India Nuclear News & Discussion - 07 Aug 2007

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Dileep
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Post by Dileep »

Hmm, the good old argument of "eliminate the losses" as the silver bullet!!

IF you transmit energy, there WILL be losses. Yes, you can eliminate un-necessary losses, but the savings are NOT that remarkable.

1. You can't go on increasing the voltages. As the voltage increases, you need higher towers, bigger insulation etc, with associated costs. So, there is a diminishing returns effect. Anything more than 440KV (not 400 ) won't give any advantage.

2. The proponents of DC conveniently forget the cost and inefficiencies of the voltage conversion process. Any day a flux sharing converter (aka transformer) is more efficient than a flux modifying converter (aka inverter). So, the tradeoff is between the ground induction losses to the conversion losses. More important is who pays for it. For a transmission business, DC might be better because they hand over energy at 440KV DC, and do not suffer the conversion inefficiency. The distribution company that have to step it down to 230V/50Hz will have to absorb it.

But for a energy capacity POV, we need to worry about energy loss, wherever it happens.

4. Most of the energy loss happens NOT at the huge transmission nets. It happens at the low voltage distribution nets, and you can't change it.

5. Most of the energybudget deficit being reported as energy loss is actually energy theft. When you plan for energy, you need to differentiate betwene the two. Energy loss is when it is converted into heat (and in Kerala EB's network, (ARC) LIGHT as well) that serves no useful purpose.

Now, let us think about the demand side.

1. Right now, the nets are running under severe deficit, resulting in 150V/42Hz lines. You need like 30-40% increase in generation to serve the CURRENT grid demand.

2. Have anyone taken an account of how much electrical energy is generated in the un-accounted sector? All those little gensets happily chugging away at the doorstep of the shops? And those bigger ones roaring from the backyards of factories? It is a LOT. But I have not seen them being addressed as an energy deficit. That oil can have better uses you know?
NRao
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Post by NRao »

These are the only four reactors in the world that meet our requirements,'' Jain said in an interview in Mumbai after the agreement was announced.

....................................................

Nuclear Power Corp. plans to buy the AP1000 series of reactors from Monroeville, Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse, the `ABWR' series from General Electric, Areva's serial designs for the 1,000 megawatt reactors and the Russian VVR 1,000 reactors, he said.
Question for techies: What is common among these and what do they bring to the table for India?

TIA.
enqyoobOLD
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

To add to that, can some1 pls list the different types of power reactors, and how they are different? Pls include desi ones there too of course.

From simply their power generation use POV, pls. What is "ABVR" and how is different from "AdvaniR" or "MMSR"? Or PWHR or LWR? Also, what is so difficult about producing Heavy Water and where is it needed?
ldev
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Post by ldev »

NRao wrote:
These are the only four reactors in the world that meet our requirements,'' Jain said in an interview in Mumbai after the agreement was announced.

....................................................

Nuclear Power Corp. plans to buy the AP1000 series of reactors from Monroeville, Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse, the `ABWR' series from General Electric, Areva's serial designs for the 1,000 megawatt reactors and the Russian VVR 1,000 reactors, he said.
Question for techies: What is common among these and what do they bring to the table for India?

TIA.
Not a technie, but my guess is that at least the Westinghouse, GE and Areva reactors have been already certified to run on fuel other than U-235 i.e. the kinds of fuels India will be interested in longer term. After all from the viewpoint of the Indian nuclear establishment it makes sense to go in for MOX fuels where some research may have already been done by BARC ...... can kill more than one bird with the same stone if you know what I mean. As far as the Russian reactors go, I really dont know. Maybe it too has been modified or alternatively it could simply be a quid pro quo for the support received during the days in exile.

I think Manne can comment authoritatively on this issue if he chooses to.
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Post by Kartman »

enqyoob wrote:To add to that, can some1 pls list the different types of power reactors, and how they are different? Pls include desi ones there too of course.

From simply their power generation use POV, pls. What is "ABVR" and how is different from "AdvaniR" or "MMSR"? Or PWHR or LWR? Also, what is so difficult about producing Heavy Water and where is it needed?
Anyone planning to take the time to do this, in particular, pls take the following differentiators into account:

Tech. criteria:
- Fuel requirement: enrichment req., mixed-oxide use, etc.
- Non-fissile req.: moderator, coolant, etc., esp. relative to local (DAE) production capability

Environmental & safety issues:
- Reprocessing: tech. & econ. viability thereof
- Safety features: inherent safety characteristics of design, passive/active safety features, track record, etc.

