Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi joins word leaders in battling climate change in Paris, a decision by the Australian government is expected to change the energy equation in the country. Canberra has decided to commence sale of Uranium to India, which is good news for New Delhi. The agreement is a win-win situation because it will widen the basket of countries from which India buys nuclear fuel and give Australia greater access to the Indian market. Australia was keen on exporting coal to fuel power plants in India, but the deal was held up on account of Canberra's dilly-dallying on a Uranium agreement. The sale is a direct payoff of the the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 2007. Since then India has been buying fuel from Kazakhastan, Russia and France. Prior to 2008 nuclear plants in the country were running at 50 per cent of capacity due to shortage of fuel. This has now changed and in the next five years nuclear power generation capacity is expected to double to 10,000 MW. Although nuclear power is not likely to cross 10 per cent of the total power generated in the country it forms an important component in the mix to reduce dependence on coal, which is a dirty fuel.
