Nuclear Power Stations get green light

So Ed Miliband has decided that nuclear power has had enough of a ‘rest’ and has given the go ahead for 10 new nuclear power stations to be built…

Ok, so it’s not strictly been ‘resting’ nuclear power does account for 13% of the country’s current power usage (yeah I was surprised too!) but with all this renewed vigour for nuclear power doesn’t that mean they’ll be a huge amount of toxic waste substances produced? The new power stations are planned to be built on 10 different sites, these sites are reported to be:  Braystones, Sellafield and Kirksanton, all in Cumbria, Heysham in Lancashire, Hartlepool, Co Durham, Sizewell in Suffolk, Bradwell in Essex, Hinkley Point in Somerset, Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Wylfa in Anglesey.

Mr Miliband stated: “…Change is also needed for energy security. In a world where our North Sea reserves are declining, a more diverse, low-carbon energy mix is a more secure energy mix, less vulnerable to fluctuations in the availability of any one fuel…”

This is good in a way as continually burrowing into the earth to find more coal reserves for the 18 existing coal burning power stations it seriously taking its toll, not to mention how large the average persons carbon footprint is. It maybe seems a little contradictory then to also announce that he will still continue to support the building of coal fired power stations provided they are fitted with greener technology which in turn has been met by companies refusing to invest huge sums into this greener system.

Greg Clark, the shadow energy and climate change secretary, said: “…Ed Miliband’s statement is made necessary by the Government’s admission in July that it expects power cuts in 2017 – the first time since the 1970s that a British government has had to make such a disclosure…”

“…The cause of this National Emergency has been obvious for many years. Over 12 years, 15 successive energy ministers – a new one every nine months – behaved like the ostrich and stuck their heads in the sand rather than face up to the action that was needed to address our energy black hole…”

Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: “…Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive. It is totally unacceptable for Ed Miliband to see a ‘relatively good’ safety record as sufficient – nuclear disasters have the potential to make any other kind of industrial accident look harmless in comparison, potentially affecting millions of people…”

Well with arguments raging on both sides I guess this debate is something that will go on for some years to come, burn all the fossil fuel in the world and create tons of carbon and pollution or go down the nuclear route for more efficient energy production but incredibly toxic waste products.

This entry was posted by Clayton on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 11:22 am and is filed under Technology & Software News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

View the original article here

Op-Ed by Alice Slater on Chaos in Japan

Chaos
March 14, 2011
by Alice Slater

Sometimes chaos comes along as a wake-up call to humanity.  The double-whammy- earthquake-tsunami in Japan this week is overwhelmingly sad.   To be at the total chaotic effect of the elements—to be wiped out by a wave of water from the sea, is an insult to the arrogance of modern humanity that thinks it can insulate and protect itself with technological know-how from the calamities visited upon our earth by Mother Nature.  It is ironic that this catastrophe took place in earth-quake plagued Japan where scientists and engineers actually protected against this seventh largest earthquake cataclysm in recorded history, by spending billions on new infrastructure, building their homes, offices, and factories on rubber shock absorbers and reinforced pillars that merely swayed with the punch and didn’t collapse despite the enormous force from the renting of the earth—a force so powerful it actually moved Japan ten feet eastward and caused the axis of the earth to shift.  Yet even the careful, methodical,  Japanese couldn’t realistically anticipate the power of the tsunami well enough to protect their land against the violent onrush of the ocean in the wake of the spasms caused by the radical shift in the earth’s tectonic plates.

And while they had provided adequate technology to guard their lethal nuclear power plants even against the quaking earth, the surge of the ocean destroyed their best efforts to insure backup and shut down plans to always keep water pumping on the nuclear fuel, even during an earthquake. They were unable to avoid the loss of electricity essential to maintain and pump a constant stream of cool water to cover the radioactive fuel in their reactors, and after  the pumping machines failed to deliver water to the overheated guts of the fuel vessel,  they were unable to keep this foolhardy technology from “melting down” and spewing its lethal radiation across the land, and eventually perhaps across the planet, hanging like a sword of Damocles over the earth as radioactive particles are borne on the air currents that circle the globe.

More than 200,000 people were evacuated in the vicinity of the five nuclear reactors  at Fukishima which may be failing.   The reports are mixed and unclear from the Japanese government.   We know that numbers of people were contaminated with radioactivity on their skin and clothing and that the government is distributing potassium iodide tablets to prevent thyroid cancer in people who may have been exposed to radioactivity released in a series of explosions at two reactors.  Those tablets will not prevent other forms of cancer and leukemia that may increase exponentially from the release of the radioactivity at the reactors.  We also know that US sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, that was sent from our military base in Okinawa to the vicinity of the accident, have now been contaminated by airborne radioactivity.  Meanwhile the US mainstream media continues to downplay the catastrophic potential of so many reactors in Japan to create an environmental holocaust,  where brave workers are struggling to cool their hot radioactive fuel, while industry spokespeople assure us that our reactors in America are much safer, that Chernobyl only had 50 immediate deaths, while Russian scientists recently reported that there were close to 1,000,000 cancer deaths since the dreadful accident in 1986 spewed lethal radiation over a broad swath of the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and then dispersed to many other countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

Let this chaos be a wake-up call for a time out on any new nuclear energy development.  And like the massive mobilization gathering strength in Japan with emergency workers coming from all over the world to help rescue and recover the tens of thousands of people overcome in their villages by the trembling earth and fierce rushing waters, let us make a massive global effort to put a solar panel on every roof, a geothermal pump in every house and building, windmills on every windswept plain, tidal energy pumps in our rivers and seas to harness the clean safe energy of our Mother Earth.

In the words of that famous visionary thinker, Buckminster Fuller:
We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire’s level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet’s daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.

View the original article here

A December to Remember

Who's naughty or nice? This holiday season holds the promise of great gifts for the regional environment

December brings connotations of the holiday season.  Office parties, vacations, holiday shopping, football bowl games, family gatherings, overeating, lighting the menorah, and Christmas lights and trees.  For Heal the Bay, this December is anything but a time to ease into the new year.  As always, there is our push for year-end giving.  Tis the season for charitable write offs.  Also, once again, Heal the Bay is spearheading the Day Without a Bag event.  Over 25,000 bags will be given away at over 150 locations throughout L.A. County on Dec. 16 as a reminder to bring reusable bags whenever you go shopping.  Once again, partners include L.A. County, Los Angeles, other cities, retailers, grocers and other environmental groups.  This year, the event has spread across much of the state with counties from San Diego to San Francisco participating.

However, this December is as busy as any previous December I can remember.  Tomorrow, the city of Los Angeles Energy and Environment committee will finally hear the Low Impact Development ordinance.  The Department of Public Works-crafted ordinance has been ready to go since January, but it is finally coming up tomorrow morning. In essence, the ordinance will require new and redevelopment to capture and use or infiltrate 100 percent of the runoff generated by a three quarter-inch storm.  If the LID ordinance gets approved by city council, the long term benefits for L.A. and the region will include improved water quality, enhanced flood control, greener communities and augmented groundwater supply.

On Dec. 10, the State Lands Commission is scheduled to vote on Chevron’s EIR to continue mooring oil tankers off its El Segundo refinery.  The vote could just be to approve or deny the EIR, but the Commission can modify terms of the annual lease (Chevron only pays a little over a million bucks a year to unload crude and park tankers in the middle of Santa Monica Bay) or grant them a lease of up to 30 years.  Chevron is pushing hard to get approval ASAP because the composition of the State Lands Commission changes from Governor Schwarzenegger, Lt. Gov. Maldonado, and Controller Chiang to Governor Brown, Lt. Gov. Newsom and Chiang in January.  A 30-year lease at a million bucks a year is bad economic business for California.  A smarter play would be to grant a 10-year lease and for the state to obtain the true economic value of leasing the Bay to Chevron for its corporate economic gain.  Also, Heal the Bay commented on numerous safety issues and oil spill response issues pertaining to Chevron’s continued long term operation of the mooring.

On Dec. 14, the State Water Resources Control Board is scheduled to vote on an amendment to the Once Through Cooling policy for power plants.  The ink on the existing policy is barely dry, but LADWP is seeking regulatory relief from the policy through a broad and precedent setting amendment rather than proceeding through the process laid out in the existing policy — a result of over five years of studies, hearings, guidance from the energy regulators, and workshops.  Three other power companies have sued for regulatory weakening, so the policy is definitely under attack statewide.  A successful amendment to the policy at a time before the policy has ever been used would open the floodgates for power companies to get their own regulatory relief from the policy.  Heal the Bay is pushing hard for the State Board to require DWP to go through the policy process in the spring rather than approving a policy gutting amendment on the 14th.  The USEPA and about 20 environmental and fishing industry groups also oppose the amendment.