Econ. criteria:
- Cost/MW installed capacity
- Production cost in grid, Rs or cents/kWh

Import 'substitutability' (damn, how I hate that word :P) a.k.a sanction 'proofability':
- Materials-wise: e.g. we have good capability in heavy water production
- Controllers*
- Other sub-systems*
- Spares*

* : only way Unkil can do ungli with Right-of-Return/Termiation is with such (non-radioactive) systems

Any others to add to the list ?
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Post by NRao »

I think Manne can comment authoritatively on this issue if he chooses to.
He had stated that India knew which ones it wanted - so, he has a good idea.
John Snow
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Post by John Snow »

Dilip>> you are forgetting the fundemental aspect of why high voltage transmission is more efficient the DC transmission.

Volt drop due to good old OM !

R = (s *l)/a

The conductor of DC will much more Mota for given volta since resistance is Ulta proportion to area.
Heating loss is (I)squared time R (resistance of wire)
( olden days between Pune and VT CR/IR traction line was was DC locos) which I think are now 110 KV AC and require booster generators for comensation of DC volt drop.

in a/c volt drop is much lower and at any time they can v=be stepped down or stepped up.

With the wire theft in addition to power theft DC is out of the question.

Mota cable means mota money to make.
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Post by Calvin »

Dileep and Snow: Is 440kV the highest practical before diminishing returns happen? I thought it was 1200 kV, with corona discharge at 2000kV.
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Post by Manny »

Philip wrote:I am worried when China says the deal is OK.That means that this deal will have a psychological effect upon our nuclear deterrent/testing plans and going by our track record,will in effect have a negative impact on our willingness to antagonise the US by any testing.AsI said earlier,China and Pak can happily conspire and further develop their nuclear and missile arsenals in concert, while India tosses and turns in its sleep wondering how not to annoy Uncle Sam!

I am also upset by the Congress trying to ram down the deal in parliament,without a full debate.Even if the deal is to India's advantage,the opposition have the right to be heard,as they are the people's elected reps.
In theory, what you say is nice. But in reality. The lefties are the enemies from within.

1. The lefties didn't and don't want Nuclear anywhere in India
2. The lefties want more nuclear and independence of nuclear for India. (contradicting themselves)
3. The lefties consider China a friend and the US an enemy

Conclusion: The lefties are Indias enemies. For worse than Al Queda. Give them no quarters.. Not even the perception of respectability of a debate on Indo-US 123 agreement.

Manny
Last edited by Manny on 09 Aug 2007 20:09, edited 3 times in total.
sunilUpa
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Post by sunilUpa »

Westinghouse claims that AP1000 can handle MOX fuel.
SaiK
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Post by SaiK »

areva/westi -> 3rd gen reactors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor

shouldn't we be looking at iv++ reactor technology? where is BARC at this compared to Areva and Westi?
Research into these reactor types was officially started by the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) based on eight technology goals. The primary goals being to improve nuclear safety, improve proliferation resistance, minimize waste and natural resource utilization, and to decrease the cost to build and run such plants.[5]
* Gas cooled fast reactor
* Lead cooled fast reactor
* Molten salt reactor
* Sodium-cooled fast reactor
* Supercritical water reactor (SCWR)
* Very high temperature reactor


:?:
NRao
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Post by NRao »

enqyoob wrote:To add to that, can some1 pls list the different types of power reactors, and how they are different? Pls include desi ones there too of course.

From simply their power generation use POV, pls. What is "ABVR" and how is different from "AdvaniR" or "MMSR"? Or PWHR or LWR? Also, what is so difficult about producing Heavy Water and where is it needed?
From hamre Aussie Bhai:

Nuclear Power Reactors
Primitive reactors The world's oldest known nuclear reactors operated at what is now Oklo in Gabon, West Africa. About 2 billion years ago, at least 17 natural nuclear reactors achieved criticality in a rich deposit of uranium ore. Each operated at about 20 kW thermal. At that time the concentration of U-235 in all natural uranium was 3.7 percent instead of 0.7 percent as at present. (U-235 decays much faster than U-238, whose half-life is about the same as the age of the Earth.) These natural chain reactions, started spontaneously by the presence of water acting as a moderator, continued for about 2 million years before finally dying away.

