.

02:27There is what the government wants to do, which is increase capacity 11-fold through 2047.

02:34That's going to cost over $200 billion.

02:37And it would be one of the largest builds-outs in nuclear power,

02:41second only to what China is in the middle of doing at the moment.

02:44Now, where do they actually land?

02:46That's a big question.

02:47I don't have the crystal ball.

02:49But I do – I think it is pretty clear that if they are able to drastically increase

02:54the amount of nuclear reactors that they have, that is one – every reactor is one less plant

03:02that's needed for coal.

03:03India is very much dependent on coal.

03:06Most of its power mix is generated by coal, and it's very polluting.

03:11It is the most polluting fossil fuel.

03:12So, by increasing, rapidly increasing, if they're able to increase 11-fold by 2047 over the next

03:18three – two decades, then you are going to see less of a dependence on that fossil fuel.

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