On Dec. 15, history could be made at the California Department of Fish and Game Commission hearing in Santa Barbara.  The Commission will vote on a final Marine Protected Area network for Southern California.  The two year process has been quite contentious and the recommended network does not fully meet the Scientific Advisory Team’s guidelines.  However, the compromise network, with very weak protection off of Palos Verdes and a disappointing level of protection off of Catalina, has been approved by the Blue Ribbon Task Force and vetted by the Commission.  If the vote follows form for the previous MPA networks, the Commission should approve the Integrated Preferred Alternative on the 15th.  The end result would be an MPA network that covers two thirds of the California coast.  The Southern California network generally meets scientific guidelines for the rest of the region and includes some extraordinary areas like the submarine canyon off of Point Dume.  Most importantly, the network would provide significant protection for marine life in state waters that should lead to significant recovery of numerous depleted populations and to more robust ecosystems in California coastal waters.

No matter what, this will be a December to remember for coastal waters and watersheds.  Hopefully, those memories will be good memories.  Other than that, there isn’t much going on in the marine conservation and pollution prevention arena locally this month.  Just eggnog, candy canes, unwrapping gifts, and opening holiday cards.  Happy holidays.

Filed under: Environmental Education, Environmental Leaders, Heal the Bay, L.A. DWP, Legislation, Marine Life, Marine Protected Areas, MPAs, Oil, Plastic, Power Plants Tagged: | Chevron, Day Without a Bag, Low Impact Development, MPAs, once through cooling

View the original article here

Cooling Off

The State Water Board rebuffed DWP's effort to water down new cooling policies at plants like its Scattergood facility.

In a nail biter, the State Water Resources Control Board got the three votes it needed Tuesday to turn down a broad amendment that would have gutted California’s new Once-Through Cooling policy for power plants. Board members Tam Doduc, Fran Spivy-Weber and Art Bagget supported the motion to uphold the policy and oppose the amendment.

The board also agreed to expedite analysis of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s implementation plan next summer. Over the past year, the DWP has argued numerous times that it can’t meet the OTC policy compliance deadlines for re-powering three of its power plants by the end of 2021.

Earlier, the DWP promised to phase out all OTC, but it wanted until 2031 for Scattergood and up to 2040 for co-generation power plants.  But, then DWP lobbied the State Water Board for a policy amendment to extend the compliance timeframe in exchange to phasing out OTC at all three power plants.  Instead of introducing a narrow amendment for DWP, the State Board proposed an expanded amendment, opening up a Pandora’s box in the OTC policy for co-generation and fossil fuel plants up and down the entire state coastline.

As a result, a number of enviro and fishing communities joined to oppose the expanded amendment for gutting the policy. Linda Sheehan, the executive director of California Coastkeeper Alliance, took lead in the comment-writing and organization effort. Santa Monica Baykeeper, NRDC, Sierra Club and Surfrider also strongly opposed the amendment at the hearing.

To demonstrate the over-the-top nature of the proposed amendment, nearly every coastal  power company in the state attended the State Board hearing to support the amendment (and of course, asked for further weakening of the OTC policy). In addition, DWP pulled out all the stops by having its top lobbyist, former Assemblymember Cindy Montanez, testify on its behalf. DWP also got legislators Bradford and Deleon, the Central City Assn. (do its leaders support any environmental issues?), the Police Protective League and others to back the misguided effort. Even See’s Candies wrote a letter of support for DWP. Sweet!

In the end, common sense prevailed. The State Water Board wants to see everyone’s implementation plans before considering schedule changes. That’s how the policy is supposed to work.

Now the ball is in DWP’s court. Its leaders have a big incentive to put together an implementation plan ASAP, and they should continue working with the environmental community to pull it off.  However, they may need to recalibrate their expectations on compliance deadline extensions to just focus on grid reliability issues.

Filed under: Environmental Governance, L.A. DWP, Power Plants, Water Quality Tagged: | DWP, once through cooling, Power Plants, State Water Resources Control Board

View the original article here

Crisis Averted

The DWP came to its senses on AB 1552.

Last week the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power gutted and amended a pending state bill (AB 1552) and inserted new language that would have significantly eased newly established rules for how power plants suck in ocean water to cool themselves.  DWP leaders went on the offensive against these regulations, even though an existing city policy on Once Through Cooling legislation doesn’t exist. They moved forward without a city council vote on the proposed legislation. (And in an interesting bit of timing, lawmakers introduced the measure just as the L.A. City Council commenced its two-week summer break.) 

Instead of trusting public process, which considered both economics and grid reliability, the DWP crafted AB 1552 as a cynical exemption that applied only to itself. If the bill became law, DWP would have been able to skirt the intent of the new policy by receiving severely weakened flow reduction targets for its OTC plants in comparison with similar facilities statewide.  The utility even had the nerve to write in a new definition of technical feasibility that is completely inconsistent with the federal Clean Water Act and last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the issue.

Fortunately, the DWP came to its senses late this week and dropped the offensive gut-and-amend legislation, thereby averting a horrible precedent at the state legislature. Even before the clandestine backroom shenanigans began in Sacramento, DWP initiated discussions with the State Water Board last week. Discussions on the DWP compliance plan strategy were promising enough this week to lead the utility to shelve the bill.

DWP’s heavy-handed tactics to blow up the OTC policy through AB 1552 would have set a precedent that would result in continued degradation of California’s coast and ocean.  This week, numerous power companies lobbied legislators to get their own exemptions added to the legislation.  The bill undermined the integrity of the public, administrative and legislative processes and passage of the legislation would have led to erosion of collaborative approaches to environmental protection. Finally, passage of AB 1552 would have encouraged more last-second legislative attempts to avoid compliance with environmental laws and regulations.

California’s 19 OTC power plants are permitted to pull in over 16 billion gallons of water for cooling daily, or over 17.9 million acre-feet per year, killing virtually everything in the cooling water in the process. These power plants kill tens of billions of fish, larvae and invertebrates annually, according to the State Water Board, including 30% of the recreational fish stock off the Southern California coast. The DWP operates three OTC plants in Los Angeles County: Scattergood on the Santa Monica Bay and the Haynes and Harbor facilities in the port area.

Rightly concerned about the ecological devastation caused by OTC, the state’s Water Quality Control Board conducted five years of public hearings before issuing new restrictions on how plants will cool themselves in the future. The board adopted the new rules in May, nearly 35 years after passage of the federal Clean Water Act, which includes strict requirements to protect aquatic life resources from the harm caused by operating coastal power plants.

The new rules call for a roughly 90% reduction in plants’ impacts on marine life through impingement (fish getting stuck on screens) and entrainment (fish and invertebrate larvae getting sucked into power plants and cooked).

The care, inclusiveness and transparency of assembling the state’s new OTC policy can’t be overstated. The California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, California Independent System Operator, State Lands Commission, Ocean Protection Council, federal EPA, and a wide variety of stakeholders representing power plants, fishing interests, conservation groups, environmental justice organizations and energy experts all participated in shaping the policy over the last five years.

Independent studies assessed the feasibility and potential grid reliability impacts of the new rules. The highly public process included about a dozen workshops and hearings, and culminated in the approval of a policy that puts energy reliability first.

I’m strongly encouraged that the DWP wised up and moved forward on compliance plan negotiations with the State Water Board.  Heal the Bay will work with the DWP and the state to ensure that the final plan protects marine life and complies with state policy.

Filed under: Environmental Governance, Power Plants, wildlife Tagged: | AB 1552, DWP, once through cooling

View the original article here

Fight the Power

Once Through Cooling plants suck the life out of the ocean

I just sat through a seven-hour workshop on the State Water Board’s long-awaited Once Through Cooling power plant policy for California. Arguably, this may be the most important coastal resource protection action in California this year. State Water Board staff put together a draft policy that could finally hold the power industry accountable for decades of non-compliance with the Clean Water Act. In essence, the policy requires OTC plants to comply with Section 316b of the Act and greatly reduce their impacts on fisheries and marine life. These plants use ancient steam generation technologies that literally suck the life out of the ocean. Fish are caught on screens and larvae and eggs get cooked in the plant.

The many speakers who showed up largely stuck to their scripts. The enviro community came out en masse (Keepers, NRDC, Surfrider, Sierra Club, and Heal the Bay) and largely supported most of the draft policy with a strong call for policy simplification and the elimination of giant compliance loopholes. The strength behind the enviro position came from the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals on the Riverkeeper I and II cases. Our positions are also supported by the Supreme Court.

The power companies all complained about the policy being too expensive, too difficult to comply with, and hampered by too short deadlines. However, they couldn’t provide any suggestions on improving the policy while still complying with the Clean Water Act. The differences in the testimony delivered by the various power companies were largely negligible, with NRG the only one espousing a neutral position.

The power industries’ blanket opposition to every part of the policy (including the font choice) is disappointing, given that the energy regulators (CEC, Cal-ISO, and the PUC) all supported the policy and developed the compliance deadlines for each of the 19 power plants covered by the policy.

Glaringly absent from the workshop were the sport and commercial fishing communities. A 2005 study demonstrated an overall entrainment mortality of 1.4% of larval fishes in the Southern California Bight. Recreational fish impingement totaled 8% to 30% of sportfish species caught in the Southern California Bight.

We need the fishing community to come out and support strengthening the OTC policy as vigorously as its members are fighting Marine Protected Areas. The issue marks a great chance for the environmental and fishing communities to collaborate for mutual benefit. And the fish win too.

But, there isn’t much time for the fishing community to weigh in. The final decision on the policy will probably come in December. Comments are due Sept. 30.  A strong OTC policy will lead to healthier coastal fisheries and a repowered, more energy efficient California.

Filed under: Power Plants Tagged: | fishing community, MPAs, once through cooling, Power Plants, State Water Board

View the original article here

Memo to Antonio … continued

It's time to treat L.A.'s rivers as habitat rather than flood control channels. Photo: lacreekfreak.org

Yesterday,  I outlined  my top three green initiatives that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should tackle in the remainder of his second term. Here’s a look at some other environmental issues that he should make a priority:

Fast-track city approval of a Stream Protection Ordinance in 2010. The Department of Public Works has spent three and a half years working on a stream protection ordinance.  Based on Watershed Protection Division analysis, there are approximately 462 miles of riparian habitat that would receive some level of protection under the draft ordinance.  Council districts 11 (Rosendahl), 2 (Krekorian), and 12 (Smith) all have over 60 miles of habitat, while 11 out of 15 districts have at least 12 miles of habitat.  The ordinance would protect the city’s remaining stream habitat by requiring development buffer zones of 100 feet for soft-bottomed habitat and 30 feet for concrete-lined channels. We need to start treating streams like habitat rather than flood control channels. Unfortunately, the ordinance has been frozen in the mayor’s office for over two years. If the mayor says he wants to protect L.A.’s streams, the ordinance would likely sail through City Council.  Unfortunately, the ordinance is not on the mayor’s radar.

Build the East Valley Water Recycling project by 2012. The water crisis is only getting worse and L.A. needs to rely more on local, sustainable water supplies.  For example, the mayor should demand that DWP and the Department of Public Works build a microfiltration-reverse osmosis facility for the East Valley Water Recycling project by 2012. This water recycling project is what’s called indirect potable reuse. The treated wastewater is applied to a spreading basin, where it infiltrates into the groundwater. Joel Wachs’ ill-fated “Toilet to Tap” mayoral campaign in the 1990s helped kill this reasonable initiative.  The project addresses public health concerns by adding additional treatment to Tillman recycled water.  Microfiltration and reverse osmosis do a superb job of removing pathogens and emerging contaminants. The project should not have to wait for the DWP’s final water recycling plan (which hopefully will have a 100K acre foot per year target rather than only 50K acre feet).

The mayor’s water plan uses an integrated approach that includes more water recycling, conservation (how about an ordinance requiring waterless urinals in all public buildings?), wellhead treatment at contaminated aquifers, and rainwater infiltration and capture and use. L.A. also needs a landscape ordinance that will force locals to live within their water means by planting climate-appropriate plants rather than turf ready for Augusta National or tropical vegetation. A high-profile, water recycling project in conjunction with additional water conservation measures sends a message to Angelenos that we can thrive as a city using local water supplies. We are surrounded by water agencies that have a superior water recycling record, including Calleguas MWD, Las Virgenes MWD, the Los Angeles county Sanitation Districts, West Basin MWD, the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, and the Orange County Water District. DWP can do the same.

Ban single-use plastic bags and blown polystyrene food packaging citywide. Our addiction to single-use plastic packaging is out of control.  In Los Angeles County, we use more than 6 billion single-use plastic shopping bags each year. We need the mayor to set an example for the region by banning plastic bags and blown polystyrene food packaging in his city.  Many U.S. cities and many nations throughout the world have already acted on these issues.  The global marine debris crisis is only getting worse and society’s benefit is limited to convenience in exchange for despoiling the most beautiful and isolated places on Earth. Heal the Bay’s Coastal Cleanup Day and A Day Without a Bag are not enough.  Behavioral change will be far more effective if our product choices are sustainable.

Support the state policy to phase out once-through cooling in coastal power plants. The DWP has stated its support of the draft policy to transition out of once-through cooling, which literally sucks the life out of the ocean by using seawater to cool plants. The agency says it can’t meet the 2017 deadline to convert its three coastal power plants. The state policy gives DWP the opportunity to repower the coastal power plants with more energy efficient technologies (sorely needed) as long as they use closed cycle or recycled cooling. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that once-through cooling is not Best Available Technology for compliance with the Clean Water Act. Under the draft state policy, reduction of impingement of fish and entrainment of fish larvae must be greater than 90% or so. L.A. needs to support the policy and offer detailed explanations for why its three power plants can’t meet the 2017 deadlines. However, the city shouldn’t ask for more than an additional three years to comply with the policy. The DWP should support the current policy with the 2017 deadline. At the most, they should support the policy with a 2020 deadline. Along with a statewide network of Marine Protected Areas, the phase out of once-through cooling in California will go a long way towards restoring sustainable fisheries along our coast.

I’ve prattled on enough, but there are many more green issues on which the mayor can have a positive impact. Clearly, moving towards more renewable energy and energy conserving technologies and creating a green enterprise zone are two of his top priorities. The mayor lends his considerable clout to subway and light-rail issues and greening the goods transportation efforts at the Port of L.A. And I’m particularly excited by the potential of the city’s Zero Waste Plan.

If the mayor resolves to have the city achieve the modest goals listed above, then his bold promise of making L.A. the cleanest, greenest major city in America will have a chance to come to fruition.  More importantly, the mayor will have made his mark on making L.A. a more livable, sustainable community for years to come.

Filed under: Environmental Governance, Heal the Bay, Legislation, Marine Debris, Marine Protected Areas, Plastic, Port of Los Angeles, Power Plants, Water Conservation, Water Plan Tagged: | Antonio Villaraigosa, green initiatives, L.A. River, Los Angeles, once through cooling, stream protection, Water Recycling

View the original article here

Power Play

Nukes like San Onofre may be exempted from the state's already watered-down policy on once-through cooling.

Good things come to those who wait. Unless you’re a fish.

Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office finally allowed the State Water Board to release a modified once-through-cooling power plant policy. The governor’s office held the policy hostage for months while every major power generator in the state lobbied heavily to weaken the last draft. What a surprise. The power brokers won. They should at least say “Thanks for the fish” like the dolphins in the “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

For those keeping score at home: The State Water Board had already weakened the last version of the policy because of power industry lobbying, but the California Energy Commission, the Public Utility Commission and the California Independent System Operator supported the draft.

The environmental community largely welcomed the draft policy, but still wanted some of the loopholes filled, such as making the preferred compliance method one that does not rely on seawater for cooling power plants and instead requires air cooling.

Meanwhile, despite over two years of a painful public process, a technical advisory committee review and numerous opportunities to comment on the policy, the power industry by and large wanted to maintain the status quo.

Numerous lobbying trips to the governor’s office led to severe erosion of the technically sound policy. What did the power industry get for its troubles? Ka-ching!!  Here goes:

The nukes at Diablo Canyon and San Onofre got a potential way out of the policy altogether. 

Because nukes don’t produce greenhouse gases, and this administration has remained tough on climate change, the plants could use economics as an argument that saving marine life is just too darn expensive. 

They may even skate without having to implement any significant controls to reduce fish impingement and larval entrainment. I’m not sure if the decision to go with marine life death by boiling vs. acidification factored into the decision making, but I’m sure that the nukes’ arguments about the multibillion dollar cost to retrofit the plants played the key role.

The nukes getting their way isn’t much of a surprise, but the rest of the policy surprised even the most cynical of environmental leaders. 

One of the big national fights that the environmental community has won is the definition of “Best Technology Available.” Once-through-cooling is not BTA and there isn’t much debate that closed cycle or recycled cooling does count as BTA.

The state decided to waffle on the issue by providing two tracks to comply with the policy. The first makes it clear that a power plant would comply through the use of BTA – closed cycle or recycled cooling. The second track calls for reduction of the impingement and entrainment by the equivalent amount of reducing the flow by about 90% of the design flow, not the actual or generational flow.

That leaves plenty of opportunity for power plants to have fun with statistics and provide minimal reductions in actual cooling water flows, especially for all of the peaker plants that run only when base energy isn’t adequate to meet the local region’s needs. 

Thanks to the state removing its stated preference for the first track, guess which track that most power plants will choose?

The first, which will move California forward on energy efficiency, create green jobs and protect marine life? Or the ambiguous second track, which will allow for many power plants to maintain the status quo with the implementation of a few screens and intake flow management measures that surely won’t meet the marine life protection goals of S.316b of the Clean Water Act?

It’s definitely an easier pick than choosing the winner of the latest March Madness tourney. 

Furthermore, the state made the second track even weaker by regulating based on the design flow of the plant. Keep in mind that many of these coastal power plants were designed in the 1950s. Because much more efficient plants now exist, these older facilities only kick in during times of peak energy demand. They rarely, if ever, operate according to design.

So if plants are being asked to reduce their salt-water intake by roughly 80% a year, it’s easier to meet that goal if it’s based on designed potential rather than actual use.

Compliance should be determined based on the amount of flow actually needed to generate energy.

For some reason, the fish and larvae sucked into the power plant to make bouillabaisse don’t understand the real-world difference between how much ocean water actually gets sucked into the intake vs. a vastly larger engineering design flow that will make policy compliance easier.

