India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

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chetak
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by chetak »

Varoon Shekhar wrote:A bit puzzling and dismaying, that we have not heard of the commissioning of any new reactor, for a long time now. There are 4 under construction at Rajasthan and Gujarat. No detailed status update, even on NPC's website. No report on Apsara-2, PFBR, AHWR..
The FBR should have some news soon enough.

They seem to have overcome most of their issues for now.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Amber G. »

^^^
No report on Apsara-2,
IMO for obvious reasons, people sort of keep quiet (or newspapers are not that interested) in news about happenings in nuclear power unless it is very major news. But still Apsara-2, I think may have been in main-stream news,,

I think BARC has announced that after, what 9 years or so of waiting Apsara-2 is recommissioned.

Apsara began around 1955 - HEU as fuel and has been used for around 50 years or so for research, medical isotopes and things like that. (It got shut down in 2009)

New version of Apsara, significantly modern, with LEU and dispersion fuel plates with about 2MW power, I believe has reached criticality recently. IMO it really shows the caliber of newer scientists and engineers to build complex facilities for health care. Apart for research in Physics main result is significant increase in production of radioisotopes for medicine which India can use and even export.

I believe it is nothing to sneeze at. :)
***Added later -- Just did a google search, and I found that the news is there in most main stream newspapers too.. for example:
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/ ... 67451.html
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Amber G. »

^^^TO add: FWIW * (My personal views):
DAE Chairman Sekhar Basu seemed pretty happy in one of the talk he gave and said something like " India's Department of Atomic Energy performed "exceptionally well" in 2017. Also there is concentrated effort to get more nuclear physicists and engineers trained in India from it's top schools, so that they can support and build new facilities.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by SSridhar »

INMAS develops India’s first indigenous anti-nuclear medical kit - PTI
In a major shot in the arm for paramilitary and police forces, scientists at a central research institute claim to have developed India’s first indigenous medical kit that may ensure protection from serious injuries and faster healing of wounds resulting from nuclear warfare or radioactive leakage.

The kit, developed after two decades of work by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) here [New Delhi], has over 25 items, including radio-protectors that provide 80-90 per cent protection against radiation and nerve gas agents, bandages that absorb radiation as well as tablets and ointments.

Developed in India for the first time, it’s a potent alternative to similar kits that were till now being procured from strategically advanced nations such as the US and Russia
at much higher prices, INMAS Director A K Singh told PTI.

The contents include an advanced form of Prussian blue tablets, highly effective in incorporating Radio Cesium (Cs-137) and Radio Thallium, among the most feared radioisotopes in nuclear bombs that destroy human body cells.

The tablet provides 100 per cent absorption from the gut and other portals of entry to the human body, according to documents inside the medical kit accessed by PTI.

According to INMAS, the kit has been developed for the armed, paramilitary and police forces only as they are the first ones likely to get exposed to radiation -- be it during nuclear, chemical and biomedical (NCB) warfare or a rescue operation after a nuclear accident.

The kit also has an Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) injection that traps uranium in the guts and blood of victims during a nuclear accident or warfare.

The kit also has Ca-EDTA Respiratory Fluid, which is the inhalation formula for chelation, or grabbing, of heavy metals and radioactive elements deposited in lungs through inhalation at nuclear accident sites.

When EDTA is injected into the veins, it “grabs” heavy metals and minerals and removes them from the body.

The medicine reduces the body burden of radioactivity by 30-40 per cent in controlled conditions and is highly useful for the rescue teams and victims after a nuclear accident.

According to INMAS, different paramilitary forces are processing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with the Institute for seamless procurement of the product.

In some ways, medical and health issues faced by the military and the paramilitary are quite different to that of the general public. The three areas of particular concern to the defence sector are high altitudes, war injuries and NBC warfare,” Singh told PTI.

Stating that the pharmaceutical industry is a mere spectator due to the limited commercial scope in such products, Singh said, Government sponsored research is the only way forward in this area with practically no import potential.”

INMAS, the medical face of DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) doubles up for the paramilitary also because there is no medical research in Bureau of Police R&D, he added.

‘Made in India’ medical kit

He said the drugs in the medical kit are ‘Made in India’, without any foreign counterpart and come with the tag of cost-effective and industrial networking.

Aseem Bhatnagar, additional director at INMAS, noted that the kit has Radioactive Blood Mopping Dressing -- a special kind of bandage that absorbs radiation.

During radioactive accidents, he explained, thousands of patients may be rushed to hospitals. In several cases, if not most, they will also have traumatic, orthopaedic, surgical injuries or burns.

The blood of such patients will have radioactive elements and will require wound dressing with significantly higher absorption capacity so that nothing leaks and infects others.

Such highly absorptive dressings and gauze also make it safer for the medical staff to handle radioactive patients as the chance of their own contamination is reduced, Bhatnagar told PTI.