During this long reaction period about 5.4 tonnes of fission products as well as 1.5 tonnes of plutonium together with other transuranic elements were generated in the orebody. The initial radioactive products have long since decayed into stable elements but close study of the amount and location of these has shown that there was little movement of radioactive wastes during and after the nuclear reactions. Plutonium and the other transuranics remained immobile.
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Post by Kartman »

enqyoob wrote:Also, what is so difficult about producing Heavy Water and where is it needed?
Heavy water, aka D2O, is used as a moderator and/or coolant in a number of designs, including our CANDU and "INDU" ones

D2O, unlike H2O, does not occur in nature and has to be produced by replacing the H in every H2O with a D... a process that can severely challenge a nation's H&D. As we, and many others, have found out :oops:
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Post by williams »

bala wrote:The statement about precision is really true after re-reading 123. For example believe it or not the term "Peaceful Purposes" has been defined very carefully:
"Peaceful purposes" include the use of information, nuclear material, equipment or components in such fields as research, power generation, medicine, agriculture and industry, but do not include use in, research on, or development of any nuclear explosive device or any other military purpose. Provision of power for a military base drawn from any power network, production of radioisotopes to be used for medical purposes in military environment for diagnostics, therapy and sterility assurance, and other similar purposes as may be mutually agreed by the Parties shall not be regarded as military purpose.
I think it is safe to assert that as far as INDIA is concerned Hyde Act does not hold in any way, shape or form in 123 for Nuke Testing and analyst who bring Hyde into their analysis for Nuke Testing should be shown how wrong they really are.
Bala I think Hyde act is an insurance policy POTUS may have in case of a dire circumstance. I do not think Hyde can be used to remote control Indian policy. I will be only happy if Indian parliament ties 123 with our own Lalu act that will be an insurance policy of Indian PM in future. We can create our own certification clause that will allow our PM to invoke pain on them. That will keep the balance on this agreement. I am not seeing that being demanded by BJP or the Left. 123 talks about both parties national laws. So our laws can also be applied. Question for experts is that does it mean existing national laws are any future national laws.
enqyoobOLD
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

But, IIRC, the Nazis had an operating plant either in northern Deutschland or Liberated Norway in the 1940s, which was destroyed in a massive air-raid.

If they could get such a thing operational within about 10 years of realizing the need for D2O, with an embargo of all sorts in effect, how come this is such a big deal for Bharatiya AnyShakti Kendra, 67 years later?
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Post by sunilUpa »

enqyoob wrote:But, IIRC, the Nazis had an operating plant either in northern Deutschland or Liberated Norway in the 1940s, which was destroyed in a massive air-raid.

If they could get such a thing operational within about 10 years of realizing the need for D2O, with an embargo of all sorts in effect, how come this is such a big deal for Bharatiya AnyShakti Kendra, 67 years later?
AFAIK, it was an operational Norwegian plant for production of Ammonia, byproduct being Heavy Water. Nazis simply seized the plant.
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Post by Singha »

per a old readers digest a small troop norweigan commandoes managed to destroy the plant and escape into the sub-artic tundra. and they all escaped. many had survived for months
on moss and lichen. justified their billing as fearsome winter fighters.

the yanks later came in like an elephant with 100s of B-17s and dropped _700+_ bombs
without managing to hit the plant properly - vintage Yemerican intervention. but the
general noise created convinced the germans to shift the eqpt and abandon the norsk
hydro plant.

a noreweign resistance type again drifted in and sunk the ferry with a limpet charge.

here I found it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_ ... r_sabotage
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Post by John Snow »

sunilUpa wrote:
enqyoob wrote:But, IIRC, the Nazis had an operating plant either in northern Deutschland or Liberated Norway in the 1940s, which was destroyed in a massive air-raid.

