India Nuclear News & Discussion - 07 Aug 2007

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NRao
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Post by NRao »

Looks like the whole Iran pressure using 123 is backfiring.
Bush says Hyde Act is not binding, then Rice, Burns and Tellis say that prez has to follow the Hyde Act.

MMS says that 123 is that matters, then instructs his team not to do anything to change any Laws. Then tells his buddies that he cannot renego 123.

AK states all or nothing, then states that 123 is best we can do.

Burns states that India (and of course GB, FR, RU, Chciom) should toe line on Iran, only to be followed by SD spokesperson saying that India is a big boy.

And we all feel great.
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Post by svinayak »

NRao wrote:
And we all feel great.

And mock BJP as final act of this circus.
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Post by sunilUpa »

NRao wrote:
Looks like the whole Iran pressure using 123 is backfiring.
Bush says Hyde Act is not binding, then Rice, Burns and Tellis say that prez has to follow the Hyde Act.

MMS says that 123 is that matters, then instructs his team not to do anything to change any Laws. Then tells his buddies that he cannot renego 123.

AK states all or nothing, then states that 123 is best we can do.

Burns states that India (and of course GB, FR, RU, Chciom) should toe line on Iran, only to be followed by SD spokesperson saying that India is a big boy.

And we all feel great.
NRao,

Just take a look at position of all parties (BJP, Congress and Left) since 1998. These guys will beat any circus flip flop artist. Just check their respective position on CTBT and what left wanted to do (Parliament pass a law prohibiting all future tests), Congress- remember famous Natwar Singh foot in mouth in Korea? BJP was no different in flip flop.
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Post by NRao »

SunilU,

I thought this was an Indian thingy. Am I missing anything? Where did all these parties come from? Perhaps that is THE problem and not the Hyde Act?

IS history repeating?
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Post by nkumar »

N3, It seems either you did not read my post completely by mistake or you deliberately cherry-picked the part which seems comfortable to explain your position. Also previously when I asked pro-deal jingos for a rebuttal for BC’s criticisim, no one offered anything.

I wrote, “I am all for the deal but EITHER we should first have megaton bombs tested many times, ICBMs etc [IMO, this remains the goal as the credible minimum deterrent] which should make anybody shit in their undies OR UPA enacts a law which counters Hyde [to follow the goal]. But problem is none seems to be happening.â€
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Post by putnanja »

The commies just want to use the deal to get some concessions from congress...

Deal through but Cong will have to pay a price: Karat

[quote]...
“The deal is through but the Congress will have to pay a political price for it,â€
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Post by Rye »

deleted
Last edited by Rye on 09 Aug 2007 07:18, edited 1 time in total.
enqyoobOLD
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

You conveniently forget the OR part. IF ICBMs and Megatonners are problematic to you then please enact a law to counter Hyde and negative aspects of 123 and I will rest my case.


I did nothing of the sort - I even provided the suggested text of the Enqyoob-Joey-Lalu-Jayalalitha Law, long b4 u came up with the brilliant idea of having an Indian law.
Can't help it if u don't read. Not going to repeat stuff more than about 5 times.
Rest of ur post is likewise - no, I am not going to provide any guarantees, and my guarantees would not be worth 2 paise anyway.

I'll just note that all those concerns you have about the "full civilian cooperation" can be resolved by careful reading. The text says that SENSITIVE and DUAL-USE technologies would have to be subject to relevant laws. So what? What did you expect? That Americans in America will go to jail if they reveal such things to any foreign entities per ITAR, but GOTUS was going to agree to send all such things on request to India, just like that, blanket authorization? The breakthrough is that they are even MENTIONING transferring "sensitive" and "dual-use" stuff to Indian nuclear entities. Not so long ago, even the IITs and the IISc were on the "Banned Entities List". If an American, or a Permanent Resident in the US, even so much as emailed anything about such stuff to anyone at IISc or IIT, s(he) could be sent to jail for a long time. And you think that suddenly, Indian Babus are going to be treated superior to America citizens by America?

Brother, have I got several bridges to sell you!


Cheers

P.S. One more technical point:
losses as some claim are as high as 40-50%. Even if we take a conservative estimate of 35%, this amounts to a loss of 42,000MW. What is preventing GoI from bringing down these losses to 10%?


Ah! America, in ages past, bit the bullet and built a transmission system that uses extremely high voltages, and hence operates on very low current.

Losses are proportional to I^2R where I is current and R is resistance, if I remember my Ohm's Law or whatever they call it, correctly.

So to reduce losses, India can go to very high voltages, and change every transformer in the country. Easy, I am sure. Also, every power line pole would have to be raised, and wires separated to prevent arcing at these high voltages.

