Dear Colleague:

             I draw your attention to the attached Leonard Weiss Op-ed recently published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  Mr. Weiss is the former staff director of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and helped draft the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978.    In the article, Mr. Weiss makes the following points with respect to India’s energy needs:

· The claims that civilian nuclear energy will make India less reliant on oil “don’t stand up to scrutiny”.  In 2005, only 1% of India’s installed electrical capacity was fueled by oil and only 2.7% by nuclear power.

· India would be better served by focusing on energy efficiency.  “… an aggressive program of improved energy efficiency could substitute for all the future power output from nuclear reactors currently being planned in India between now and 2020.” 

· The argument that building more nuclear reactors will help reduce greenhouse gases is flawed. “… if India were to go the route of increasing energy efficiency over more nuclear plants, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be greater, since improvements can be made in a much shorter time.”

· Even India does not believe that nuclear energy will solve its problems.  According to India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency, in 2030 nuclear power will be the smallest component of its electric power production, only 6.6% of the projected 456 GWe need.

· Distribution is India’s most pressing electrical energy issue.  70% of India’s population lives in rural areas, which use only 13% of the power on the grid.  Distributed generation - including wind power, biomass and waste-driven fuel cells, microturbines, and solar photovoltaics – would be cheaper and more efficient than developing a vast transmission and distribution network. 

· India has a huge potential to develop alternative sources of electricity.  “According to a study by the international management consulting firm Frost and Sullivan, India’s untapped electrical generating capacity is 150 GWe from hydro (the equivalent of 150 large nuclear plants) and 45 GWe from wind power.”

            The world will be a safer and cleaner place if the U.S. partners with India to solve India’s energy needs without weakening U.S. and international nonproliferation laws and guidelines.

            As an alternative to the Administration’s proposal to weaken U.S. law and remove congressional oversight of nuclear exports, I urge you to cosponsor H. Con. Res. 318, which supports strengthened ties between the U.S. and India but expresses concern over the potential negative impacts on nonproliferation that could result from nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and India.  Please contact Nicole Gasparini or Jeff Duncan in my office (x52836) if you would like to cosponsor this bipartisan resolution.

                                                                        Sincerely,                                                                      

                                                                        Edward J. Markey

 Weiss Op-ed (50.36 KB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists