India's role in global nuclear renaissance crucial: Kakodkar

Mumbai, Oct 30: India's technological capability could be of use to global community in its march towards nuclear renaissance with the development of the country's strong proliferation-resistant thorium fuel cycle, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar said on Monday.

He said India's role in the global nuclear renaissance is going to be very crucial, with a far greater realization now of the importance of nuclear energy as the only viable solution to sustainable development without further aggravating the environment.

Kakodkar was delivering a speech on the occasion of 97th birth anniversary of father of Indian Atomic Energy Programme Homi J Bhabha at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre here.

The proliferation-resistance of thorium fuel cycle and the superior capability to dispose excess plutonium in thorium reactors compared to fast breeder reactors is an area where Indian technology could be of use to global community, he said.

Besides "attaining energy independence", nuclear energy's expansion was inevitable to free earth from devastating effects of global warming and the stress on energy sources, he added.

"India alone would be consuming roughly half of global coal consumption and roughly one tenth of world hydrocarbon consumption by the middle of the century."

Kakodkar pointed out that with an expanding programme, India needs a broader range and increasing quantity of materials like sodium, enriched boron and a variety of solvents.

"Our efforts to expand production capacities based on indigenous research are yielding rich dividends and the new activities along with efforts to bring in greater efficiency and cost reduction in production of heavy water and nuclear fuel have contributed towards freedom from external denials and more competitive nuclear power," Kakodkar said.

With the recent commissioning and commercialisation of two 540 mw power plants at Tarapur, a total of 16 operating plants have a total capacity of 3,900 mw electricity, he said.

In the expansion of nuclear energy programme, the Centre has recently approved, in principle, the construction of eight more units. When completed, this would take the total nuclear power generation capacity to around 14,000 mw, he added.

On the development front, he said, the capacity of new pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR) plants have been enhanced to 700 mw to help reduce unit capital cost further.

"Now we are also in a position to launch the construction of 300 mw advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR), an innovative next generation technology demonstrator for energy from thorium," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr S Banerjee, Director, BARC said a critical facility is being built in Trombay for validation of AHWR physics design and civil work and installation of equipment such as reactor vessel have been completed.

Bureau Report