The kit also has a radioactive urine/biofluid collector which is cost-effective, easy to store and can safely dispose of the urine of a person affected by radiation.

Bhatnagar explained that the collector has silk at its base, more than enough to jellify 500 millilitre of urine, which could be disposed of safely.

The kit has anti-gamma ray skin ointment that protects and heals the radiation damage on the skin.

Also part of the kit is the amifostine injection, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved conventional radiopharmaceutical that limits damage from gamma radiation.

However, due to a very small market, availability is a major issue.

Another medicine in the form of a tablet is Indranil 150 mg. It is being introduced as a reserve emergency drug for services, rescue workers and places where high acute exposures are expected and lives will be at stake.

Preliminary tests have shown the efficacy of the therapeutic dose and the result shows 80-85 per cent animals may survive at 100 per cent lethal gamma radiation if given as a prophylactic, said Bhatnagar.

While INSAS gets set to ramp up production of the kits for the security forces, doctors at AIIMS feel the kits can be made available to civilians at a later stage.

“Such medicines will help everyone and not just soldiers. This will also help the victims affected in terrorist attacks, Rajesh Malhotra, head of Trauma Centre at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said, adding that the kits will benefit civilians in case of a nuclear accident.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by sanjaykumar »

This is a much better piece than what usually passes as journalism. I actually learned something.
SSridhar
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by SSridhar »

Great News folks.

The 500 MW FBR at IGCAR would start within the next two months, as per the Director of IGCAR (From a vernacular newspaper).
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by arshyam »

^^ Excellent news! Slowly but surely, we are inching toward the 3rd stage.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

^
It's about time! :) Pre-commissioning trials of PFBR must be on now.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Vips »

This good news. Per earlier reports it was pushed to sometime in 2019.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Vips »

Why India wants to turn its beaches into nuclear fuel.

The tropical beaches of India probably bring to mind sun-dappled palms, fiery fish curries and dreadlocked backpackers, but they also hold a surprising secret. Their sands are rich in thorium – often hailed as a cleaner, safer alternative to conventional nuclear fuels.

The country has long been eager to exploit its estimated 300,000 to 850,000 tonnes of thorium – quite probably the world’s largest reserves – but progress has been slow. Their effort is coming back into focus amid renewed interest in the technology. Last year Dutch scientists fired up the first new experimental thorium reactor in decades, start-ups are promoting the technology in the West and last year China pledged to spend $3.3bn to develop reactors that could eventually run on thorium.

Proponents say it promises carbon-free power with less dangerous waste, lower risk of meltdowns and a much harder route to weaponisation than conventional nuclear. But rapid advances in renewables, a costly development path and question marks over how safe and clean future plants would really be mean its journey to commercialisation looks uncertain.

India’s pursuit of thorium is driven by unique historical and geographic conditions, which have given it considerable staying power. Some see a quixotic quest unlikely to live up to its promise, but the country’s nuclear scientists see a long-term strategy for carbon-free energy security in a country whose population could peak at 1.7 billion in 2060.

“We are a power hungry nation,” says Srikumar Banerjee, secretary of India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) until 2012. “Eventually we need to rely on indigenous raw materials for the long-term sustainability of a country which is going to support one fifth of humanity.”

India is pouring vast sums into its nuclear programme, which includes the four heavy water reactors at Kaiga, Karnataka (Credit: Getty Images)
The West’s development of nuclear energy was inextricably linked to the development of atomic bombs

Today all commercial nuclear plants run on uranium, a fact at least partly down to geopolitics. The West’s development of nuclear energy was inextricably linked to the development of atomic bombs and uranium’s by-products are much easier to weaponise. “In a different era maybe a different choice would be made and we'd have headed down the thorium route in the 1950s instead, but we are we are where we are,” says Geoff Parks, a nuclear engineer at Cambridge University.

India’s strategy was governed by different calculus. The country’s meagre uranium deposits convinced the founding father of its nuclear programme, Homi Bhabha, that any long-term strategy must exploit thorium, its most abundant fuel, which inspired a three-stage programme that is still the central plank of India’s nuclear energy policy.

Thorium doesn’t spontaneously undergo fission – when an atom’s nucleus splits and releases energy that can generate electricity. Left to its own devices it decays very slowly, giving off alpha radiation that can’t even penetrate human skin, so holidaymakers don’t need to worry about sunbathing on thorium-rich beaches.

To turn it into nuclear fuel, it needs to be combined with a fissile material like plutonium, which releases neutrons as it undergoes fission. These are captured by thorium atoms, converting them into a fissile isotope of uranium called U233. An isotype is a variant of an element with a different number of neutrons.