But wait. That’s not all. Thanks to the lobbying of Moss Landing and LADWP, there is now a combined cycle power plant clause. If a power plant already ditched 1950s technology to go to combined cycle cooling, then it gets credit for that intake flow reduction.

The way the policy is written, it appears as if the facility gets to apply these flow reductions for the entire plant, even if only one or two units were converted to combined cycle.

There are other creative ways to meet policy requirements, like reducing intake flow velocity to 0.5 feet per second based on monthly flow to account for seasonal impacts. (There are more fish larvae in SoCal during the summer than in winter.)

So, there’s not much chance that any of those power plants will move to BTA in my lifetime. 

And if these watered-down compliance requirements are still too hard to meet, the energy industry can always go back to Cal-ISO to ask for extensions. Construction delays, CEQA compliance problems, financial issues and inclement weather could all lead to further appeals for delay.

The appeal process has been modified despite the multi-year extension of the many compliance deadlines, including those for DWP power plants. These extensions have been determined in conjunction with Cal-ISO, the Energy Commission and the Public Utilities Commission.

 The final decision on the policy rests with the State Water Board, which votes May 4.

The environmental community, business community and fishing community should get together to strongly advocate for a strengthened policy.

If they don’t, then the odds of California’s OTC policy making a significant beneficial difference for marine life will be similar to those of the Butler basketball team winning it all a week from tonight.

Filed under: Environmental Governance, Power Plants, Water Quality, wildlife Tagged: | coastal power plants, once through cooling, State Water Board

View the original article here

Steamed With the L.A. Times

The Times ignores that the Scattergood power plant in El Segundo is in violation of the Clean Water Act.

The Los Angeles Times finally ran its long-awaited article on the state’s proposed rule to phase out California’s ecologically devastating once-through cooling power plants over the next 12-14 years. Not surprisingly, reporter Jill Leovy missed the point.

She omitted any discussion of the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act to use Best Available Control Technology to reduce larval entrainment and fish impingment in power plants. Federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court have upheld the requirement, under section 316b of the act.

And once-through cooling (OTC) doesn’t fit anyone’s definition of Best Available Control Technology. Energy plants that use OTC literally suck the life out of the ocean, diverting millions of gallons of seawater via intake pipes to cool themselves. Somehow, the fact that every coastal power plant in California is in gross violation of the Clean Water Act didn’t get included in the article.

The Times piece didn’t include any information from the reporter’s interviews with the State Water Board or the energy agencies (California Energy Commission, Public Utilities Commission and the California Independent System of Operators) that support the draft policy.

If the Times did include this information, the reader would have seen that nearly all of the coastal power plants need to be repowered anyway because they use arcane, energy inefficient technologies. Also, the reader would have seen how California wants to move forward with the policy to self determine how OTC will get phased out rather than waiting for a one-size-fits-few approach from the federal EPA.

Instead, we got the usual “it’s too expensive to protect the environment” argument. The overly simplistic thesis props up the mistaken belief that the enviros are at war with the entire power industry. 

Further inflaming the media-manufactured battle, the article included quotes from David Freeman, the acting G.M. at LADWP. David does not speak for the city of Los Angeles. And the Mayor’s office and the City Council have not taken a position on the policy.

Freeman, a legendary advocate for green power, is not exactly an expert at protecting wildlife. The state’s estimate is that OTC power plants kill between 8%-30% of Southern California nearshore sportfish. That’s a huge impact.

The OTC policy is needed just as much to protect local fisheries as the network of Marine Protected Areas. It would be great for the fishing community to end its silence on the issue and make it clear to the state that the OTC policy is needed to protect members’ livelihood and recreation.

All of the noise about getting rid of coal vs. protecting coastal waters, and the cost of compliance, has given the state cold feet.

In particular, the nuclear power plants’ arguments that getting rid of OTC is too expensive in comparison to the benefits of greenhouse-free power have resonated in Sacramento. As a result, the final policy has been stuck in the Governor’s office for about a month and the hearing on the policy has been delayed multiple times until mid April.

The bottom line — the proposed rule is good for California at many levels. Every major enviro group in the state supports a strong policy, from NRDC to Sierra Club to all of the Coastkeepers to HtB. Even the energy groups are in support. It protects California’s coastal ecosystems. And it will act as a catalyst to repower woefully inefficient coastal power plants.

Now California needs to stand behind the technical recommendation by moving forward on this long overdue policy.

Filed under: Heal the Bay, Marine Life, Marine Protected Areas, Media & the Environment, Power Plants Tagged: | Los Angeles times, once through cooling, Power Plants

View the original article here

A Level Playing Field

The distribution of IPL franchises is not a question of entitlement, but should be seen as a reward for good governance and economic performance.

In a peculiar piece in The Telegraph, historian Ramachandra Guha—author of some of the best Indian books on cricket—condemns the improper distribution of IPL franchises across the country:

Consider the following statistics. Uttar Pradesh has a population…of 166 million people, but it has no team represented in the Indian Premier League. Maharashtra has a population of a mere 97 million, but two of its cities, Mumbai and Pune, have IPL teams.

Now consider this second set of facts. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar are three of the most populous states in India. Roughly one in three Indians live there. On the other hand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh together account for less than one-fourth of the country’s population. Yet there is not one IPL team from those three large states in North India, whereas from next year, 2011, each state of South India will have its own IPL team.

The Constitution of India says that every citizen of India has equal rights…This lopsided allocation of IPL teams is thus insensitive to democracy and demography.

This maldistribution of IPL franchises undermines its claim to be ‘Indian’, and is in defiance of sporting history and achievement as well. The truth is that citizenship and cricket have been comprehensively trumped by the claims of commerce.

Why is this such an affront to Indianness or democracy? Guha himself brings up the constitutional right to equality. The IPL was designed—first and foremost—as cricket for television audiences. Today any Indian can turn on a television and watch the same cricket match, regardless of where it is taking place. Is that not equality?

But more importantly, Guha promotes a somewhat outmoded position of how we should consider egalitarianism, which is indeed enshrined in the Indian constitution. Social equality, in this view, is no different from democracy, which functions on a one-person-one-vote basis. The hazard is that it leads to a sense of entitlement. Just as a vote is each person’s birthright, each of us has the right to similar levels of material well-being (in this case, access to watching live cricket near us), with no consideration of effort exerted or quality of performance. Consequently, Kanpur, Cuttack or Gwalior deserve IPL franchises.

But frame this as the right to equal opportunity, and Guha’s argument appears a lot less compelling. Rather than focus on the individual rights of people and states—that U.P. deserves an IPL franchise by the simple fact that it has more people—why can’t he project the designation of franchises as rewarding good governance and economic performance? South India has performed well on both counts compared to the North. So have Gujarat and Maharashtra compared to Orissa or Madhya Pradesh.

That Pune has better nightlife, and Hyderabad a better airport than Kanpur, Cuttack or Gwalior is not a sign of inequality, as Guha would have it, but simply a manifestation of better performance. If Kanpur had Hyderabad’s airport and Pune’s hotels, the IPL would come knocking. Given that each city and each state has an equal opportunity to attract an IPL franchise, the distribution of cricket teams seems quite a fair one.

I have great respect for Guha’s contributions as an intellectual, but sometimes I wish he realised he lived in the 21st century.

View the original article here

Cricket and Cognitive Biases

The compilation of an all-time XI of Indian cricket reveals some of the same cognitive biases that blur our assessments of recent history.

Cricinfo—that venerable authority on all things cricket—is compiling an all-time XI for India, having already performed similar exercises for seven other Test nations. Comparing athletes across eras is always tricky, but based upon the other lists of all-time greats, it seems that the criteria for selection is  based upon some combination of the following:

Players’ performance in Test matches.  Ajay Sharma, who played but one Test, probably does not deserve to be considered for his First Class batting average of 67.46, his off-field activities notwithstanding.How players compared with their contemporaries the world over. For example, the 2000s was an era of bloated batting averages; the 1990s were lean years for batsmen. It’s more than just a strict statistical comparison.How important players were to achieving important results for their sides. Did players save their team from defeat, or play crucial roles in famous wins?

Unfortunately, it looks as if sentimentality is set to obfuscate what should be a fairly objective activity. Take, for example, the short-list for openers, which consists of Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Vijay Merchant and Navjot Singh Sidhu. All four have the credentials, but I was disappointed that the jury failed to recognize current Indian opener Gautam Gambhir. Gambhir has a batting average of almost 53, higher than Gavaskar’s (51), Merchant’s (48) and Sidhu’s (42), and just below Sehwag’s (54). One argument against him would be that, as a relative newcomer, he has not played enough matches (32 so far). Yet Merchant played in only 10 Tests and Sidhu not many more (51). In fact, this further strengthens Gambhir’s case: despite fewer Tests, he has already scored as many centuries as Sidhu (9), not to mention many more than Merchant (3). The argument can also be made that Gambhir’s figures are exaggerated by batting-friendly conditions and weak opposition. Fair enough. Yet two of his centuries came in wins over quality opponents (Australia and Sri Lanka). Merchant, while no doubt a great player, never played for a winning Test side. Compared to his peers, Gambhir was voted the best Test player at the 2009 ICC awards. Had such awards been around during their careers, it is unlikely that Merchant or Sidhu would have ever been in the reckoning for them, based on their Test performances alone (Merchant did indeed have a stellar First Class record). I still think that India’s two best openers have been Gavaskar and Sehwag, which may make this debate irrelevant, but there appears to be no objective basis for Gambhir’s exclusion from the short-list.

