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All power to India's nuclear energy
drive
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW
DELHI - Banking on large natural deposits of radioactive
thorium and indigenously developed reactors to harness
them, India is determined to use nuclear power to bridge
yawning energy needs - dismissing international concerns
for the program's safety and proliferation issues.
"A core group of about 100 of our top scientists
have been given two years to come up with a totally
indigenous project using advanced heavy water reactors,"
said Anil Kakodkar, the main architect of India's
thorium-based concept and chairman of the country's
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). "We have to see that the
country is not drawn into a pocket of vulnerability by
anybody," added Kakodkar.
His statements reflect
India's fiercely independent nuclear program that has
its roots in the United States-led international
technology embargo that followed New Delhi's testing of
a "peaceful" nuclear device in 1974.
India
produces very little uranium, but has the world's
largest deposits of thorium, which, when bombarded with
neutrons, can be converted to uranium-233, a fissile
isotope. This in turn can be used for the mixed fuels
that can sustain a chain reaction in advanced heavy
water reactors.
The AEC has for years been
publicizing its prowess in making use of mixed fuels,
including alloys of natural uranium, thorium, plutonium
and uranium-233. Several countries, including the United
States, have experimented with thorium, but abandoned it
because of the cheap availability of uranium and because
the thorium-cycle theme relies on reprocessing of fuels,
and, therefore, raised proliferation issues.
India remains the only country that has doggedly
pursued thorium-cycle reactors and, as far as
proliferation fears go, it carried a second round of
nuclear tests in 1998, this time declaring that it had
"weaponized" its nuclear capability.
The
advanced heavy water reactors actually represent the
third stage of India's nuclear power program. They will
use uranium-233 obtained by irradiation of thorium in
the earlier stages, which use indigenously developed
pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) and fast
breeder reactors (FBRs).
India's first
pressurized heavy water reactor, which uses "heavy"
water as a moderator to control reactor temperature and
prevent overheating, was built in 1972 with Canadian
assistance in western Rajasthan state. But the Canadians
walked out in 1974, leaving Indian scientists to handle,
maintain and operate other PHWRs on their own.
In spite of the international boycott, several
countries have helped India with technology and
equipment. These include Russia - just as the former
Soviet Union before it. In November, Russia concluded a
deal to sell two large nuclear reactors capable of
generating 2,000 megawatts of electricity, to be built
at Kudankulam in southern Tamil Nadu state.
France has also helped with supplies of enriched
uranium after the United States stopped supplies of the
fuel on the grounds that India was diverting spent fuel
for its nuclear weapons program.
Currently,
India has 14 nuclear power plants, two units each at
Tarapur in western Maharashtra state, four at Rawabhatta
in Rajasthan, two at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, two at
Narora in northern Uttar Pradesh, two in Kakrapar in
western Gujarat and two at Kaiga in southern Karnataka
state.
While the Atomic Energy Commission has
set itself a target of producing 20,000 megawatts of
power from nuclear energy by 2020, currently the program
is lagging because the existing reactors are producing
no more than 2,700 megawatts annually - just 3.7 percent
of the total electricity generation each year in the
country despite a 246 percent growth between 1991-92 and
2001-02.
Kakodkar says that India is now
constructing eight more reactors, the largest number of
reactors currently under construction in any country.
When completed, these would more than triple the amount
of electricity generated from nuclear sources. By then,
India would also have made the critical transition to
thorium-based systems.
While the Indian nuclear
energy program is designed to cater to the long-term
energy needs of its billion-plus population, it is also
guided by awareness of the impact of carbon dioxide
emissions on the global climate. "A larger share of
nuclear power would mean avoidance of carbon dioxide
emissions in quantities significant on a global scale,"
said Kakodkar.
He criticizes the Bonn meeting of
the Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention on
Climate Change, where it was decided that developed
countries should refrain from using certified emission
reductions generated from nuclear facilities. "It is
ironical that an energy source that is devoid of the
danger of greenhouse gas emissions should be discouraged
by a body that is most concerned with the reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
He dismisses
concerns for the safety of India's nuclear program,
which does not accept full-scope inspections by the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
but instead has its own 'independent Atomic Energy
Regulatory Board (AERB).
"We have gained close
to 200 reactor years of operating experience with a good
track record of safety of the operating personnel,
public and the environment," Kakodkar pointed out.
But among the most vocal critics of India's
program is a former chairman of the AERB, A
Gopalakrishnan, who has gone on record to say that
India's nuclear power plants are "a disaster waiting to
happen". Frequent shutdowns of nuclear plants and
incidents, if not accidents, seem to support his view.
But Kakodkar thinks that many of the fears on
the grounds of safety and proliferation are unfounded,
and says that linking "external additionalities" to
nuclear power would only increase dependence on fossil
fuels. India, he says, is ready to export reactors and
technology under proper safeguards and considers the
IAEA's regional cooperation agreement for Asia and the
Pacific an important mechanism for the growth and use of
nuclear technologies for sustainable development in the
region.
(Inter Press Service)
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