“Thorium is like wet wood,” says Ratan Kumar Sinha, who succeeded Banerjee as DAE secretary before leaving the post in 2015. He explains that wet wood is no good at starting a fire, but once it’s placed in a furnace burning dry wood, it can catch light. The first two stages of India’s strategy are therefore aimed at converting its abundant thorium reserves into fissile material.

First, conventional uranium-fuelled reactors produce plutonium as a by-product. The next stage combines this with more uranium in ‘fast breeder’ reactors that generate more plutonium than they use. That’s used to build more breeder reactors, and once the fleet is large enough they switch to converting thorium into U233. The final stage combines U233 with more thorium to kick-start self-sustaining ‘thermal breeder’ reactors that can be refuelled using raw thorium.

Realising Bhaba’s vision has proved challenging though. The West’s focus on uranium means that India has been ploughing a lone furrow for some time and its nuclear weapons programme and refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty saw it isolated from global trade in nuclear technology and fuel for decades.

The lifting of those barriers, following the 2008 India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement, should speed progress says, Sinha. But while the country developed uranium-powered Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) in the 1970s, the second stage has been a long time coming. An experimental breeder reactor that came online in 1985 has still not reached its 40MW designed capacity. The country’s 500MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) – the blueprint for a future fleet – is targeted to come online this year, but the first official launch date was 2010. In other words, it’s far from guaranteed.

India will also need to build up operational experience before any expansion, says Banerjee, and it will take time to breed the required fuel – roughly 10 years to double the plutonium to build another reactor. It’s even longer for thorium, which is why plutonium will be used to build out the network before switching to thorium conversion. Extracting U233 from the spent thorium also poses daunting challenges, because another by-product of the fuel cycle is U232, which emits highly radioactive gamma rays. Researchers at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have demonstrated the process experimentally but doing so at scale will require facilities with heavy radiation shielding and complex robotics to isolate workers.

The design of India’s first reactor that could burn thorium is complete – the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). But construction is not imminent, and Sinha, who led the design, stresses it’s not a blueprint for the third stage. It will still need fissile material top-ups and is aimed more at providing experience with the fuel cycle and demonstrating new safety features.

An eventual third stage reactor will be a self-sustaining ‘thermal breeder’ that needs U233 and thorium to get started, but can then be refuelled with natural thorium. The specific design of that reactor is an open question, but the consensus is that reactors using a molten salt mixture as both fuel and coolant are the most promising. That’s a design pursued by proponents in the West and China and early R&D is underway in India.

Even India’s nuclear establishment admits the country is unlikely to generate substantial energy from thorium until at least the 2050s. Others are more sanguine. “Thorium has been talked about for 70 years now and it will continue to be talked about in the future tense, I think, for the conceivable future,” says M. V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, who has written several books about India’s nuclear policy.

One frequently touted benefit is safety, because thorium reactors should be less prone to meltdowns

Conventional nuclear is already economically unconvincing, he says, so adding the cost of developing thorium-friendly reactors and complex fuel reprocessing is untenable. Proponents say thorium’s advantages outweigh these costs, but he thinks the case is overstated. One frequently touted benefit is safety, because thorium reactors should be less prone to meltdowns; but Ramana says you can’t predict possible failure routes until full-scale models are running. “Chernobyl and Fukushima and so on, they were all accidents that were not supposed to happen," he adds.

While the presence of U232 means thorium waste is more hazardous in the short-term, its particular mix of isotopes are less hazardous over longer periods due to the amount and type of radiation it releases. That means it's likely to be easier to handle and store in the long-term, says Cambridge’s Parks, but the benefits are marginal and possibly of limited relevance, considering we’ve still not found a convincing way to deal with existing nuclear waste. Perhaps the most compelling advantage is the difficulty of weaponising it, he adds. U233 can make atomic bombs but the complex processing makes it unattractive.

None of these potential benefits are what’s really driving India’s program though, says Ramamurti Rajaraman, a physics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. “It's partly institutional pride,” he says. The nuclear establishment is loath to abandon a longstanding flagship program. But more importantly Bhaba’s argument for self-sufficiency has remained potent, he adds, particularly following the country’s period of nuclear isolation.

India is trying to meet booming energy demands while weaning itself off a chronic coal addiction. Renewables are undoubtedly part of the picture, says Anil Kakodkar, another former DAE secretary now on India’s Atomic Energy Commission. The country plans to reach 175GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2022; it’s fourth in the world for installed wind capacity and fifth for solar. But sun and wind are too intermittent to power the whole country. “Nuclear is the only option for such large-scale baseload generation that is non-fossil," he says. "And in the Indian case it has to be essentially from thorium."

Whether self-sufficiency is necessary for energy security is up for debate. When Bhaba devised India’s strategy global uranium deposits were believed to be smaller and rapid nuclear expansion was expected to put pressure on supplies. But global nuclear capacity has been in decline since the 1990s and uranium is more prevalent than first thought.