I bring this up for what it tells us about our attitudes towards recent history and the various cognitive biases that come into play when considering important policy debates.

On the one hand, a set of logical processes bias us in favor of what we have experienced firsthand, a trait that has long been documented in psychological literature. Thus, many of us are more likely to appreciate contemporary achievements, such as those of Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods or Roger Federer over Don Bradman, Jack Nicklaus or Rod Laver. Similarly, the big ideological breakthroughs of recent memory overshadow those of earlier times. We may have all had the experience of reading an older work of scholarship, only to be struck by how applicable it is to a current situation; it is often quite humbling to realise that complex ideas have already been so well thought through by thinkers of an earlier era, many of whom are now nearly forgotten. In the security realm, the disproportionate emphasis placed on Indian sacrifices during the Kargil War (India’s first televised conflict) when some 2-3 times the number were killed in 1947-48, 1971 and 1987-1990 in Sri Lanka would be one noteworthy example, one that is by no means meant to diminish the achievements of Indian forces in 1999.

By contrast, most of us fall victim to a number of cognitive biases that make us favour the more distant past over the present. Consequently, the achievements of Merchant, whom none of the Cricinfo jury saw play, take on a mythic aura and his failures get overlooked. By contrast, all of Gambhir’s failings, technical or otherwise, are both seen and recalled. While demonstrably talented and successful, he remains a mere mortal.

Such thinking is particularly applicable to evaluations of politics and policy. For example, there has recently been a rediscovery of sorts of Indian internationalism in the early years after independence, which—according to most such narratives—gradually gave way to a closing off of the country to the outside world, particularly during the Indira Gandhi years. Supporters of this view point to India’s mediation before and during the Korean War and the leading role that Nehru took in the early years of the Non-Aligned Movement, as among the examples of past Indian activism on the global stage.

But these ought to be offset by other considerations: the much smaller size of India’s foreign policy infrastructure (for example, India lacked an external intelligence bureau, and had only three IB officers posted abroad in its early years), the lack of resources at home to leverage to its advantage, and the immensity of security challenges nearer at hand. Neutral mediation and third world multilateralism are both the domains of countries with little or no stake in major issues (take present-day Finland, for example). Indian activities in the first two decades after independence, successful or not, take on that same rosy aura that Vijay Merchant’s batting does, placing current efforts in a comparatively unfavourable light. Such biases should not come in the way of  objective appraisals of achievements past and present.

View the original article here

Enhancing Global Nuclear Security Efforts

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Forum Post: Newbie....

Hi. new here. still checkin it out.

You have posted to a forum that requires a moderator to approve posts before they are publicly available.

View the original article here

Forum Post: RE: All nuclear power plants worldwide.

Piter,

I agree! Thant would be a nice addition.

If you are interested in the US plants under construction, you can find them here: New Nuclear Power Plants in the USA

You have posted to a forum that requires a moderator to approve posts before they are publicly available.

View the original article here

Forum Post: RE: Who is to blame for the retiring of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) ??

1. SCE selected steam generators (SGs) from MHI as low bidder

2. SCE told MHI to change the SG design from original SGs

3. SCE told NRC the new SG design is like for like

4. MHI designed and built lousy SGs

5. SCE contracted to remove old SGs and to install these lousy SGs into the plant

6. The lousy SGs started wearing out after only one year

7. One of the SGs developed a leak and the had to shutdown

8. SCE and worldwide consults came up with only two solutions - replace these SGs or operate the plant at reduced power with the hope that the wearing will stop.

 9. SCE wanted to go with reduced power operation for one reactor but NRC regulations would not allow this experiment without a formal licensing amendment.

10. SCE decided that the formal license amendment process was too long and made the business decision for permanent shutdown of the reactors.

Root cause of problem is not politics or NRC. Root cause is SCE wanted more steam generator tubes and deviated from the original CE design. SCE should have stayed with the original CE design which lasted more than 30 years. SCE only had another 20 years to operate the reactors.

You have posted to a forum that requires a moderator to approve posts before they are publicly available.

View the original article here

Friday Humour

Kim Jong-Un, heir-apparent to the North Korean leadership, has been given the title of “Yongmyong-han Dongji,” which apparently translates roughly to “Brilliant Comrade.” Foreign Policy‘s Joshua Keating:

I can’t help thinking that the progressive downgrading from “Great Leader” to “Dear Leader” to Brilliant Comrade” could become problematic. What comes next? Decent Administrator? Qualified Manager? Righteous dude? 

On a completely unrelated note, Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan are finally lighting up an otherwise lacklustre batting display by India in the Twenty20 World Cup against the West Indies. But will it be enough to defend against a Chris Gayle Dwayne Bravo onslaught? Update: No.

View the original article here

Future of Nuclear Power in Focus at IAEA Ministerial Conference in Saint Petersburg

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA Completes Nuclear Security Review Mission in Hungary

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA Experts to Visit Fukushima Daiichi Site, Review Japan’s Decommissioning Plans

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA RANET Capacity Building Centre in Fukushima Begins Work

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA Team Completes Initial Review of Japan’s Plans to Decommission Fukushima Daiichi

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA to Brief Media Ahead of International Conference on Nuclear Security

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA to Brief Media Ahead of Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power in Saint Petersburg

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA to Designate Capacity Building Centre in Fukushima for Emergency Preparedness and Response

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA to Host Experts’ Meeting on Human and Organizational Factors in Nuclear Safety

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

IAEA to Host International Conference on Nuclear Security

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

International Expert Team Concludes IAEA Peer Review of Poland’s Regulatory Framework for Nuclear and Radiation Safety

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

International IAEA Emergency Response Workshop in Fukushima Concludes

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

It's Not Cricket

Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute has a trite, meandering article  in The American on cricket, which came to my notice only because it was featured on Arts & Letters Daily. On top of the illogical comparisons between cricket and baseball, which are reminiscent of the idle chatter of adolescent public school layabouts (“Tendulkar would make a reasonably good baseball player.” “Ryan Howard of the Phillies might be able to play for a decent cricket team, but his immobility would make him a liability.”), I was mildly taken aback by this sentence:

While there is no love lost between Red Sox Nation and Yankees fans, India and Pakistan almost went to war over cricket (and who knows, they still might). 

Wadekar Test Fifty? Pray tell, Mr. Bate, when exactly did the two nations come to the brink of war over a bat-and-ball sport? Was it, by any chance, a byproduct of cricket diplomacy? Were East Pakistani refugees fleeing a post-match lathi charge? Was 26/11 simply a few firecrackers gone wrong at the Brabourne? 

India and Pakistan may at times be petty and vengeful, but Lilliput and Blefuscu they are not. The spreading of such misinformation (which, in some hands, is disinformation; I give Bate the benefit of the doubt) is reprehensible, not to mention irresponsible.

As Nitin quips:

I recall the USA and USSR went to war over Cuban cigars.

View the original article here

Ministers at IAEA conference call for stronger nuclear security

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Nuclear power remains important energy option for many countries, IAEA Ministerial Conference concludes

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Page: Nuclear Plant - Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Press Arrangements for IAEA Board of Governors Meeting, 3-7 June 2013

Copyright (c) 2013 Nuclear Street - A Media X Group SiteSorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Friday Humour

Kim Jong-Un, heir-apparent to the North Korean leadership, has been given the title of “Yongmyong-han Dongji,” which apparently translates roughly to “Brilliant Comrade.” Foreign Policy‘s Joshua Keating:

I can’t help thinking that the progressive downgrading from “Great Leader” to “Dear Leader” to Brilliant Comrade” could become problematic. What comes next? Decent Administrator? Qualified Manager? Righteous dude? 

On a completely unrelated note, Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan are finally lighting up an otherwise lacklustre batting display by India in the Twenty20 World Cup against the West Indies. But will it be enough to defend against a Chris Gayle Dwayne Bravo onslaught? Update: No.

View the original article here

It's Not Cricket

Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute has a trite, meandering article  in The American on cricket, which came to my notice only because it was featured on Arts & Letters Daily. On top of the illogical comparisons between cricket and baseball, which are reminiscent of the idle chatter of adolescent public school layabouts (“Tendulkar would make a reasonably good baseball player.” “Ryan Howard of the Phillies might be able to play for a decent cricket team, but his immobility would make him a liability.”), I was mildly taken aback by this sentence:

While there is no love lost between Red Sox Nation and Yankees fans, India and Pakistan almost went to war over cricket (and who knows, they still might). 