I am sure there are other reasons why Indian losses are 35 to 40% while US and much of UQ are at 6%, but I slept through most of my EE classes or was too busy carving someone's name into desks, u'll have to ask some of the others here, such as John Snow, who will know the right answer. And any effort to do anything like this will be obstructed by the State Electricity Board goons.
Last edited by enqyoobOLD on 09 Aug 2007 05:51, edited 1 time in total.
ldev
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Post by ldev »

NRao wrote:ldev,

Nice post.

However, is it possible that the competition could be controlled?

......... IF import is much cheaper than an Indian effort, look for Nayi Deli to cut off support. Possible?

.....I hope I am dead wrong, but I can see Indian beaches still having the same sand in 40 years.
Does it really matter if any or all of these events come to pass? At the rate that uranium prices are increasing there are strong possibilities that the once pass through usage of uranium and then storage until eternity as practised by utilities in the west could become uneconomic. What then? Re-processing and thorium based reactors!!. And in both of these areas, India has specific expertise which will become only better with the passage of time. Does it really matter whether the sand from the beaches is used immediately or after 50 years? It will be there to be used whenever the uranium route becomes uneconomic.
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Post by ldev »

[quote="RaviBg"]The commies just want to use the deal to get some concessions from congress...

Deal through but Cong will have to pay a price: Karat

[quote]...
“The deal is through but the Congress will have to pay a political price for it,â€
enqyoobOLD
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

.. And that the Left's shyness was just a shakedown... :roll:
ldev
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Post by ldev »

enqyoob wrote:.. And that the Left's shyness was just a shakedown... :roll:
:lol: BRF!! Ahead of the curve!! By 24 hours.
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Post by Prem »

A Redwood City, Ca based company had few recomendation to cut transmission loss by 16 percent. Dont know what happen , some how Babus were not impressed . :x
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Post by Roop »

JE Menon wrote:Guys, this discussion is increasingly slipping into the realm of the surreal...
JEM, you dreamer you! "Is slipping into..."??? This discussion crossed the line into irrationality several days ago. And the direction of motion is not back towards the border, but further in to Irrational Territory. :roll:
... is there a point to it?
Of course there is! India needs to reject this deal, conduct dozens of megaton nuclear tests and wait for the world to come to our door on bended knee, begging for favours. It is zo zimble onlee, why can't you understand these basics?
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Post by samuel »

China softens stance on Indo-US N-deal

This deal is really starting to look good :wink:
S
Last edited by samuel on 09 Aug 2007 06:51, edited 1 time in total.
Rye
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Post by Rye »

Question is what are the chinese expecting to get for "giving in" to something they have no control over? Why does the NSG have to do "creative thinking" to pass this deal?
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

Actually, US transmission voltage is 110KV, and India (MSEB) has 400KV lines over part of the grid. So that's not the issue. There is apparently something called DSM (Demand Side Management) that is implemented in many countries, but not in India.

I am glad I slept through the EE classes in IITM. Sure they never covered stuff like this.
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Post by NRao »

At the rate that uranium prices are increasing there are strong possibilities that the once pass through usage of uranium and then storage until eternity as practised by utilities in the west could become uneconomic.
I can buy that.

Thx.
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Post by samuel »

Tellis said that 'unlike a joint statement, which is a political declaration where one can afford to use loose formulations, the 123 Agreement is a document really drafted by lawyers for lawyers and so the precision that is required is really remarkable."
Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal Is A High-Stakes Gamble

A little dated, but interesting point Tellis makes. Does the 123 agreement really have this quality...perhaps one that is not easily decipherable by a non-lawyer.
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Post by rgsrini »

Mohan Raju wrote:
This discussion crossed the line into irrationality several days ago.
More like extreme irrational distrust... also known as paranoia on one side and chicken-heartedness on the other.


Read this later and added the following comment:
Actually both paranoia and chicken-heartedness are on the same side. The other side (enqoob) IMO is pragmatic.
Last edited by rgsrini on 09 Aug 2007 07:20, edited 2 times in total.
enqyoobOLD
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Post by enqyoobOLD »

123 Agreement is a document really drafted by lawyers for lawyers and so the precision that is required is really remarkable."
Thx. So one has to read every phrase exactly. Interesting. So there are clear reasons for bringing in every issue, and as someone pointed out, Hyde seems to have been quarantined carefully, and paths laid around it.
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Post by nkumar »

Rest of ur post is likewise - no, I am not going to provide any guarantees, and my guarantees would not be worth 2 paise anyway.
This should have been clear, when I say,"I will sign the deal" - "You provide me the guarantee", I meant that India will sign the deal provided US give India the guarantee. The usage of I and You depends on the context.