William Nuttall, a professor at the Open University specialising in energy policy, understands how India’s historical perspective could make thorium attractive. But there’s little sign of an impending squeeze on uranium, so global markets provide a sustainable route to energy security, he says. It’s also entirely possible to decarbonise without nuclear. “Nuclear has attributes that mean it's beneficial in respect to climate change and energy security, but its case is not manifest,” he says.

India isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket though. Besides its continuing work on wind and solar energy, the government approved construction for 12 new heavy-water reactors to add to the 22 in operation and 9 under construction. It’s also exploring deals for foreign-designed reactors with Russia, France and the US. But given its progress so far, Parks thinks thorium makes sense as a long-term hedge for India. “They should be commended for having had a plan and stuck to it,” he adds. “I wish the UK could be accused of the same.”

Even India’s nuclear scientists doubt thorium’s prospects in developed countries though. With little headroom in energy consumption and established uranium-based technology, they’ve little incentive to risk switching tracks, says Kakodkar. The opportunity is booming energy consumption in the developing world where he sees thorium’s abundance and proliferation-resistance making it a promising carbon-free baseload provider.

“If you really want to move toward carbon-free energy for the world, I don't see how it can happen without nuclear and I don't see how nuclear can grow without thorium,” he adds. “So somebody has to take the lead.”
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by SaiK »

SaiK
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by SaiK »

Indian reactor breaks operating record

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Artic ... ing-record

Unit 1 of India's Kaiga nuclear power plant has completed its 895th day of continuous operation, a new world record for continuous operation of a pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR) and the second-longest for a nuclear power reactor of any type.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Vips »

'India building three specialised labs to assess nuclear radiation damage'

Scientists at INMAS are developing three new specialised laboratories which they say could boost India's nuclear preparedness and help save thousands of lives in case of an atomic war or a nuclear disaster.

Biodosimetry labs are specialised centres for assisting medical management of radiation exposure in case of a nuclear disaster.

Ideally, they should be connected with similar labs globally to help each other as a single country will not be able to tackle nuclear disaster alone, said Aseem Bhatnagar, Additional Director at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine & Allied Sciences (INMAS) here.

As part of the emergency preparedness for nuclear disasters, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have made it mandatory for every country to develop Biodosimetry laboratories, he said.

According to experts, Biodosimetry labs alone can assess the severity of the damage caused by radiation during nuclear disasters in any part of the world. This test is considered universally valid.

The mandatory test at the laboratory will ascertain the quantum of the exposure a person has suffered and also the possibility of their survival, they said.

Duringadioactive accidents, thousands of patients may be rushed to hospitals. The blood of such patients will have damaged components in proportion to the radiation received that this test assess," A K Singh, Director General of Life Sciences at the DRDO, told PTI.

"Biodosimetry labs employ a test called Dicentric Chromosomal test. Laborious work is needed for three to four days and only then one can report on the severity of the damage," he added.
ArjunPandit
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by ArjunPandit »

^^it seems the govt is seriously taking the threat of nuclear warfare.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by disha »

This was buried waay deep. Anyway PM congratulates Kaiga NPP

"Another world record by Indian scientists and engineers. The indigenously designed Kaiga-I nuclear power unit has run non-stop for over 940 days! This is a major feat."

Here is the link on this world record breaking feat-> http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/ ... 09524.html
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Amber G. »

^^^ Just to add: (Noteworthy):
- This record (941 days) is for *any* kind of reactor. Kaiga Broke the record for PHWR type a few months ago.

- Both PHWRs and AGRs are designed to be refuelled without being shut down. Three of India's reactors - Kaiga 1, which is still in operation, Rajasthan unit 3 and Rajasthan 5 - have now achieved continuous operating runs of over two years.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Philip »

I am outraged by an inbecile ,one aptly named " Chin."Garekhan, sadly our former envoty to the UN during Snake-oil Singh's time, for his geriatric dribble in the CHindu,"Detterence or danger?"

Cutting short of his pathetic piece and getting to his miserable contention, this venal specimen of low-life of apologists for a strong India, has the audacity, the temerity and the effrontery to suggest that India and INS Arihant is sparking off a nuclear arms race in the region!
Just yesterday we had in the media news- not new at all, that the US knew all about Pak's nuclear ambitions and did nothing and it is universally acknowledged that it was China decades ago that triggered off a nuclear arms race by being the first Asian nation to build and test an N-bomb.

Decades later after the war of '71 and threatened by US military intervention as well as China's galloping WMD capability, Mrs.G stunned the world with P-1.ABV did the same with P-2 to out the secret N- proliferation between China and Pak which the western world was winking at.
The combined N-warheads of China and Pak are several times that of India.China does not have a " no first use" policy too and India is thus extremely vulnerable to a surprise first strike by China and Pak separately or together, which is why we have signed on with Russia for 5 S-400 ABM systems.

