POWER May 2014 - 14

Ironically, India only passed its 2010 nuclear liability law to
boost its credibility and as a last step to activate the 2008 Indo-U.S.
civilian nuclear agreement, because U.S. nuclear reactor
manufacturing companies require a liability bill to get insurance
at home. In return for Washington's help in persuading the NSG
to create an exemption that allowed its members to engage in
nuclear trade with India (even though the country is not a signatory
to the nonproliferation treaty), per the 2008 agreement,
India committed to buy U.S. reactors worth 10 GW-roughly $50
billion or more in reactor sales.
And in fact, the final Indian liability law actually quashes an
" absolute liability " mandate established by the Indian Supreme
Court in the aftermath of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, in which
15,000 people died after methyl isocyanate leaked from a plant
run by U.S. company Union Carbide and whose cause was pinned
to corporate negligence. It caps the liability of the Nuclear Power
Corporation of India Ltd., India's state-owned nuclear firm that
owns all of the country's commercially operating reactors, at
about $250 million. But though the government stealthily attempted
to prevent it, the final law also contains a clause-a
" right to recourse " -that allows the public sector company to
reclaim some of those funds from a supplier.
Significantly, the April-drafted India-Russia liability deal could
serve as a template for a similar government-to-government pact
with France, whose state-owned nuclear firm AREVA has proposed
to build two EPR reactors in Maharashtra, India said. But for the
U.S., the " right to recourse " clause remains a major deterrent.
Though U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz met with Indian
officials March 11-12 for an ongoing India-U.S. energy dialogue,
the two countries are reportedly no closer to resolving
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their stalemate over the nuclear liability law. For U.S. suppliers
like Westinghouse-the American unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp.
that has proposed to build an AP1000 reactor in Gujarat-and
for GE-Hitachi, which has been in talks with India for years for
six proposed ESBWR units in Andhra Pradesh, efforts to develop
nuclear projects in India have been frustrating, despite the 2008
Indo-U.S. civil nuclear agreement.
The companies contend that specific sections of the nuclear liability
act violate the International Atomic Energy Agency's International
Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear
Damage (CSC). Though the 1997-adopted CSC has 17 country signatories,
only four countries have ratified it, and until five signatory
countries with a minimum of 400 GWth of installed nuclear
capacity (a third of all the world's currently operable reactors)
ratify it, the convention cannot pass into force. Last December,
Canada signed the CSC, and Japan announced plans to become the
fifth country to ratify it, but that hasn't happened yet. And while
India is a signatory of the CSC, it will continue to rely on its own
law covering nuclear liability, which it blankly refuses to " dilute, "
as officials told the U.S. energy dialogue delegation in March.
59-MW Fuel Cell Park Opening Heralds
Robust Global Technology Future
The 59-MW Gyeonggi Green Energy fuel cell park (Figure 3) in South
Korea's Hwasung City-one of the world's largest fuel cell facilities-began
operation in February. The five-acre facility built by
South Korea's largest private energy producer, POSCO Energy, consists
of 21 FuelCell Energy DFC3000 power plants rated at 2.8 MW
each to provide continuous baseload power to the power-strapped
South Korean grid and heat for a district heating system.
Completion of the project-begun in November 2012-took
only 13 months, according to project developers. And though it is
the first fuel cell project of its scale for stationary power, several
more are in the pipeline, evidence of an emerging trend for the
fledgling alternative energy source. UK-based market intelligence
firm Fuel Cell Today posits that overall shipments of fuel cell systems
for stationary power in 2012 soared 50% compared to 2011,
with more than 24,100 units shipped worth a total 125 MW.
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) dominated a
stunning 88% of the market in 2012, because that technology is
well-suited to applications from the small, sub-watt scale to the
megawatt scale and can be used with different fuel types. PEMFCs
are expected to continue their growth because the technology is
the preferred choice in automotive applications.
But the firm also noted exceptional growth for five other specific
fuel cell technologies. Molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs)
are rising to " an equal footing with PEMFC in terms of megawatts
shipped, " largely due to adoption of large stationary power plants
in South Korea-like the Gyeonggi Green Energy fuel cell park-
and the U.S., says Fuel Cell Today. The firm forecasts that more
megawatts of MCFC will be shipped in 2013 than any other fuel cell
type. Then, there are solid oxide fuel cells, which are showing increasing
penetration of residential micro-combined heat and power
in Japan and megawatt-scale installations in the U.S. by Bloom
Energy, it said. The other three technologies are direct methanol
fuel cells, phosphoric acid fuel cells, and alkaline fuel cells.
FuelCell Energy, maker of the Direct FuelCell power plant, says
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14
Asian markets, in particular, are accelerating market demand for
stationary power plants. The company in October 2012 agreed
to supply modules worth 122 MW to POSCO, which is pursuing
a number of combined heat and power applications as well as a
demonstration project at a liquefied natural gas terminal to conwww.powermag.com
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| May 2014
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POWER May 2014

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