Editorial: Canada, India reunite over uranium

How long do you hold a grudge before letting bygones be bygones? For the Canadian government, it’s about 40 years when it comes to the Indian government’s betrayal over its use of peaceful Canadian nuclear technology to build a nuclear bomb as part of its arms race with Pakistan.

Using the occasion of a visit to Canada by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — the first bilateral visit by an Indian leader to Canada in 42 years — Cameco signed a historic $350-million supply agreement on April 15 with India’s Department of Atomic Energy to provide 7.1 million lb. uranium concentrate under a long-term contract through 2020. Cameco made a point of thanking Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall for their help in securing the deal.

The contract is Cameco’s first with India, which the Canadian uranium major sees as a key customer, given that the country is the world’s second-fastest growing market for nuclear fuel. Cameco notes that India operates 21 nuclear reactors that provide 6,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity and meet 3% of the country’s electricity needs, which are mostly served by coal-fired plants. Another six reactors totalling 4,300 megawatts are under construction and due to come online by 2017. By 2032, India expects to have 45,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity.

Cameco’s export of Canadian uranium to India for generating electricity is authorized by the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, which came into force in September 2013 after negotiations that began in earnest in 2009.

Canada’s relationship with India dates back to the 1950s when Canada helped set up nuclear power projects there, but the partnership was severed when India tested its first atomic bomb in 1974, using spent fuel from a Canadian-American Cirus reactor.

The relationship was further complicated by the 1992 decision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group — an informal club of nations dedicated in part to enlisting signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — to ban all nuclear commerce with nations that did not join the NPT as non-weapon states.

That ban remained until 2008, when at the urging of the U.S., the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group lifted the ban on nuclear transfers to India. (India still refuses to sign the NPT or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.) After the ban was lifted, the U.S., Russia and France quickly signed bilateral nuclear agreements with India, including Areva’s US$12.3-billion deal to sell India six reactors.

But not everyone was happy with the new Cameco deal.

About 200 international experts and delegates of the World Uranium Symposium, organized by a group of environmental NGOs, denounced the sale of Canadian uranium to India, stating that “by signing such a deal on the eve of the NPT review conference to be held in New York City in two weeks’ time, Canada is undermining and discrediting the key international treaty prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

“Despite rules specifying no military use of Canadian materials, some uranium from Canada could well end up in Indian bombs,” said Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility in a release. “At the very least, Canadian uranium will free up more Indian uranium for weapon-production purposes.”

Further participation in the Indian market by Canadian nuclear hardware suppliers has also been hampered by concerns over India’s nuclear liability laws that might hold foreign suppliers legally responsible for a nuclear power accident. (Think of Union Carbide’s 1984 Bhopal gas leak tragedy, which killed over 3,000 people and injured another half million, and for which the company paid out US$470 million in a 1989 settlement.)

But a deal reached by the U.S. and Indian governments in January agreed to limited liability for U.S. nuclear suppliers to India, and it is expected a similar arrangement will extend to India’s other nuclear technology suppliers, including Canada.