This should have been further clear from the statement, "You guarantee that France, Russia, Australia etc will not take this 123 as template and we will have at latest 2 sources which are not poodles of US and are ready to give iron-clad guarantees of fuel supply and reactor components and spares. [I will be satisfied if MMS can make this statement in parliament] "

This is largely symbolic. Cant help if you dont read properly, next time I will be more specific and clear.

I'll just note that all those concerns you have about the "full civilian cooperation" can be resolved by careful reading. The text says that SENSITIVE and DUAL-USE technologies would have to be subject to relevant laws.
You consider this as a break-through, while I do not esp. from someone who wants to make India a superpower in the 21st century. I cant convince myself that this is full civilain cooperation, at best this is a promise that some time in future (God knows?) we will have a full civilain cooperation but this is not what J18 promised and which 123 calls for.
Losses are proportional to I^2R where I is current and R is resistance, if I remember my Ohm's Law or whatever they call it, correctly.

So to reduce losses, India can go to very high voltages, and change every transformer in the country. Easy, I am sure. Also, every power line pole would have to be raised, and wires separated to prevent arcing at these high voltages.

I am sure there are other reasons why Indian losses are 35 to 40% while US and much of UQ are at 6%, but I slept through most of my EE classes or was too busy carving someone's name into desks, u'll have to ask some of the others here, such as John Snow, who will know the right answer. And any effort to do anything like this will be obstructed by the State Electricity Board goons.
You need not explain me Ohm's law or whatever law it is(I did not study in IITK and neither I am interested here) Whatever be the reason for India having so much T&D losses. Point is that it does not cost much to bring down the losses, the pro-capitalist party, the 'savior' of India before and after the independence has to show political will to make power sector efficient to attract capitalists and fight unionbazi to invest in the country. Again the case of vote bank politics taking over requirements.

Let us agree to disagree and move on as far as this 123 is concerned, it is a 'done' deal now, no matter what anybody says. No bad blood :)

PS: admins, sorry for a largely OT post.
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Post by samuel »

Anyone know where lawyers from the Indian side came from? (with ref to cite in two posts above)...
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Post by Calvin »

Regarding electricity losses, while the system we have today is the system we have today, there shouldn't be anything that says that new power plants need to hook in at the 400kV, why wouldn't they hook in at 1200kV?
Again the case of vote bank politics taking over requirements.
What has 110-400kV lines and associated transmission losses got to do with vote-bank politics?
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Post by samuel »

Calvin wrote:Regarding electricity losses, while the system we have today is the system we have today, there shouldn't be anything that says that new power plants need to hook in at the 400kV, why wouldn't they hook in at 1200kV?
And feed in to the current distribution system?
Last edited by samuel on 09 Aug 2007 07:34, edited 1 time in total.
Calvin
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Post by Calvin »

And feed to the same distribution system?
Ultimately, yes. Systems need to be upgraded all the time, over 40 years the entire system can be replaced with a higher voltage alternative. Nevertheless, this is unrelatd to this topic - and will be my last post on this.
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AHWR

Post by mayurav »

Arun_S wrote:
From An overview of Fuel Cycles for the AHWR the 300MWe AHWR will use 230Kg/yr fresh Pu driver.
Arun saar, the pdf below says AHWR fuel cycle needs Pu only for AHWR I and II. Can you provide some gyan as to what that means wrt your quote above.

Page 14 of www.dae.gov.in/publ/3rdstage.pdf

Dhanyavad
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Re: AHWR

Post by ldev »

mayurav wrote:Arun_S wrote:
From An overview of Fuel Cycles for the AHWR the 300MWe AHWR will use 230Kg/yr fresh Pu driver.
Arun saar, the pdf below says AHWR fuel cycle needs Pu only for AHWR I and II. Can you provide some gyan as to what that means wrt your quote above.

Page 14 of www.dae.gov.in/publ/3rdstage.pdf

Dhanyavad
I am sure that Arun_S, the guru, will respond. But let me take a stab at it.

Thorium which is the basic fuel for the AHWR is not a fissile material i.e it cannot sustain a critical chain reaction. It needs a driver and the driver that was planned was Pu because Pu would be produced from the FBRs.

In the critical chain reaction induced in the AHWR, Th-232 is converted into U-233. However, fresh Pu as driver material is needed until enough of the Thorium has been converted into U-233. Thereafter the U-233 produced is adequate to sustain the chain reaction (albeit after reprocessing) and no further inputs of Pu are necesary.

