LT . GEN KHALID AHMED KIDWAI NI, HI(M)
We are living through interesting times. I think we are also living through historic times. We are fortunate to be witnessing history unfold before our eyes in our lifetime as we watch three super powers, the USA, Russia and China competing, containing and where possible confronting to establish their respective footprints for global supremacy. The chessboard is fascinating. The USA has been an undisputed super power since the end of World War II particularly since the demise of the USSR. However, it has faced challenges to its world domination in the past and continues to face serious challenges to its status today. The second super power of our times the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s and passed on the mantle to the successor state of Russia. For two decades Russia too has struggled to regain its super power status politically, economically, militarily and technologically.
However, both Russia and the US have demonstrated vulnerabilities and the limits of power experienced through strategic debacles in Afghanistan with serious consequences for their respective geo-political clout and global influence. Additionally, Russia directly and the US indirectly are now embroiled in Ukraine in what essentially is yet another struggle for global power. The world anxiously awaits the conclusion of this conflict because its eventual outcome will redefine the future global strategic equation in more than one way. From the specific perspective of examining a nuclear panacea in a global perspective, two issues are relevant and close to taking center stage in the Ukrainian conflict: one, energy as a strategic tool of war, and two, the possible use of nuclear weapons especially tactical nuclear weapons.
Also, as a corollary of these issues, one could perhaps debate the hypothetical possibilities of what might have been if Ukraine had not given up its nuclear arsenal. In the geopolitical milieu of today’s global order, or disorder, it is the third super power of our era China which is emerging, perhaps has emerged, as the brand new super power posing multiple challenges to the US in the political, economic, military and technological spheres and now making soft inroads even in areas of traditional US influence. With Russia and China aligning against US supremacy, reiterating their positions as recently as in September 2022 at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the US finds itself confronted by strong challengers.
The identifiable responses in the US geopolitical and economic strategies to retain its pre-eminent dominant position by the sheer force of its military-industrial power and alliances, stand out in considerable contrast to the strategies of China, seemingly more confident and exercising strategic patience in order to assert its global position of eminence through the tools of its economic power, its soft global reach and growing military, nuclear and technological prowess. Where do South Asia and Pakistan figure out in this emerging global future? What are the emerging challenges for Pakistan especially in the context of its national security interests measured whether in economic terms including the contribution of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes or in military terms including its strategic deterrence capability as a nuclear weapons power?
There are two givens of Pakistan’s strategic environments: one that Pakistan enjoys a relatively advantageous position because of its geo-strategic location as a potential trade and security corridor and two, Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapons power with the need, desire and capability to further its objectives in the field of civil nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. While debating the possibilities of a nuclear panacea in a global perspective is all very well, I would like to stick my neck out and say with confidence that for Pakistan, whether in economic terms or in security terms, nuclear panacea is a God sent and has worked well to ameliorate many of Pakistan’s concerns in both these areas.
In military terms Pakistan’s nuclear capability has proven beyond doubt to be a security panacea, an asset, as it has satisfactorily addressed Pakistan’s long standing dilemma of conventional forces asymmetry viz its adversary in the east. Because of a robust nuclear weapons capability articulated through the policy of Full Spectrum Deterrence, Pakistan is secure from possible aggression by its larger neighbour. I have said this on a number of occasions and would like to repeat for emphasis that Pakistan’s nuclear capability, as the great equalizer, has proved to be an instrument of peace enforcement in South Asia. In economic terms, Pakistan’s civil nuclear energy programme as a nuclear panacea, is in a potentially take off stage provided the various governments of the day display the necessary vision, understanding and support to Pakistan’s Nuclear Energy Vision-2050 which stands duly approved by Pakistan’s National Command Authority since 2011. The Nuclear Energy Vision-2050 envisages the provision of 42000 MWs of clean, safe and relatively cheap energy to Pakistan’s economic growth needs through the sequential installation of a series of nuclear power plants across the country in all four provinces.
A salient feature of Nuclear Energy Vision-2050 is that very early on after the installation of the first few pairs of nuclear power plants, for example, Chashma 1 & 2, Chashma 3 & 4, KANUPP 2 & 3, the programme starts to earn for itself and over time, becomes self-financing so as not to place any financial burden whatsoever on limited government resources. Pakistan’s seven nuclear power plants including four at Chashma and three at Karachi are a pioneering segment of the Nuclear Energy Vision-2050 and have gone a long way in proving the capability of safe, clean and efficient operations.