Wadekar Test Fifty? Pray tell, Mr. Bate, when exactly did the two nations come to the brink of war over a bat-and-ball sport? Was it, by any chance, a byproduct of cricket diplomacy? Were East Pakistani refugees fleeing a post-match lathi charge? Was 26/11 simply a few firecrackers gone wrong at the Brabourne? 

India and Pakistan may at times be petty and vengeful, but Lilliput and Blefuscu they are not. The spreading of such misinformation (which, in some hands, is disinformation; I give Bate the benefit of the doubt) is reprehensible, not to mention irresponsible.

As Nitin quips:

I recall the USA and USSR went to war over Cuban cigars.

View the original article here

John Howard's Second Innings

Here is the man set to become the president of the International Cricket Council in two years:

Bowling very, very wrong ‘uns may not have got him the job, but as a retired statesman, there are plenty of things that former Aussie PM John Howard can bring to highest levels of cricket adminstration.  A few humble suggestions for how the old boy can successfully make use of his background in international politics as ICC president:

1. Make Australia a bridging power. While India may be the center of cricket now, the rest of the world—particularly outside South Asia—is somewhat conflicted about how much to bandwagon against it and how much to balance it. Australia under Howard was faced with a similar dilemma. Was Australia an extension of the West, as proudly proclaimed by Robert Menzies, or was it primarily a regional player in the Asia-Pacific, as Paul Keating envisioned it? “Well, why not both?” Howard seemed to ask when he assumed the Prime Ministership. Under Howard’s leadership of the ICC, Australia can position itself as an actor that takes full advantage of Indian financial and administrative dominance in cricket  while keeping England, South Africa, New Zealand and the West Indies actively engaged.

2. Don’t be a lemming. Just because the big man says something ought to be done, doesn’t mean it should be. While he himself may disagree with this assessment, Lalit Modi is not God. And neither was George W. Bush. It may have won Howard serious brownie points in Washington committing his country to the Iraq cause, but it came back to bite him in the end. Similarly, he shouldn’t be afraid to push back against the BCCI’s more outrageous demands, rather than just going with the flow.

3.  Adopt institutional Darwinism. Like the multinational architecture of the Asia-Pacific region, the international cricket calendar is a jumble, a mishmash, a mess. Rather than let it try to do everything (badly), Howard should force the ICC to focus on the events that bring out the best of cricket, and create windows for them. Prioritise and standardize the IPL, the ODI World Cup, the World Twenty20, regular Test series, and domestic First Class and Twenty20 competitions. Scrap the Champions Trophy, the bevy of minor ODI tournaments, and series over five matches. Create a two-tiered Test structure. Overhaul the Future Tours Program, even if that proves more daunting than UNSC reforms.

4.  Enforce norms. Cheating—Shahid Afridi style—is not controversial. It’s just plain wrong. But what about discrepancies over pitches, umpiring or power plays? There’s plenty to do still to ensure that everyone—players, officials, coaches, commentators and fans—are on the same page.

5. Save Pakistan. Pakistani diplomats regularly argue that Pakistan is too important to fail. Bad rhetoric, perhaps, given the negative connotations, but with only ten Test-playing nations around, this is undeniably true for cricket. Giving billions of dollars of aid may be a waste, and selling conventional weaponry may be downright dangerous, but keeping Pakistan—and Pakistanis—involved in cricket is worth every penny.

View the original article here

The IPL's Tampered Ball

The player auction represented the tragic blurring of two distinct spheres of experience: politics and cricket.

If one sought to imagine how India might act as a superpower, one could do worse than follow the world of cricket, where it already is one. The last decade has witnessed not just a resurgence of India as a top international side, but also its complete domination of the administrative and financial levers of the sport. 

With power comes privilege. After 96 years of being based in London, the International Cricket Council moved its headquarters eastwards, to Dubai, to be closer to the new centre of power. The ‘liberal’ entente regarding the rotation of World Cup hosting rights between continents was done away with, the subcontinent demanding a second helping over Australia and New Zealand’s protestations. And now, the world’s richest and most high-profile league is based in India, attracting the best international talent. Rich, brash, ruthless and unforgiving, Indian cricket has acted much like a hegemon might have been expected to act in international politics.

The dynamics of this parallel world order,  however, rarely matched those of the international political system. The other poles of power in cricket have been Australia, South Africa and England, none of whom would count themselves among India’s chief political competitors. Along with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, India formed a powerful subcontinental bloc, despite constant political friction with its neighbours. While perhaps ‘unnatural,’ the parallel universes could exist in relative harmony, their distinction, in fact, proving mutually invigorating. Cricket could always thrive, while helping to overcome and dilute political conflict.

But the third IPL player auction, held today in Mumbai, represents a tragic blurring of the two spheres of experience. Several star Pakistani players on the auction block were painfully, publicly passed over by Indian franchises. The cricketing logic for this collective decision on the part of IPL teams is certainly questionable. On present form and future potential, there is no reason that Umar Akmal and Mohammed Aamer should have been passed over. Shahid Afridi may arguably be past his destructive prime, but few non-Indian players are bigger draws for Indian cricket fans. And Sohail Tanvir and Umar Gul already proved themselves Twenty20 superstars in the 2008 edition of the IPL, with the former finishing top wicket-taker. Added insult to their snub came in the form of players who were picked instead: the long-ordinary Mohammad Kaif, retired stroke-maker Damien Martyn, and the chronically unfit Yusuf Abdulla.

The publicly-stated reason for the snub was unsatisfactory: teams were simply unwilling to deal with the added security and uncertainty that Pakistani players would bring with them. Given the security necessary to hold the IPL (the absence of which forced a move of last year’s edition to South Africa) and the draw their inclusion would bring the tournament in Pakistan, these excuses ring hollow.

Worst, the manner in which this was done (the Pakistani players were reportedly included in the auction following demonstrations of interest by teams), renders irrelevant all the cloying calls for peace, understanding and Track IV dialogue being made by the Indian and Pakistani media in recent weeks and months. If cricket—perhaps the last bastion of Indian popular culture left untainted by the worst aspects of international politics—is to be tarnished in this manner, it is a sad day indeed.

Further reading: INI alumnus Offstumped provides another reason for outrage: the franchises’ tacit collusion is suggestive of cartelisation—in other words, bad business practices.

View the original article here

Well-Travelled

As I have noted several times previously, there are often uncanny parallels between foreign policy and international cricket. I would go so far as to argue that few phenomena better-capture the dynamics shaping India, or its foreign policy potential, than its cricket team. 

That said, I was amazed to see this comprehensive list of India’s 32 Test victories on foreign soil. Before 2000, India had won only 13 tests away from home, and only one solitary victory (against Sri Lanka in Colombo) during the 1990s.

Armed with a newfound confidence since 2000 (not to mention the addition of some talented top-order batsmen and pace bowlers, historically India’s weaknesses), India managed 19 Test wins away, 12 of them against countries other than Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. With the victory in Hamilton last week, India has also now won an away Test in each of the nine other Test-playing nations this decade. Not too shabby.

View the original article here

It's Not Cricket

Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute has a trite, meandering article  in The American on cricket, which came to my notice only because it was featured on Arts & Letters Daily. On top of the illogical comparisons between cricket and baseball, which are reminiscent of the idle chatter of adolescent public school layabouts (“Tendulkar would make a reasonably good baseball player.” “Ryan Howard of the Phillies might be able to play for a decent cricket team, but his immobility would make him a liability.”), I was mildly taken aback by this sentence:

While there is no love lost between Red Sox Nation and Yankees fans, India and Pakistan almost went to war over cricket (and who knows, they still might). 

Wadekar Test Fifty? Pray tell, Mr. Bate, when exactly did the two nations come to the brink of war over a bat-and-ball sport? Was it, by any chance, a byproduct of cricket diplomacy? Were East Pakistani refugees fleeing a post-match lathi charge? Was 26/11 simply a few firecrackers gone wrong at the Brabourne? 

India and Pakistan may at times be petty and vengeful, but Lilliput and Blefuscu they are not. The spreading of such misinformation (which, in some hands, is disinformation; I give Bate the benefit of the doubt) is reprehensible, not to mention irresponsible.

As Nitin quips:

I recall the USA and USSR went to war over Cuban cigars.

View the original article here

Friday Humour

Kim Jong-Un, heir-apparent to the North Korean leadership, has been given the title of “Yongmyong-han Dongji,” which apparently translates roughly to “Brilliant Comrade.” Foreign Policy‘s Joshua Keating:

I can’t help thinking that the progressive downgrading from “Great Leader” to “Dear Leader” to Brilliant Comrade” could become problematic. What comes next? Decent Administrator? Qualified Manager? Righteous dude? 

On a completely unrelated note, Yuvraj Singh and Yusuf Pathan are finally lighting up an otherwise lacklustre batting display by India in the Twenty20 World Cup against the West Indies. But will it be enough to defend against a Chris Gayle Dwayne Bravo onslaught? Update: No.

View the original article here

Cricket and Cognitive Biases

The compilation of an all-time XI of Indian cricket reveals some of the same cognitive biases that blur our assessments of recent history.