This ignoramus masquerading as an expert, Chin G, has ignored these historical facts , would wish India to disarm its 3rd. leg of the triad ( making it easier for our enemies!) placing great reliance and misplaced trust that
China will do us no harm! The same issue of the CHindu has a front page report about China building for Pak its most lethal naval frigate of the 054 AP class!
INS Arihant is equipped with a very limited strategic missile, the barest minimum of what a true SSBN should be capable of. It will be a decade hence before we can have a decent third leg of the N-triad which even then will be far less than China's massive SSBN capability as well as the number of its sub fleet, especially N- subs.

The kindest epithet I can give to Chin G is that he is a noble Mir Jafar.If I were to describe what I truly think of this nauseous scoundrel pretending to be a patriot, BRF would enforce a lifetime ban on moi! I urge the GOI to counter this insidious pro- Chin and Paki deviant and his mischievous line of thought to confuse our people and decision- makers, so that we may lower our guard and allow our great nation to be one day either destroyed or blackmailed into servile submission as a Chin vassal, a Chin colony that appears to be the objective of that most honourable latter day Mir Jafar.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by sum »

^^ Saar, he is very widely respected here by the BRF gurus as a master strategist who has served India well( unlike the usual suspects like Honeymon Jacob or Shri. MKB)

I guess he is from the older Nehruvian mold of MEA and hopefully, the newer generation is not so timid in their worldview. Since his viewpoint on this topic coincided with what the Chindu always wants, they would have rushed to print it out
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Philip »

Typical MEA surrender-monkey ideology.MEA expansion= " Ministry of Eunuch Affairs"! :rotfl:
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

Still waiting for that commissioning of the PFBR, it's 2019.

Yah, can't believe there are people advocating India give up its nuclear capability including Arihant. What are these commentators' position on China? Do they strongly request China to do the same? Because India is not only thinking of Pakistan.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

Hey was this news missed? Remember that the 2 reactors at Kakrapar suffered coolant channel leaks, causing them to be shutdown.

Kakrapar-2 has been operational again since Sept /2018 after the replacement of its coolant channels. Kakrapar-1 should be up and running soon.( edit: Kakrapar-1 has attained criticality, will be synchronised to the grid shortly)

Still waiting for PFBR-1 in Kalpakkam :-?
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by hanumadu »

Varoon Shekhar wrote:Still waiting for that commissioning of the PFBR, it's 2019.

Yah, can't believe there are people advocating India give up its nuclear capability including Arihant. What are these commentators' position on China? Do they strongly request China to do the same? Because India is not only thinking of Pakistan.
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BTW, commissioning activities are underway, and the PFBR will reach first criticality sometime in early 2020.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by mody »

Wow from 2018, it was postponed to early 2019 and now postponed to early 2020!! Almost a 1.5 year delay added. Jingo disappointed.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by nash »

Delay of PFBR is disaapointing and not sure what happen to AHWR, no news at all. :(
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Vips »

There is also no news about the indigenous 700 MW nuclear reactors. IIRC atleast 8-10 of them are proposed.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Sanatanan »

In my post on 22 Nov 2011 [ viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6005&p=1199255#p1199255 ] I had written about an issue that was being discussed in this Forum at that time, namely, whether Electrical Energy will be exported from the Koodangulam reactors to Sri Lanka. At the time I had indicated that:
. . . as far as I know, there are no under-sea (or aerial) 400 Kilo Volt (KV) electrical transmission lines between India and Sri Lanka. These transmission lines (cables) would have to be massive, probably much bigger and much more secure than under-sea telephone/Internet communication cables that exist between India and other countries. This would tend to make transmission of electricity from Koodangulam to even the northern most part of Sri Lanka quite expensive and hence salability would be close to nil, at least for a very long time to come.
Now (15/07/2019) I have come across a news report [from a portal called South China Morning Post] that says it is proposed to transmit Solar generated Electricity in Australia to Singapore via 4000 KM long HVDC under sea cables. You may be interested to peruse the report linked below.

