Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s is set to meet President Trump on Wednesday. The pair are expected to discuss nuclear power, among other topics, according to India’s oil minister.Nuclear power is around three times as expensive as solar energy in India and can take up to six years to install as opposed to similar amounts of solar that usually take less than a year. Newer small modular reactors are cheaper and faster to build, but they also make less electricity.India has managed to double the amount of nuclear power installed in the country in the last decade, but it still makes up just 3% of its electricity.Still, “the first challenge remains convincing the public to let the projects get deployed in their vicinity,” said Ruchita Shah, an energy analyst at the climate think-tank, Ember. Local communities have protested at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in southern India and at proposed nuclear sites in the western state of Maharashtra in the last decade, citing security and environmental concerns.But for investors and governments, “the level of interest (in nuclear power) now is the highest it’s been since the oil crises in the 1970s,” said Brent Wanner, head of the power sector unit at the International Energy Agency. That’s because it’s reliable and clean, he said.The IEA found that 63 nuclear reactors are currently under construction globally, the most since 1990.Wanner said governments are critical in getting nuclear power projects underway and India’s plan “very positive” for the nuclear industry.Even with its eye on nuclear, India shouldn’t forget about other sources of energy that don’t emit greenhouse gases, said Madhura Joshi, from the climate think tank E3G.“Solar, other renewables and storage can come up much faster and quicker,” Joshi said, delivering “the immediate solutions that are needed.”
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