Cricinfo—that venerable authority on all things cricket—is compiling an all-time XI for India, having already performed similar exercises for seven other Test nations. Comparing athletes across eras is always tricky, but based upon the other lists of all-time greats, it seems that the criteria for selection is  based upon some combination of the following:

Players’ performance in Test matches.  Ajay Sharma, who played but one Test, probably does not deserve to be considered for his First Class batting average of 67.46, his off-field activities notwithstanding.How players compared with their contemporaries the world over. For example, the 2000s was an era of bloated batting averages; the 1990s were lean years for batsmen. It’s more than just a strict statistical comparison.How important players were to achieving important results for their sides. Did players save their team from defeat, or play crucial roles in famous wins?

Unfortunately, it looks as if sentimentality is set to obfuscate what should be a fairly objective activity. Take, for example, the short-list for openers, which consists of Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Vijay Merchant and Navjot Singh Sidhu. All four have the credentials, but I was disappointed that the jury failed to recognize current Indian opener Gautam Gambhir. Gambhir has a batting average of almost 53, higher than Gavaskar’s (51), Merchant’s (48) and Sidhu’s (42), and just below Sehwag’s (54). One argument against him would be that, as a relative newcomer, he has not played enough matches (32 so far). Yet Merchant played in only 10 Tests and Sidhu not many more (51). In fact, this further strengthens Gambhir’s case: despite fewer Tests, he has already scored as many centuries as Sidhu (9), not to mention many more than Merchant (3). The argument can also be made that Gambhir’s figures are exaggerated by batting-friendly conditions and weak opposition. Fair enough. Yet two of his centuries came in wins over quality opponents (Australia and Sri Lanka). Merchant, while no doubt a great player, never played for a winning Test side. Compared to his peers, Gambhir was voted the best Test player at the 2009 ICC awards. Had such awards been around during their careers, it is unlikely that Merchant or Sidhu would have ever been in the reckoning for them, based on their Test performances alone (Merchant did indeed have a stellar First Class record). I still think that India’s two best openers have been Gavaskar and Sehwag, which may make this debate irrelevant, but there appears to be no objective basis for Gambhir’s exclusion from the short-list.

I bring this up for what it tells us about our attitudes towards recent history and the various cognitive biases that come into play when considering important policy debates.

On the one hand, a set of logical processes bias us in favor of what we have experienced firsthand, a trait that has long been documented in psychological literature. Thus, many of us are more likely to appreciate contemporary achievements, such as those of Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods or Roger Federer over Don Bradman, Jack Nicklaus or Rod Laver. Similarly, the big ideological breakthroughs of recent memory overshadow those of earlier times. We may have all had the experience of reading an older work of scholarship, only to be struck by how applicable it is to a current situation; it is often quite humbling to realise that complex ideas have already been so well thought through by thinkers of an earlier era, many of whom are now nearly forgotten. In the security realm, the disproportionate emphasis placed on Indian sacrifices during the Kargil War (India’s first televised conflict) when some 2-3 times the number were killed in 1947-48, 1971 and 1987-1990 in Sri Lanka would be one noteworthy example, one that is by no means meant to diminish the achievements of Indian forces in 1999.

By contrast, most of us fall victim to a number of cognitive biases that make us favour the more distant past over the present. Consequently, the achievements of Merchant, whom none of the Cricinfo jury saw play, take on a mythic aura and his failures get overlooked. By contrast, all of Gambhir’s failings, technical or otherwise, are both seen and recalled. While demonstrably talented and successful, he remains a mere mortal.

Such thinking is particularly applicable to evaluations of politics and policy. For example, there has recently been a rediscovery of sorts of Indian internationalism in the early years after independence, which—according to most such narratives—gradually gave way to a closing off of the country to the outside world, particularly during the Indira Gandhi years. Supporters of this view point to India’s mediation before and during the Korean War and the leading role that Nehru took in the early years of the Non-Aligned Movement, as among the examples of past Indian activism on the global stage.

But these ought to be offset by other considerations: the much smaller size of India’s foreign policy infrastructure (for example, India lacked an external intelligence bureau, and had only three IB officers posted abroad in its early years), the lack of resources at home to leverage to its advantage, and the immensity of security challenges nearer at hand. Neutral mediation and third world multilateralism are both the domains of countries with little or no stake in major issues (take present-day Finland, for example). Indian activities in the first two decades after independence, successful or not, take on that same rosy aura that Vijay Merchant’s batting does, placing current efforts in a comparatively unfavourable light. Such biases should not come in the way of  objective appraisals of achievements past and present.

View the original article here

A Level Playing Field

The distribution of IPL franchises is not a question of entitlement, but should be seen as a reward for good governance and economic performance.

In a peculiar piece in The Telegraph, historian Ramachandra Guha—author of some of the best Indian books on cricket—condemns the improper distribution of IPL franchises across the country:

Consider the following statistics. Uttar Pradesh has a population…of 166 million people, but it has no team represented in the Indian Premier League. Maharashtra has a population of a mere 97 million, but two of its cities, Mumbai and Pune, have IPL teams.

Now consider this second set of facts. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar are three of the most populous states in India. Roughly one in three Indians live there. On the other hand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh together account for less than one-fourth of the country’s population. Yet there is not one IPL team from those three large states in North India, whereas from next year, 2011, each state of South India will have its own IPL team.

The Constitution of India says that every citizen of India has equal rights…This lopsided allocation of IPL teams is thus insensitive to democracy and demography.

This maldistribution of IPL franchises undermines its claim to be ‘Indian’, and is in defiance of sporting history and achievement as well. The truth is that citizenship and cricket have been comprehensively trumped by the claims of commerce.

Why is this such an affront to Indianness or democracy? Guha himself brings up the constitutional right to equality. The IPL was designed—first and foremost—as cricket for television audiences. Today any Indian can turn on a television and watch the same cricket match, regardless of where it is taking place. Is that not equality?

But more importantly, Guha promotes a somewhat outmoded position of how we should consider egalitarianism, which is indeed enshrined in the Indian constitution. Social equality, in this view, is no different from democracy, which functions on a one-person-one-vote basis. The hazard is that it leads to a sense of entitlement. Just as a vote is each person’s birthright, each of us has the right to similar levels of material well-being (in this case, access to watching live cricket near us), with no consideration of effort exerted or quality of performance. Consequently, Kanpur, Cuttack or Gwalior deserve IPL franchises.

But frame this as the right to equal opportunity, and Guha’s argument appears a lot less compelling. Rather than focus on the individual rights of people and states—that U.P. deserves an IPL franchise by the simple fact that it has more people—why can’t he project the designation of franchises as rewarding good governance and economic performance? South India has performed well on both counts compared to the North. So have Gujarat and Maharashtra compared to Orissa or Madhya Pradesh.

That Pune has better nightlife, and Hyderabad a better airport than Kanpur, Cuttack or Gwalior is not a sign of inequality, as Guha would have it, but simply a manifestation of better performance. If Kanpur had Hyderabad’s airport and Pune’s hotels, the IPL would come knocking. Given that each city and each state has an equal opportunity to attract an IPL franchise, the distribution of cricket teams seems quite a fair one.

I have great respect for Guha’s contributions as an intellectual, but sometimes I wish he realised he lived in the 21st century.

View the original article here

John Howard's Second Innings

Here is the man set to become the president of the International Cricket Council in two years:

Bowling very, very wrong ‘uns may not have got him the job, but as a retired statesman, there are plenty of things that former Aussie PM John Howard can bring to highest levels of cricket adminstration.  A few humble suggestions for how the old boy can successfully make use of his background in international politics as ICC president:

1. Make Australia a bridging power. While India may be the center of cricket now, the rest of the world—particularly outside South Asia—is somewhat conflicted about how much to bandwagon against it and how much to balance it. Australia under Howard was faced with a similar dilemma. Was Australia an extension of the West, as proudly proclaimed by Robert Menzies, or was it primarily a regional player in the Asia-Pacific, as Paul Keating envisioned it? “Well, why not both?” Howard seemed to ask when he assumed the Prime Ministership. Under Howard’s leadership of the ICC, Australia can position itself as an actor that takes full advantage of Indian financial and administrative dominance in cricket  while keeping England, South Africa, New Zealand and the West Indies actively engaged.

2. Don’t be a lemming. Just because the big man says something ought to be done, doesn’t mean it should be. While he himself may disagree with this assessment, Lalit Modi is not God. And neither was George W. Bush. It may have won Howard serious brownie points in Washington committing his country to the Iraq cause, but it came back to bite him in the end. Similarly, he shouldn’t be afraid to push back against the BCCI’s more outrageous demands, rather than just going with the flow.

3.  Adopt institutional Darwinism. Like the multinational architecture of the Asia-Pacific region, the international cricket calendar is a jumble, a mishmash, a mess. Rather than let it try to do everything (badly), Howard should force the ICC to focus on the events that bring out the best of cricket, and create windows for them. Prioritise and standardize the IPL, the ODI World Cup, the World Twenty20, regular Test series, and domestic First Class and Twenty20 competitions. Scrap the Champions Trophy, the bevy of minor ODI tournaments, and series over five matches. Create a two-tiered Test structure. Overhaul the Future Tours Program, even if that proves more daunting than UNSC reforms.

