U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC) in partnership with Nuclear Energy Institute, U.S. Foreign Commercial Service, and Confederation of Indian Industry brought a key U.S. Commercial Nuclear Mission to India for talks with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) on commercial implementation of US-India commercial nuclear accord.
Following meetings with NPCIL, the USIBC Delegation presented Anil Kakodkar, on his retirement as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, with the US-India Business Council Award for Expanding US-India Trade Relations.
“Dr. Kakodkar exercised great vision and leadership in bringing India’s nuclear isolation to an end,” said Ron Somers, president of USIBC, “and we are proud to honor his success.”
The USIBC Mission comes on the heels of the successful state visit by Prime Minister Singh to Washington, DC. Prime Minister Singh and President Obama pledged in their November 24 Joint Statement to “realize the full potential of the India-US Agreement for Cooperation concerning the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy” by expediting the Agreement’s commercial implementation.
Dr. S.K. Jain, chairman and managing director of NPCIL, noted that “We are pleased to meet with USIBC and the leading US commercial nuclear suppliers to bring the historic US-India civilian nuclear accord into commercial reality.”
Co-led by Daniel Roderick of GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Meena Mutyala of Westinghouse Electric Company, the USIBC Mission has assembled an exceptional delegation of 50 senior executives representing 26 of America’s leading commercial nuclear suppliers.
“The robust presence here of the US commercial nuclear industry speaks to our optimism that remaining implementation steps will be completed soon, and that US-India commercial nuclear trade is close at hand,” observed Ted Jones, USIBC Director for Policy Advocacy.
The US executive delegation brings together the leading US companies across the broad spectrum of the commercial nuclear industry. Represented are leading reactor companies, the largest uranium producer, the largest enricher of uranium, the leading civil nuclear engineering and construction firms, and many other companies at the forefront of the global commercial nuclear industry.
The US Delegation arrived in Mumbai from New Delhi, where it met with top Government of India policymakers and senior executives of India’s top public and private-sector companies engaged in expanding India’s nuclear power sector. The USIBC Delegation discussed recent progress toward implementing the US-India Civil Nuclear Accord and remaining steps.
The high-level commercial talks in Mumbai on expanding India’s nuclear power sector coincide with the long-awaited global climate change conference in Copenhagen.
India plans to add 30,000 MW of new nuclear generation. By 2030, installed nuclear capacity is projected to rise to 63,000 MW – up from 4,120 MW today – avoiding each year the equivalent of today’s annual carbon emissions of Spain.
Because nuclear power is also baseload, scaling up nuclear generation capacity will enable India to provide large quantities of reliable power to continue its economic development in a sustainable manner.
“US firms on this delegation offer everything from reactor technology, to components, to uranium, to fuel services and more,” said Jones. “Commercial opportunities exist in all of these areas and include near-term prospects for business with India’s existing reactor fleet.”
The US commercial nuclear industry leads the world in size, performance, innovation, and engineering. The US is by a wide margin the largest generator of nuclear electric power in the world – with 27% of the world’s total installed capacity and nearly double the number of reactors as France. The US also produces at roughly ½ to 1/3 of the cost in other major countries. In recent decades, US reactor companies and civil nuclear engineering companies have remained at the forefront of innovation and engineering worldwide.