India announced the world’s boldest nuclear power development plan yesterday, saying that it could boost its atomic capacity by 12,000 per cent by 2050 to end crippling power shortages while limiting carbon emissions.

Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, predicted that India could produce 470 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050, compared with the 3.8GW currently produced by its 17 reactors.

India’s target is almost five times the current nuclear power capacity of the United States — the world’s biggest producer with 100GW, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

It far outstrips predicted US nuclear capacity in 2050 as well as China’s plans — previously the world’s most ambitious — to increase the power generated by its reactors from the current 9GW to about 300GW by that year.

“Our nuclear industry is poised for a major expansion and there will be huge opportunities for the global nuclear industry,” Dr Singh told an atomic energy conference in Delhi. “This will sharply reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change.”

India also announced yesterday that US companies would be allowed to set up “nuclear parks” at two sites in the states of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh under a landmark bilateral nuclear deal.

The deal — struck in 2005 but approved by the US Congress only last year — lifts a ban on India buying US nuclear technology and fuel that was imposed after Delhi tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974.

Alan McDonald, an expert on nuclear power at the IAEA, told The Times that before the US deal India had set a target of generating about 270GW of nuclear power by 2050.

He said the new target was roughly in line with the IAEA’s upper estimates up until 2030, but questioned how India would maintain momentum up until 2050.

“That kind of growth for a decade is not unprecedented but maintaining it over four decades is probably a challenge,” he said.

Mr McDonald said that the success of the plan would depend on factors including the cost of nuclear reactors, the price of fossil fuels and international efforts to impose binding caps on carbon emissions.

Many other experts also doubt that India will meet its target given the bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency that has stalled so many other infrastructure projects. Nevertheless, they welcome the Government’s new willingness to outline plans to meet India’s energy needs at the same time as tackling climate change.

India’s total power generation capacity is currently only 150GW — less than a fifth of China’s — and demand outstripped supply by 9.5 per cent between 2008-09, according to the Power Ministry. An estimated 600 million Indians are still not connected to the national grid.

India has long resisted Western pressure to agree to binding cuts on carbon emissions, arguing that it must first generate enough power to serve its 1.1 billion people.

It has recently announced a series of proposals that have wrong-footed Western critics in the run-up to a UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

India unveiled the world’s biggest solar power development plan last month, pledging to increase capacity from 0 to 20GW by 2020.

The Government said this month that it was drafting legislation to set non-binding targets for mitigating carbon emissions. It agreed last week to provide annual updates on its progress to the UN.

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