4.  Enforce norms. Cheating—Shahid Afridi style—is not controversial. It’s just plain wrong. But what about discrepancies over pitches, umpiring or power plays? There’s plenty to do still to ensure that everyone—players, officials, coaches, commentators and fans—are on the same page.

5. Save Pakistan. Pakistani diplomats regularly argue that Pakistan is too important to fail. Bad rhetoric, perhaps, given the negative connotations, but with only ten Test-playing nations around, this is undeniably true for cricket. Giving billions of dollars of aid may be a waste, and selling conventional weaponry may be downright dangerous, but keeping Pakistan—and Pakistanis—involved in cricket is worth every penny.

View the original article here

The IPL's Tampered Ball

The player auction represented the tragic blurring of two distinct spheres of experience: politics and cricket.

If one sought to imagine how India might act as a superpower, one could do worse than follow the world of cricket, where it already is one. The last decade has witnessed not just a resurgence of India as a top international side, but also its complete domination of the administrative and financial levers of the sport. 

With power comes privilege. After 96 years of being based in London, the International Cricket Council moved its headquarters eastwards, to Dubai, to be closer to the new centre of power. The ‘liberal’ entente regarding the rotation of World Cup hosting rights between continents was done away with, the subcontinent demanding a second helping over Australia and New Zealand’s protestations. And now, the world’s richest and most high-profile league is based in India, attracting the best international talent. Rich, brash, ruthless and unforgiving, Indian cricket has acted much like a hegemon might have been expected to act in international politics.

The dynamics of this parallel world order,  however, rarely matched those of the international political system. The other poles of power in cricket have been Australia, South Africa and England, none of whom would count themselves among India’s chief political competitors. Along with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, India formed a powerful subcontinental bloc, despite constant political friction with its neighbours. While perhaps ‘unnatural,’ the parallel universes could exist in relative harmony, their distinction, in fact, proving mutually invigorating. Cricket could always thrive, while helping to overcome and dilute political conflict.

But the third IPL player auction, held today in Mumbai, represents a tragic blurring of the two spheres of experience. Several star Pakistani players on the auction block were painfully, publicly passed over by Indian franchises. The cricketing logic for this collective decision on the part of IPL teams is certainly questionable. On present form and future potential, there is no reason that Umar Akmal and Mohammed Aamer should have been passed over. Shahid Afridi may arguably be past his destructive prime, but few non-Indian players are bigger draws for Indian cricket fans. And Sohail Tanvir and Umar Gul already proved themselves Twenty20 superstars in the 2008 edition of the IPL, with the former finishing top wicket-taker. Added insult to their snub came in the form of players who were picked instead: the long-ordinary Mohammad Kaif, retired stroke-maker Damien Martyn, and the chronically unfit Yusuf Abdulla.

The publicly-stated reason for the snub was unsatisfactory: teams were simply unwilling to deal with the added security and uncertainty that Pakistani players would bring with them. Given the security necessary to hold the IPL (the absence of which forced a move of last year’s edition to South Africa) and the draw their inclusion would bring the tournament in Pakistan, these excuses ring hollow.

Worst, the manner in which this was done (the Pakistani players were reportedly included in the auction following demonstrations of interest by teams), renders irrelevant all the cloying calls for peace, understanding and Track IV dialogue being made by the Indian and Pakistani media in recent weeks and months. If cricket—perhaps the last bastion of Indian popular culture left untainted by the worst aspects of international politics—is to be tarnished in this manner, it is a sad day indeed.

Further reading: INI alumnus Offstumped provides another reason for outrage: the franchises’ tacit collusion is suggestive of cartelisation—in other words, bad business practices.

View the original article here

Well-Travelled

As I have noted several times previously, there are often uncanny parallels between foreign policy and international cricket. I would go so far as to argue that few phenomena better-capture the dynamics shaping India, or its foreign policy potential, than its cricket team. 

That said, I was amazed to see this comprehensive list of India’s 32 Test victories on foreign soil. Before 2000, India had won only 13 tests away from home, and only one solitary victory (against Sri Lanka in Colombo) during the 1990s.

Armed with a newfound confidence since 2000 (not to mention the addition of some talented top-order batsmen and pace bowlers, historically India’s weaknesses), India managed 19 Test wins away, 12 of them against countries other than Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. With the victory in Hamilton last week, India has also now won an away Test in each of the nine other Test-playing nations this decade. Not too shabby.

View the original article here

Cricket and Cognitive Biases

The compilation of an all-time XI of Indian cricket reveals some of the same cognitive biases that blur our assessments of recent history.

Cricinfo—that venerable authority on all things cricket—is compiling an all-time XI for India, having already performed similar exercises for seven other Test nations. Comparing athletes across eras is always tricky, but based upon the other lists of all-time greats, it seems that the criteria for selection is  based upon some combination of the following:

Players’ performance in Test matches.  Ajay Sharma, who played but one Test, probably does not deserve to be considered for his First Class batting average of 67.46, his off-field activities notwithstanding.How players compared with their contemporaries the world over. For example, the 2000s was an era of bloated batting averages; the 1990s were lean years for batsmen. It’s more than just a strict statistical comparison.How important players were to achieving important results for their sides. Did players save their team from defeat, or play crucial roles in famous wins?

Unfortunately, it looks as if sentimentality is set to obfuscate what should be a fairly objective activity. Take, for example, the short-list for openers, which consists of Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag, Vijay Merchant and Navjot Singh Sidhu. All four have the credentials, but I was disappointed that the jury failed to recognize current Indian opener Gautam Gambhir. Gambhir has a batting average of almost 53, higher than Gavaskar’s (51), Merchant’s (48) and Sidhu’s (42), and just below Sehwag’s (54). One argument against him would be that, as a relative newcomer, he has not played enough matches (32 so far). Yet Merchant played in only 10 Tests and Sidhu not many more (51). In fact, this further strengthens Gambhir’s case: despite fewer Tests, he has already scored as many centuries as Sidhu (9), not to mention many more than Merchant (3). The argument can also be made that Gambhir’s figures are exaggerated by batting-friendly conditions and weak opposition. Fair enough. Yet two of his centuries came in wins over quality opponents (Australia and Sri Lanka). Merchant, while no doubt a great player, never played for a winning Test side. Compared to his peers, Gambhir was voted the best Test player at the 2009 ICC awards. Had such awards been around during their careers, it is unlikely that Merchant or Sidhu would have ever been in the reckoning for them, based on their Test performances alone (Merchant did indeed have a stellar First Class record). I still think that India’s two best openers have been Gavaskar and Sehwag, which may make this debate irrelevant, but there appears to be no objective basis for Gambhir’s exclusion from the short-list.

I bring this up for what it tells us about our attitudes towards recent history and the various cognitive biases that come into play when considering important policy debates.

On the one hand, a set of logical processes bias us in favor of what we have experienced firsthand, a trait that has long been documented in psychological literature. Thus, many of us are more likely to appreciate contemporary achievements, such as those of Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods or Roger Federer over Don Bradman, Jack Nicklaus or Rod Laver. Similarly, the big ideological breakthroughs of recent memory overshadow those of earlier times. We may have all had the experience of reading an older work of scholarship, only to be struck by how applicable it is to a current situation; it is often quite humbling to realise that complex ideas have already been so well thought through by thinkers of an earlier era, many of whom are now nearly forgotten. In the security realm, the disproportionate emphasis placed on Indian sacrifices during the Kargil War (India’s first televised conflict) when some 2-3 times the number were killed in 1947-48, 1971 and 1987-1990 in Sri Lanka would be one noteworthy example, one that is by no means meant to diminish the achievements of Indian forces in 1999.

By contrast, most of us fall victim to a number of cognitive biases that make us favour the more distant past over the present. Consequently, the achievements of Merchant, whom none of the Cricinfo jury saw play, take on a mythic aura and his failures get overlooked. By contrast, all of Gambhir’s failings, technical or otherwise, are both seen and recalled. While demonstrably talented and successful, he remains a mere mortal.

Such thinking is particularly applicable to evaluations of politics and policy. For example, there has recently been a rediscovery of sorts of Indian internationalism in the early years after independence, which—according to most such narratives—gradually gave way to a closing off of the country to the outside world, particularly during the Indira Gandhi years. Supporters of this view point to India’s mediation before and during the Korean War and the leading role that Nehru took in the early years of the Non-Aligned Movement, as among the examples of past Indian activism on the global stage.

But these ought to be offset by other considerations: the much smaller size of India’s foreign policy infrastructure (for example, India lacked an external intelligence bureau, and had only three IB officers posted abroad in its early years), the lack of resources at home to leverage to its advantage, and the immensity of security challenges nearer at hand. Neutral mediation and third world multilateralism are both the domains of countries with little or no stake in major issues (take present-day Finland, for example). Indian activities in the first two decades after independence, successful or not, take on that same rosy aura that Vijay Merchant’s batting does, placing current efforts in a comparatively unfavourable light. Such biases should not come in the way of  objective appraisals of achievements past and present.

View the original article here