Ambitious plan to power Singapore with world’s biggest solar farm ... 4,000km away in Australia
[ https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeas ... solar-farm ]

I continue to be skeptical, at least not in my (reasonable) life time!!
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by gpurewal »

. . . as far as I know, there are no under-sea (or aerial) 400 Kilo Volt (KV) electrical transmission lines between India and Sri Lanka. These transmission lines (cables) would have to be massive, probably much bigger and much more secure than under-sea telephone/Internet communication cables that exist between India and other countries. This would tend to make transmission of electricity from Koodangulam to even the northern most part of Sri Lanka quite expensive and hence salability would be close to nil, at least for a very long time to come.
Take a look at this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Vancouver_Island
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Ardeshir »

https://www.rediff.com/news/interview/r ... 190820.htm
'Rajnath's view doesn't reflect change in no-first-use doctrine'

'Rajnath Singh's statement is just a riposte to the aggressive statements emerging from Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and others in Pakistan after the Kashmir crisis. It should not be viewed as anything more that a tit-for-tat escalation in the war of words.
'
Interesting interview, and the journalist's line of questioning seems really off. Case in point, the question below. Almost like a premonition that the next round of Greenpeace type SJW activity is going to be about saving tigers from mines, quite like the Sterlite Copper protests.
I am asking this question because while in India we have 50 tiger reserves occupying just two per cent of our land space, the department of atomic energy chose the Amrabad Tiger Reserve in Telangana to mine uranium because they claim this contains high grade uranium.

This is the surest way to destroy the sanctuary as it will involve the digging of 4000 deep pits along with building of roads, felling of trees, etc in the reserve. All this activity will mean the death knell of India's second largest tiger reserve.

Surely the government could have thought of some alternative strategy?




This is part of the larger "Development versus Environment" debate.

As you know, similar problems arise in a lot of our projects -- not just mining, Unfortunately, I have no special expertise on this question.

It is for the officials of the department of atomic energy and the Uranium Corporation of India to find the best viamedia for this problem.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Prasad »

Its near Nallamalla forests and Krishna flows nearby. That question is legitimate given how many millions depend on that water.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by chetak »

Vips wrote:Why India wants to turn its beaches into nuclear fuel.

The tropical beaches of India probably bring to mind sun-dappled palms, fiery fish curries and dreadlocked backpackers, but they also hold a surprising secret. Their sands are rich in thorium – often hailed as a cleaner, safer alternative to conventional nuclear fuels.

The country has long been eager to exploit its estimated 300,000 to 850,000 tonnes of thorium – quite probably the world’s largest reserves – but progress has been slow. Their effort is coming back into focus amid renewed interest in the technology. Last year Dutch scientists fired up the first new experimental thorium reactor in decades, start-ups are promoting the technology in the West and last year China pledged to spend $3.3bn to develop reactors that could eventually run on thorium.

Proponents say it promises carbon-free power with less dangerous waste, lower risk of meltdowns and a much harder route to weaponisation than conventional nuclear. But rapid advances in renewables, a costly development path and question marks over how safe and clean future plants would really be mean its journey to commercialisation looks uncertain.

India’s pursuit of thorium is driven by unique historical and geographic conditions, which have given it considerable staying power. Some see a quixotic quest unlikely to live up to its promise, but the country’s nuclear scientists see a long-term strategy for carbon-free energy security in a country whose population could peak at 1.7 billion in 2060.

“We are a power hungry nation,” says Srikumar Banerjee, secretary of India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) until 2012. “Eventually we need to rely on indigenous raw materials for the long-term sustainability of a country which is going to support one fifth of humanity.”

India is pouring vast sums into its nuclear programme, which includes the four heavy water reactors at Kaiga, Karnataka (Credit: Getty Images)
The West’s development of nuclear energy was inextricably linked to the development of atomic bombs

Today all commercial nuclear plants run on uranium, a fact at least partly down to geopolitics. The West’s development of nuclear energy was inextricably linked to the development of atomic bombs and uranium’s by-products are much easier to weaponise. “In a different era maybe a different choice would be made and we'd have headed down the thorium route in the 1950s instead, but we are we are where we are,” says Geoff Parks, a nuclear engineer at Cambridge University.

India’s strategy was governed by different calculus. The country’s meagre uranium deposits convinced the founding father of its nuclear programme, Homi Bhabha, that any long-term strategy must exploit thorium, its most abundant fuel, which inspired a three-stage programme that is still the central plank of India’s nuclear energy policy.

Thorium doesn’t spontaneously undergo fission – when an atom’s nucleus splits and releases energy that can generate electricity. Left to its own devices it decays very slowly, giving off alpha radiation that can’t even penetrate human skin, so holidaymakers don’t need to worry about sunbathing on thorium-rich beaches.

To turn it into nuclear fuel, it needs to be combined with a fissile material like plutonium, which releases neutrons as it undergoes fission. These are captured by thorium atoms, converting them into a fissile isotope of uranium called U233. An isotype is a variant of an element with a different number of neutrons.

“Thorium is like wet wood,” says Ratan Kumar Sinha, who succeeded Banerjee as DAE secretary before leaving the post in 2015. He explains that wet wood is no good at starting a fire, but once it’s placed in a furnace burning dry wood, it can catch light. The first two stages of India’s strategy are therefore aimed at converting its abundant thorium reserves into fissile material.

