KOODANKULAM, India — It is a protest that not only threatens the commissioning of the largest nuclear reactor in India but also could cripple the country’s plans to satisfy more of its growing energy needs with nuclear power.
For nearly 400 days, residents of fishing villages in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have demonstrated against a new seaside nuclear plant here. Thousands marched toward the site this month, chanting, ‘‘We don’t want nuclear power,’’ until police beat them back.
‘‘This is now the center of all the antinuclear protests across India,’’ said Anicha Milton, a 30-year-old fisherwoman. ‘‘If we succeed here, no new nuclear reactor can come up anywhere.’’
It took 14 years and help from Russia to build the twin reactors here, and the plant is weeks from beginning production. But as post-Fukushima fears about the safety of nuclear reactors reached a peak, India’s hope of meeting some of its growing energy deficit with nuclear power in the next two decades appears increasingly unrealistic.
Recently, the protesters waded into the sea near the plant, standing in chest-high water and vowing to prevent engineers from loading fuel into the reactor. Similar protests over health concerns and the acquisition of farmland have stalled several other plants across India, including at sites set aside for American and French companies.
At stake is India’s ability to fuel its economic ambitions by setting up more power plants as well as its ability to address a growing tide of popular protests in a democratic manner.
Analysts say a quiet discontent began to surface after last year’s earthquake and tsunami-triggered crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.
Just five years ago, many Indian officials championed nuclear power as a way to reduce the nation’s reliance on coal-fired plants....
In 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a landmark civil nuclear agreement with the United States that was supposed to signal not only the beginning of a new strategic partnership but also pave the way for building at least 25 new reactors in two decades....
But two sites set aside for GE and Westinghouse are among the projects that are yet to take off because of local opposition and a new compensation law that deters foreign investors.
A massive blackout across much of India in late July served as a reminder of the nation’s inability to meet its soaring energy needs. Power cuts are routine, and about 400 million people are not connected to the national grid.
See: Powering Up an Indian Post
As I power down this blog.
The southern state of Tamil Nadu, site of the Koodankulam plant, is home to the factories of automobile giants such as Ford, BMW, Nissan, Renault, and Hyundai, but the state is in the midst of a severe power crisis. Electricity is shut off four to eight hours a day, and the $2.5 billion Koodankulam reactors are seen as critically important.
In August, a high court in Tamil Nadu gave the green light to the government-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India to begin operating the plant. The country’s supreme court upheld the verdict, and nuclear scientists and engineers met in Mumbai the next day to discuss the process for beginning to load uranium fuel into the reactor.
After the protesters clashed with police, they dug deep trenches and placed large boulders and logs on the roads leading toward the plant to prevent police from entering.
Nuclear energy officials say the plant has enough safety measures to withstand a natural disaster.
‘‘The design Russians provided to India was not its top model at the time the agreement was made, but India added layers of safety over and above the Russian design,’’ said a nuclear energy analyst in the United States speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.
But when villagers demanded to see the safety report under the Right to Information law, it was not released.
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