If they could get such a thing operational within about 10 years of realizing the need for D2O, with an embargo of all sorts in effect, how come this is such a big deal for Bharatiya AnyShakti Kendra, 67 years later?
AFAIK, it was an operational Norwegian plant for production of Ammonia, byproduct being Heavy Water. Nazis simply seized the plant.
No they were getting it by electrolysis of water to get D2 The plant was close to Hydor eletric plant in Norway)and the make Heavy water, when a british agent sent his report to MI5 they small time babu there laughed at heavy water and was curing the HMs money wasted on natives and (use) less bread Eiropeans but when his boss got hold of that info the babu was pulled " Bloody Fool you risked the entire Empire
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Post by Paul »

I remember reading a "Commando" series flick on this it.
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

Thanks. I knew there was a commando-type operation, and an air raid. I thought it was like "Where Eagles Dare" and they all sat around in the Executive Dining Room playing Musical Hot Seat and swapping Champagne and Schmeissers and Stens and and blonde nurses with Scopalamine and Hashish Needles, and then the Americans flew over and turned the entire village and 3 more in the vicinity into a parking lot, and so there was no one left to run the cafeteria at the plant, which was of course not hit. And then they dismantled it after the war and rebuilt it in Tennessee and it is now known as Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant.

But thanks for the spin on Wikipedia. So question remains: Can electrolysis separate out D2O? If so, what's the big deal today? Seems like all the Bollywood Herrowines have 200MW electrolysis plants running full-time...
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Post by SaiK »

well for every 40 millionth hydrogen in nature, there exists a deutrium bond with oxygen! sope it does exists in nature.

btw, check HWB, GoI website for the second largest D2O producer in the world!.
http://www.heavywaterboard.org/

and we need one more isotoping to deutirum, to get to the 1MT boosted thermos- tritium.
Last edited by SaiK on 09 Aug 2007 22:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by bala »

With GE, Westinghouse, Areva, Rosatom all rubbing their hands in glee at the windfall of India-US Nuke deal, what is the optimistic scenario for Nuclear Power in the next 5 yrs. I think K'lum can add 4x1000 MW, if GE,Westinghouse, Areva can come up with 5000 MW plants we would have 20,000 MW reliable nuclear energy which is 4x the amount produced by current BARC/DAE. Investments should run at $10B/yr and will keep all the nuke employees of India in good shape for a long while. Ancilliary industries supplying equipment, electricity transmission/distribution also benefits. Lot of things are riding on operationalizing the deal soon.
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Post by Laks »

x-post psyops thread. Sandeep Pandey who was silent for a while is right now in Princeton U. (wonder how such characters manage to get into elite Amreekan schools) and writes against nuclear deal.
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db ... p?idx=5536
Implications of US-India Nuclear Deal
The US has agreed upon this India specific deal as an exception, in spite of resistance from within and without, because it thinks that India has not contributed to proliferation. It is a different matter, though, that by conducting nuclear explosions twice India has violated the global non-proliferation regime, instigating Pakistan to do the same. North Korea was also emboldened to come out of NPT because of India's brazen transgression. India has consistently refused to sign the NPT, CTBT or FMCT. It is amazing how India has come this far with the US, outraging the modesty of international community, and extracted significant concessions in the Deal.
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Post by NRao »

NRao wrote:
enqyoob wrote:To add to that, can some1 pls list the different types of power reactors, and how they are different? Pls include desi ones there too of course.

From simply their power generation use POV, pls. What is "ABVR" and how is different from "AdvaniR" or "MMSR"? Or PWHR or LWR? Also, what is so difficult about producing Heavy Water and where is it needed?
From hamre Aussie Bhai:

Nuclear Power Reactors
2007 :: Plans For New Reactors Worldwide
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Post by SaiK »

one can't give into these few cheapose and nuke a beautiful elephant leading a bunch of tigers on its course. not giving them the attention is needed.
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Re: AHWR

Post by mayurav »

Arun_S wrote: The reprocessing will be simpler but largely in-line with Pu driver based AHWR-I/II design. And of course there will no Pu driver required.
Thanks! So does this mean that future AHWR fuel cycles will not require Pu (or U233) on a sustained basis (apart from startup) once it attains equilibrium?
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

Gee! These guys think they are too smart to explain to us kindergartners what all this gibberish jargon means. I think I'll go read up on this stuff. :P
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Post by NRao »

SaiK
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Post by SaiK »

what would be your smiley NRao? Just pick one from BR Emoticons or you can choose one from net.
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