First, conventional uranium-fuelled reactors produce plutonium as a by-product. The next stage combines this with more uranium in ‘fast breeder’ reactors that generate more plutonium than they use. That’s used to build more breeder reactors, and once the fleet is large enough they switch to converting thorium into U233. The final stage combines U233 with more thorium to kick-start self-sustaining ‘thermal breeder’ reactors that can be refuelled using raw thorium.

Realising Bhaba’s vision has proved challenging though. The West’s focus on uranium means that India has been ploughing a lone furrow for some time and its nuclear weapons programme and refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty saw it isolated from global trade in nuclear technology and fuel for decades.

The lifting of those barriers, following the 2008 India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement, should speed progress says, Sinha. But while the country developed uranium-powered Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) in the 1970s, the second stage has been a long time coming. An experimental breeder reactor that came online in 1985 has still not reached its 40MW designed capacity. The country’s 500MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) – the blueprint for a future fleet – is targeted to come online this year, but the first official launch date was 2010. In other words, it’s far from guaranteed.

India will also need to build up operational experience before any expansion, says Banerjee, and it will take time to breed the required fuel – roughly 10 years to double the plutonium to build another reactor. It’s even longer for thorium, which is why plutonium will be used to build out the network before switching to thorium conversion. Extracting U233 from the spent thorium also poses daunting challenges, because another by-product of the fuel cycle is U232, which emits highly radioactive gamma rays. Researchers at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have demonstrated the process experimentally but doing so at scale will require facilities with heavy radiation shielding and complex robotics to isolate workers.

The design of India’s first reactor that could burn thorium is complete – the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). But construction is not imminent, and Sinha, who led the design, stresses it’s not a blueprint for the third stage. It will still need fissile material top-ups and is aimed more at providing experience with the fuel cycle and demonstrating new safety features.

An eventual third stage reactor will be a self-sustaining ‘thermal breeder’ that needs U233 and thorium to get started, but can then be refuelled with natural thorium. The specific design of that reactor is an open question, but the consensus is that reactors using a molten salt mixture as both fuel and coolant are the most promising. That’s a design pursued by proponents in the West and China and early R&D is underway in India.

Even India’s nuclear establishment admits the country is unlikely to generate substantial energy from thorium until at least the 2050s. Others are more sanguine. “Thorium has been talked about for 70 years now and it will continue to be talked about in the future tense, I think, for the conceivable future,” says M. V. Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, who has written several books about India’s nuclear policy.

One frequently touted benefit is safety, because thorium reactors should be less prone to meltdowns

Conventional nuclear is already economically unconvincing, he says, so adding the cost of developing thorium-friendly reactors and complex fuel reprocessing is untenable. Proponents say thorium’s advantages outweigh these costs, but he thinks the case is overstated. One frequently touted benefit is safety, because thorium reactors should be less prone to meltdowns; but Ramana says you can’t predict possible failure routes until full-scale models are running. “Chernobyl and Fukushima and so on, they were all accidents that were not supposed to happen," he adds.

While the presence of U232 means thorium waste is more hazardous in the short-term, its particular mix of isotopes are less hazardous over longer periods due to the amount and type of radiation it releases. That means it's likely to be easier to handle and store in the long-term, says Cambridge’s Parks, but the benefits are marginal and possibly of limited relevance, considering we’ve still not found a convincing way to deal with existing nuclear waste. Perhaps the most compelling advantage is the difficulty of weaponising it, he adds. U233 can make atomic bombs but the complex processing makes it unattractive.

None of these potential benefits are what’s really driving India’s program though, says Ramamurti Rajaraman, a physics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. “It's partly institutional pride,” he says. The nuclear establishment is loath to abandon a longstanding flagship program. But more importantly Bhaba’s argument for self-sufficiency has remained potent, he adds, particularly following the country’s period of nuclear isolation.

India is trying to meet booming energy demands while weaning itself off a chronic coal addiction. Renewables are undoubtedly part of the picture, says Anil Kakodkar, another former DAE secretary now on India’s Atomic Energy Commission. The country plans to reach 175GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2022; it’s fourth in the world for installed wind capacity and fifth for solar. But sun and wind are too intermittent to power the whole country. “Nuclear is the only option for such large-scale baseload generation that is non-fossil," he says. "And in the Indian case it has to be essentially from thorium."

Whether self-sufficiency is necessary for energy security is up for debate. When Bhaba devised India’s strategy global uranium deposits were believed to be smaller and rapid nuclear expansion was expected to put pressure on supplies. But global nuclear capacity has been in decline since the 1990s and uranium is more prevalent than first thought.

William Nuttall, a professor at the Open University specialising in energy policy, understands how India’s historical perspective could make thorium attractive. But there’s little sign of an impending squeeze on uranium, so global markets provide a sustainable route to energy security, he says. It’s also entirely possible to decarbonise without nuclear. “Nuclear has attributes that mean it's beneficial in respect to climate change and energy security, but its case is not manifest,” he says.

India isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket though. Besides its continuing work on wind and solar energy, the government approved construction for 12 new heavy-water reactors to add to the 22 in operation and 9 under construction. It’s also exploring deals for foreign-designed reactors with Russia, France and the US. But given its progress so far, Parks thinks thorium makes sense as a long-term hedge for India. “They should be commended for having had a plan and stuck to it,” he adds. “I wish the UK could be accused of the same.”

Even India’s nuclear scientists doubt thorium’s prospects in developed countries though. With little headroom in energy consumption and established uranium-based technology, they’ve little incentive to risk switching tracks, says Kakodkar. The opportunity is booming energy consumption in the developing world where he sees thorium’s abundance and proliferation-resistance making it a promising carbon-free baseload provider.

“If you really want to move toward carbon-free energy for the world, I don't see how it can happen without nuclear and I don't see how nuclear can grow without thorium,” he adds. “So somebody has to take the lead.”
what about the earlier scam when many hundreds of thousands of tons of thorium sands were smuggled out of India by some foreign entities.

any low down on that.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by LakshmanPST »

Campaign against Uranium mining proposal in Nallamalka forest has started in Telugu Social media pages...
The language is similar to the language used in Tamil pages against development projects...
"Central Govt. is trying to mine Uranium in our Nallamalla forest... As Telugus, it is our responsibility to protect the environment..." etc...
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Gagan »

Vips wrote:There is also no news about the indigenous 700 MW nuclear reactors. IIRC atleast 8-10 of them are proposed.
Kakrapar units 3&4 started contruction in Nov 2011. Nearly complete on satellite pics
RAPS units 7&8 started construction in July and sept 2011, under construction now

Gorakhpur in Haryana, shows rapid ground preparation work. This is a greenfield project
Other sites: No construction work seen at present
Jaitapur: Land cleared, no construction. 6 units of French 1200MW design planned
Hairpur
Pati Sonapur
Mirthivirdi
Pulivendula
Kovvada, srikakulam
Kumaharia (Gorakhpur, HY): Land preperation underway ! 2X 700 MW planned
Chutka, MP
Mahi Banswara, Raj
Bhimpur MP
vasu raya
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by vasu raya »

LakshmanPST wrote:Campaign against Uranium mining proposal in Nallamalka forest has started in Telugu Social media pages...
The language is similar to the language used in Tamil pages against development projects...
"Central Govt. is trying to mine Uranium in our Nallamalla forest... As Telugus, it is our responsibility to protect the environment..." etc...
To tell you a story, coming from a coal mining area, we used to get ground water supply that is inspite of filtration is not the same as fresh river water, you can taste it. This Uranium mining project in Nallamala is near Srisailam reservoir on Krishna river, its a major water source and plans/implementations are afoot to serve drought hit Rayalaseema districts in the future. Even telugu ganga project that supplies water (when available) to Chennai is sourced from here.

mitigation efforts are afoot now,
Limestone can help neutralize Meghalaya streams polluted by coal mining, say experts
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Ashokk »

India proposes to replace russian turbines for future units in Kudankulam with japanese turbines
The Atomic Energy Corporation of India (NPCIL), a customer for the construction of a nuclear power plant being built by the Russian side, is discussing the possible replacement of turbine equipment from Power Machines by Alexei Mordashov. New Delhi offers Rosatom to replace it with products from Japanese manufacturers. This was reported to RBC by two sources close to the participants in the negotiations between the countries.

The Indian side expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of the turbines and generators supplied by Power Machines for the turbine section of the already constructed units of the Kudankulam NPP, one of the interlocutors said. But we are not talking about replacing the supplier of turbines for the Kudankulam blocks under construction (six blocks should be built in total, two are now ready), since all the equipment for them has already been contracted. The requirement concerns a new nuclear power plant with six units, the construction of which is also provided for by an intergovernmental agreement and should be completed by 2034.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Gyan »

What about installing Turbines from Larsan Toubro or BHEL, they have some of the best power turbines and suffering due to lack of Orders?
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by arvin »

Could be toshiba-jsw steam turbines with factory in chennai.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by NRao »

Manish Jain
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by Manish Jain »

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1176858263725330432

PM Modi at Global Business Forum in New York: We have the challenge of nuclear energy because we are not a member of NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group), so we face the issue of supply of fuel. If we get a solution on that front, then we can come out as model and work in this sector.
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Re: India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

Post by jaysimha »

General information
AUSC 2019
National Conference on Advanced Ultra Super Critical Technology
http://www.bhel.com/index.php/linkpdf?p ... /AUSC2019/

http://www.bhel.com/uasc/2019/Brochure.pdf
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