The world’s population crossed the 6 billion mark in the year 1999. Most current estimates suggest that around 2 billion people will be added over the next 30 years with another billion in the following 20 years. Virtually all this increase will be in the developing countries with the bulk in the urban areas. The core challenge for development is to ensure availability of productive work opportunities and a better quality of life for all these people. The quality of life should be above a minimum threshold with equitable opportunities for all. At present, however, inequality is widening. The average income in the richest 20 countries is now 37 times that in the poorest 20 and this ratio has doubled in the past 40 years. Inequalities can give rise to conflicts and, therefore, it is necessary to address development concerns of all nations.

Energy is the engine for growth. It multiplies human labour and increases productivity in agriculture, industry and services. Thus, easier access to energy in the developing world holds the key to bridging the widening inequality. Rapid developments in nuclear power technology in the sixties and seventies have demonstrated practical feasibility of large-scale role that nuclear power can play in meeting the energy challenge. However, this deployment has largely been restricted to the industrialized world, which is by and large in a stable mode so far as energy demand is concerned. The desperate need for growth in energy availability exists in the developing world because the per capita energy consumption needs to be taken to a much higher level and also because of the growth in population, which would stabilize only when survival no longer remains an issue, and there is a general feeling about an assured, reasonable quality of life.

As the developing world tries to meet the energy needs of its growing population and support its development aspirations, the global energy consumption would double over the next three decades and will rise further subsequently. Only power of the atom can, in principle, realize this. Without a central role for nuclear power this could lead to a catastrophe both in terms of sustainability of energy resources with enhanced level of conflicts to grab the residual resources and, even more importantly, in terms of global climate. As we move forward in time, the crucial importance of nuclear power would be increasingly felt not only for supporting economic growth but also for some basic human needs such as availability of clean air and water. In fact, the day is not far off when we would need to view nuclear energy as not just a source of electricity but a primary energy source, which could assure our sustainable future.

Developments in science and technology have led to the improvement in quality of human life. Although new problems have arisen in the process, these have in fact been solved by further developments in science and technology. For example, today we can justifiably be proud of increased longevity realized through emphasis on health and nutrition programmes. The increased demand for food as a result has been met through advances in agriculture. Looking back to the 1950s and 1960s, it was then feared that the developing countries - particularly China, India and Indonesia - would not be able to feed their rapidly growing populations. Thanks to the green revolution in agriculture, the doomsday scenarios of famine and starvation in these, the most populous, developing countries were proved wrong. Given the inevitable role the nuclear power is required to play in the years to come, there is a strong need to examine further technological solutions that need to be brought about to overcome barriers that exist in its large- scale deployment in the developing world.

Scenario

Technology