The global politics of embargoes and restrictions inhibited Pakistan’s ventures into this area for many years to KANUPP-1 only until China became Pakistan’s reliable partner in the development of nuclear power. A 325 MW Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) Chashma-1 was set up at Chashma in collaboration with China. Chashma-2, Chashma-3, Chashma-4, KANUPP-2 and KANUPP-3 followed making it a total of 3600 MW. K-2 and K-3 are modern Generation III plants. There is strong economic logic for Pakistan to stay the course and continue to build more nuclear power plants as per Nuclear Energy Vision-2050.
The saying “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future” has really been true for nuclear power which has seen many ups and downs for the 70 odd years that it has been around. Only a few decades ago, when people worried that fossil fuels would last only for another 100-150 years, the nuclear energy option presented itself as the new practically limitless, safe, environment-friendly and economical base-load option-a nuclear panacea. There was a nuclear rush and before one knew, a few hundred nuclear power plants were operating in the developed countries while India and Pakistan also ventured into the nuclear game. There was opposition to nuclear energy by some civil society groups, mostly in the developed countries that were really going big on nuclear energy but the nuclear experts professed a very strong “it is quite safe” belief, and paid only rudimentary attention to the opposition.
Things were going great until the Three Miles Island accident in 1979 in the USA. A major blow was dealt to the development of nuclear energy taking the wind out of its potential growth. For example, after the Three Miles Island accident, no new nuclear power plant was ordered in the US for almost 30 years despite the fact that there were no casualties, and that there were no significant radiation leaks outside the plant. The Hollywood movie The China Syndrome however cashed in and did great business while Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda scared the wits out of the audience.
The Chernobyl accident of 1986 was again a bad advertisement for the nuclear energy industry and had even more consequences as the radiations did indeed spread outside the plant creating considerable worldwide panic particularly in Europe and the UK. Both these accidents are engraved in our collective memories as negative iconic moments in nuclear energy history. Interestingly, at a personal level, I witnessed the unfolding real life dramas of both the accidents upfront. In 1979 at the time of the Three Miles Island accident I was doing a military training course in the US and my wife and I remained glued to the television as the minute by minute details of the accident appeared dramatically on the television. In 1986 at the time of the Chernobyl accident we happened to be visiting the UK. Here again, the ball by ball coverage on the television of the radiation clouds and the possibility of the fallout moving towards the UK was followed by intense apprehension.
The accidents gave those who opposed nuclear energy a plausible narrative which they could use to make their point about the spread and long-term effect of radioactivity released in a nuclear accident. A UN report issued in 2011, which stated that there were 28 immediate deaths, and a maximum of 15 deaths from thyroid cancer could be attributed to the accident, did not gain much publicity. However, the burning issue of climate change and the threat of rise in global temperature came to the rescue of nuclear energy. The nuclear industry had started to make some recovery when the Fukushima accident happened in 2011. This time an external event, a Tsunami, swept away the pumps of the emergency core cooling system causing a core meltdown in three reactors. There was an economic burden but no deaths resulting from the accident.
However, public apprehensions about nuclear safety grew and nuclear renaissance as a panacea became a casualty. Nuclear energy might have survived all of that in the wake of climate change threat had it not been for the fact that while the capital cost of nuclear energy kept climbing, the solar cells which are also environment friendly began getting cheaper by the day. The foregoing, however, is not the complete story. Nuclear energy also has some additional psychological strings attached to it. People in general cannot disassociate civil nuclear energy from the radiation fallout of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is because of the fear of radiation that nuclear security is as important an issue as nuclear safety. Equal attention must therefore be paid to nuclear security because there is this threat of radioactive releases in case of a terrorist activity from within or from outside a nuclear power plant. In this context it is now internationally well recognized that Pakistan has taken stringent measures to put in place a professionally strong state of the art nuclear security regime.
The foregoing public apprehensions about nuclear energy have no doubt contributed to bringing down the share of nuclear energy particularly in those developed countries where it all started. The global share of nuclear energy in electricity production, which had fast mounted to 17%, came down to 10%. Currently, not many start-ups are planned that could turn things around. The current war in Ukraine and the resultant gas crisis have combined to create yet another opportunity for nuclear energy. European countries are showing a tendency to return to nuclear energy so as to avoid the scary brown outs winters without heating. However, nuclear power plants have long construction times and the turnaround cannot be swift.
How far this potential nuclear renaissance will go and translate into a possible nuclear panacea will depend upon how the professionals and experts in the nuclear industry as well as politicians and public interest leaders will handle the situation. The nuclear industry nevertheless must take proactive and effective measures to get its rightful place in the global energy scenario. In my opinion Pakistan is not only ready technically for proceeding on the path of energy through the nuclear route but it is also a dire economic need for Pakistan’s sustained growth especially in a charged political environment wherein energy from hydel sources – the cheapest – has become an issue of divisive and uninformed debate among the provinces.