Environmentalists, scientists and members of the public on Sunday expressed reservation over the move to set up units 5 and 6 of the Kaiga nuclear power plant, at a meeting at Yellapur.
The meeting was presided over by Gangadharendra Saraswathi Swami of the Swarnavalli Mutt. The pontiff said the government could harness renewable forms of energy like solar and wind to meet the growing needs of electricity, instead of spending huge amounts for the expansion of the nuclear plant. He said thermal power harmed only the immediate surroundings. But nuclear power plants harm the environment in a radius of 100 km, the pontiff said. The seer said this was the only rain forest in the world where a nuclear plant had been set up.
T V Ramachandra of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, said 1,474 hectares of forest in the two-km buffer zone of the Kaiga power station had been reduced 407 hectares.