What are the comparative costs of electricity from nuclear and coal-fired plants?
The cost of electricity from imported nuclear plants is high because of the high capital cost. Even without including de-commissioning costs, storage of spent fuel indefinitely, etc., the cost of electricity from imported nuclear plants will be more than Rs. 5.00 per unit as against about Rs. 2.00 to 2.50 from coal-fired plants. The cost of electricity is therefore at least twice that from coal fired plants. For those who might remember the Enron case, would know that at that time, India was pushed to accept expensive private power only to help Enron. Once Enron started to produce power, its cost of Rs.5-7 per unit sank the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. If a 2,000 MW Enron plant sank the largest State Electricity Board in the country — the impact of pushing high cost 40,000 MW of nuclear energy using imported reactors, as the Government wants to do, may well be imagined.
