6
KARACHI: While the nuclear power trend started falling in the mid-1980s due to reactor incidents and the world turned to wind and solar energy for power generation, Pakistan has started working on nuclear power plants without any consideration for their impact on population, agriculture and marine life.
These views were expressed at a workshop on ‘Energy and development paradigm: understanding pertinent questions’ on Friday.
The programme organised by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research (Piler) was aimed at helping people understand the dynamics of power generation and development projects in Pakistan and their impact on citizens. “Projects such as Karachi’s nuclear power plants are huge. There are reasons behind starting such mega projects such as milestones and crowns for politicians or monuments to themselves, big money involving contractors, engineers, architects, consultants, workers, bankers, investors, land developers, the need to be seen as a developing country, institutional interests and moving economic wheels,” said physicist and academic Dr A.H. Nayyar during his presentation on ‘The Karachi nuclear power plants debate’.
“Globally, the nuclear power trend picked up during the 1960s and started falling in the mid 1980s due to reactor incidents such as those in the US, Chernobyl, etc. Now the trend is for wind energy followed by solar energy. Solar energy is behind wind at the moment due to solar panels being very expensive but work is under way to make them less expensive yet more efficient, as they will be made from organic compound instead of silicon chips. Hence the trend for getting energy from solar power will pick up.
“But here, in Pakistan, we have turned to nuclear energy,” he said, adding that although its installation cost more than wind power plants, the major concern of experts regarding these were accidents that could happen there and caused havoc as had been happening in other places, including Japan, where also they were thought as being quite safe.
‘Unprepared to deal with disasters’
Dr Nayyar then illustrated through a simulation the devastation expected in the event of an unfortunate incident at Karachi’s nuclear plants where the direction of the wind is towards the city.
“From Karachi, the radiation will spread throughout Sindh affecting people’s health. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s remedy for this is distributing iodine tablets. But there are going to be plenty of more isotopes there which the tablet cannot help with,” he said.
“A nuclear plant should be 30km from the populated areas at least to begin with,” he reminded.
Fahd Ali of Habib University, in his presentation ‘Energy as a doorway to development: understanding the routes taken’, said that when people in power here spoke about development projects they said how it would lead to betterment though the reality was that they excluded some stakeholders in the decisions they made.
“We need to understand who they are excluding and how to raise their voices and concerns. Energy has to do with natural resources. If you don’t have natural resources, you use funds acquiring these. It all impacts your economy. In Pakistan, we have an energy crisis. Oil we import, gas we have. So we are becoming more gas dependant but we are also seeing a decline in our gas reserves. Still, in all this energy crisis we have plenty of line and distribution losses that we haven’t been able to control for over 20 years now,” he said.
Speaking about ‘Progress and the environment’, Arif Belgaumi, an architect by profession, said the country didn’t learn from developed nations and kept repeating their mistakes. “Projects are announced and environmental reports are just done to fulfil a requirement after which the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency simply approves everything. But the reality is that our country is not prepared to deal with natural or man-made disasters,” he said.
The community cost
President of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum Mohammad Ali Shah said that the people in whose name development took place were actually the most affected by it. “Many rural areas don’t even have electricity. The energy crisis that the government talks of is being felt by people who already have electricity. If God forbid, there is an accident at any of the nuclear plants of Karachi or Chashma Barrage, it will affect the entire River Indus from where the radiation will go downstream to spread to the agriculture lands. Even the water from the sea or river used to cool the nuclear reactors will devastate marine life,” he said.
He had a simple solution for solving the energy crisis to some extent. “Solar energy is expensive, I know. But you tell me, why can’t a privileged few living in Defence don’t get solar panels instead of throwing their money on huge generators?” he asked.
Council member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Roland D’Souza spoke about the ‘Citizens’ rights in development’.
“Democracy in Pakistan is not just going out to vote and then sit at home for five years until it is time to vote again. No one here cares for the poor, thus they have no rights. Meanwhile, the rich look after their own rights,” he said.
Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2015
On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play
