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Putting the Rooppur cart before the horse

A.B.M. NURUL ISLAM
IN my op-ed piece, "Russian reactor for Rooppur” (DS, June 12,2010), I had pointed out the need for a feasibility study for the new proposal in view of the enormous increase in size of the reactor (from 70 MW in early 1960s to two 1,000 MW reactors now), large reduction in flow of the Ganges due to the implementation of the Farakka Barrage in mid-seventies, difficulty of transporting the heaviest piece of equipment, the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) to the inland site, etc. The RPV for such a reactor could typically weigh 800 tons or more
Such a feasibility study should have been carried out by an independent consultant costing around $10 million with our own money, taking not more than 6 months.
From this feasibility study we would have known whether the Rooppur site is suitable for the proposed large reactors, how much would be its construction cost and its electricity cost vis-a-vis its alternatives. An informed decision could then have been taken on whether to proceed with the Russian proposal.
Instead, according to recent reports in the media, a $500 million commercial loan is being sought from Russia for conducting tests, training of personnel and, surprise surprise, for “design of the plant, primary construction..., etc.” Why on earth should one spend borrowed money on designing the plant and primary construction when the very feasibility of the Rooppur site and the project under the current conditions has not been established? If this is not a case of putting a cart before the horse, then what is?
In the DS issue of December 26,2012, it had published a photo of the Ganges being dredged to keep the river navigable. Imagine the nightmare scenario of having an 800 ton equipment on a barge stuck in this river. Have we carried out a study of the navigability of the river to carry such heavy loads during the monsoon season?
Part of the $500 million commercial loan, we are told, would be spent "to determine the
cost of setting up the plant.” This is a strange proposition. Normally, the vendor, at its own cost, makes a quote for his supply of equipment and services and the buyer negotiates a price. Are the Russians now going to prepare a price quotation using our borrowed money for their services? Or are we determining the cost? What knowledge do we have of the costs of Russian equipment, manpower etc.? Or is it a joint effort? In that case, we have no scope for negotiation as we arrived at the cost jointly. There are more questions than answers.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan had opined (DS, December 21,2012) that our politicians do not know how to stop digging when they are
already in a hole. Apparently our technocrat minister and his bureaucrat advisers also suffer from the same syndrome.
In my another op-ed piece, “Quest for energy fix” (DS, January 18,2011), I had pointed out the unique Russian contract with Turkey whereby Russia would bear the entire construction cost of four 1,200 MW reactors and for the first two units, guarantee sale of electricity at 12.35 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour (about Tk. 13 per kwh) over 15 years after commissioning. Imagine the benefit of having a lock on the electricity cost for 15 years.
Someone has questioned as to what we seniors did when we were working for the
Rooppur project.
During the period early 1969-late 1970, a feasibility study was carried out for a 200 MW reactor by an independent consulting firm (Motor Columbus of Switzerland), proposal for such a reactor from a Belgian firm (under Westinghouse license) was received and thoroughly evaluated, financing for the project with Belgian government was finalised, 30 engineers and 1 physicist (all Bengali) were recruited for the project and sent for training in nuclear engineering.
All technical work was carried out by technical staff of the then AEC while the ERD of the then central government carried out negotiations for financing. Both the technical and financial contracts were ready for signing before December 1970 general election. Belgian side expressed the desire to wait for the result of the general election and sign the contracts with a democratically-elected government. The rest is history. We are glad that instead of a Belgian reactor humming at Rooppur (which would by now be nearing its lifetime), we got a free country to live in.
Let us rejoice in breathing the air of a free country.
The lifetime of a reactor is determined primarily by the RPV because it cannot be replaced. Steel of the RPV becomes brittle through neutron bombardment and it needs regular monitoring. Improvement in technology has increased the lifetime of a RPV from 30 to 60 years nowadays. One of the improvements is not to have any weld in the middle of the RPV where neutron bombardment is maximum.
Ignore such details at your own peril.
Russian reactors similar to the ones proposed for Rooppur are currently in opera-tion/under construction in two other countries (China and India) outside Russia. Both India and China incorporated one important change in their contractsgetting the instrumentation and control from the west.
Are our planners thinking along those lines?
The writer is a former BAEC and IIAEA official. E-mail: nislam4@gmail.com