Your point about alternative energy sources is debatable. It is never a wise option to put all your eggs in one basket. Oil is today trading at $93 a barrel; when it hits 120-130 per barrel in a few year's time, and domestic riots begin on high power and energy prices, who will bell the cat and take the blame? It is therefroe wise to spread your basket among coal, hydel, nuclear, wind, oil etc. As far as nuke power is concerned, Britain gets 20% of its power from nuclear power, and France 80%. Russia is building new generation neutron reactors, and is among the world leaders in the field and is willing to export them to India.
Ans policymakers and nuclear scientists in india, irrespective of which party is in national government, have a blueprint for nuclear power, which envisages Thorium based reactors in about 30-40 years time. But those reactors have not yet been built and comprehensively tested. To graduate from our current nuclear phase to thorium power, there is an intermediate stage where will have no option but to use a mix of thorium an uranium. We do not have enough reserves of uranium in our country to meet this national blueprint. hence the call by scientists to import uranium to meet our requirements during this phase. And hence the need for a nuclear deal. Clearly a lot of soul-searching has already been done, so you don't have to sell your soul to the devil.
