Nuclear reaction: The U.S.-India agreement will set a dangerous precedent.

“The Deal Will Strengthen Only India’s Peaceful Nuclear Program”

False. The proposed agreement provides India with nuclear materials and technology from the United States. In exchange, India would divide its civilian and military nuclear programs, place safeguards on its civilian nuclear facilities, and allow international inspections. But if the deal is approved in the U.S. Congress this week, India will have sole discretion over whether to classify new reactors as military or civilian, a decision that will affect which ones are subject to international scrutiny. Already, eight nuclear reactors—and all future military reactors—will remain off-limits to inspections.

In addition, India currently has a dwindling stockpile of uranium and does not produce enough fissile material to sustain and expand both its nuclear power and weapon programs. One of the most problematic consequences of the proposed deal is the risk that any nuclear fuel assistance from the United States and other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group will free up India’s existing uranium for weapons use. In a recent article for the prominent Indian Defence Review, a former top Indian intelligence official wrote that the assurance of fuel supply from the agreement would allow India to use its current stockpile to produce uranium and plutonium for its nuclear weapons program. A recent report for the Princeton University-administered International Panel on Fissile Materials, which provides research on nuclear weapons security, reached similar conclusions.

Supporters of the deal like to point out that several reactors will be taken out of the weapons-making business. But that reasoning ignores the fact that under the terms of the deal, India would be able to increase its weapons production capacity from its current level of seven bombs per year to perhaps as many as 50 nuclear weapons annually.

“India Has a Responsible Nuclear Record”

Debatable. India may have a good record on nuclear exports, but India’s history with respect to its own nuclear weapons program is far from stellar. Decades ago, India broke the terms of two nuclear contracts, one with the United States and one with Canada, in which a nuclear reactor and heavy water were provided under a peaceful-use requirement. India secretly shifted materials from these deals to its weapons program—and it continues to do so. As a result, in 1974, India became the first country to misuse civilian nuclear facilities in order to develop a secret nuclear weapons program and test an atom bomb. It is one of only three countries (along with Israel and Pakistan) never to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has represented the world’s first line of defense against the spread of nuclear weapons for more than 35 years.

India also has a questionable record of procurement. The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank that provides technical assessments related to nuclear proliferation, asserted in a March 2006 report that India currently engages in the illicit acquisition of uranium enrichment technology, circumventing other countries’ export-control laws and leaking sensitive nuclear information in the process. In addition, two Indian companies were sanctioned by the United States in 2005 for transferring missile and chemical weapons technology to Iran, and two nuclear scientists who had worked for India’s state-run nuclear utility were barred from doing business with the U.S. government after it was discovered that they had secretly aided Iran’s nuclear program.

“Providing India with Nuclear Energy Will Help It to Become Energy Independent”

Incorrect. Sponsors of the deal argue that, with India’s energy needs expected to double in the next two decades, nuclear energy will help replace the country’s voracious appetite for oil and coal and feed the country’s growing electrical grid. But, even if the deal passes in the U.S. Congress, nuclear power will only account for 12.5 percent of India’s electrical production by 2030, an ambitious and unrealistic target that doubles India’s previous estimates made before the announcement of the deal. And it’s not as though India’s thirst for oil will be supplanted by nuclear energy. The Indian economy, like the United States, uses oil mainly for transportation and manufacturing—sectors where nuclear energy is not yet applicable. Hype that the agreement could help restrain oil prices is just that—hype. U.S. President George W. Bush has declared that the deal will “help the American consumer” by reducing Indian oil consumption and keeping prices down, but a March Congressional Research Service report on the energy implications of the deal concluded that “the reduction in India’s oil consumption . . . would have little or no impact on world oil markets.”

Regardless of Indian investment in nuclear power or other energy alternatives for the next three to four decades, the country will continue to depend on coal. That means India should invest in technologies that limit greenhouse gas emissions, including nuclear energy. But building more reactors won’t solve the emissions problem. India could reduce emissions more effectively simply by being more efficient. Even by the estimate of India’s own Bureau of Energy Efficiency, up to 20,000 megawatts per year—the projected equivalent of the country’s nuclear-power capacity for the year 2020—could be saved by increasing the efficiency of the production and use of energy forms already in existence. That would require much less capital and yield faster results for the same reduction in greenhouse gases.