The reference to only AHWR 1 and 2 needing Pu may mean that there was some thought of using some other fissile material as a driver after the first 2 AHWRs, maybe a Uranium based MOX.
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Post by ldev »

enqyoob wrote:
123 Agreement is a document really drafted by lawyers for lawyers and so the precision that is required is really remarkable."
Thx. So one has to read every phrase exactly. Interesting. So there are clear reasons for bringing in every issue, and as someone pointed out, Hyde seems to have been quarantined carefully, and paths laid around it.
GOTUS has to answer to COTUS that 123 is in conformity with Hyde. And for that a lawyers opinion and certificate is important. So GOTUS lawyers will tell COTUS lawyers that all is well with 123. So lawyers talking to lawyers :wink:

Now, India is far away from all the lawyers. Because India has only signed a normal agreement with no domestic law to trip over.
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Post by samuel »

ldev wrote:
Now, India is far away from all the lawyers. Because India has only signed a normal agreement with no domestic law to trip over.
Indeed. It would be easy to argue going by the quality of the document that Indians had no lawyers, but given the largely American template, the same is probably not true of the US. Though I don't obviously know.
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Post by Mort Walker »

Let the bidding begin:

Areva, GE, Rosatom Vie for $14 Billion India Nuclear Contracts

General Electric, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, Paris- based Areva, Westinghouse and Rosatom may each win contracts valued at $3.5 billion, part of a $40 billion reactor-building program, Jain said.

Nuclear Power Corp., India's monopoly atomic energy generator, plans to set up plants at four sites in the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal, he said.

The company plans to build ``nuclear parks'' housing reactors capable of generating as much as 8,000 megawatts at a single location.

``To begin with, we will give out orders for two reactors of 1,000 megawatts at each of the locations,'' Jain said in an Aug. 3 interview. The four suppliers will not be permitted to own equity in the projects under Indian law, he said.
Let the mofo NPAs cram this up where the sun don't shine. :lol: The US has more to lose now if congress doesn't approve this deal.
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Post by CRamS »

enqyoob wrote: Losses are proportional to I^2R where I is current and R is resistance, if I remember my Ohm's Law or whatever they call it, correctly.

So to reduce losses, India can go to very high voltages, and change every transformer in the country. Easy, I am sure. Also, every power line pole would have to be raised, and wires separated to prevent arcing at these high voltages.

I am sure there are other reasons why Indian losses are 35 to 40% while US and much of UQ are at 6%, but I slept through most of my EE classes or was too busy carving someone's name into desks, u'll have to ask some of the others here, such as John Snow, who will know the right answer. And any effort to do anything like this will be obstructed by the State Electricity Board goons.
Without getting too technical, here is an article from last week's Economist that in part talks about power transmission losses:

http://www.economist.com/science/displa ... N=99791908
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Post by Sanjay M »

samuel wrote: Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal Is A High-Stakes Gamble

A little dated, but interesting point Tellis makes. Does the 123 agreement really have this quality...perhaps one that is not easily decipherable by a non-lawyer.
He explained that "all the 123 agreements we have concluded before have been done either with non-nuclear weapons states or with nuclear weapons states. There are standard templates that apply to each of these cases. India, in contrast, is in a very odd category all by itself: it is, formally speaking, a non-nuclear weapons state that happens to have nuclear weapons."
Where would he say the Pressler Amendment fell amongst these categories?
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Post by samuel »

Sanjay M wrote: Where would he say the Pressler Amendment fell amongst these categories?
You can ask him by following this linK:
Tellis' postcard
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Post by bala »

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.

On Transmission & Distribution Losses in India, T&D are high and euphemistically are treated as such for "loss" incurred due to theft and other reasons (not electrical losses). The other could be due to State Electricity Board hiding power given to farmers under populist schemes etc. One technique to reduce losses it to have separate entities accountable for its own P&L and not clubbed under state electricity boards. So power generation is decoupled from power transmission from power distribution. Already many states in the Union have adopted the new model, broken up State Electricity Boards (SEBs). Unfortunately some states like TN are opposing the breakup claiming that their T&D losses are much much smaller than the rest even though they are not on par with international norms.
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Post by svinayak »

samuel wrote:

You can ask him by following this linK:
Tellis' postcard
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/ ... chpt08.pdf
This is a must read
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Post by Suraj »

The whiff of $$$ takes centerstage...
Posted in full
Areva, GE, Rosatom Vie for $14 Billion India Nuclear Contracts When Ban Ends: Bloomberg
Areva SA, the world's largest maker of nuclear power stations, and General Electric Co. are among four companies poised to share $14 billion of orders from India as nations led by the U.S. prepare to lift a 33-year ban.

Toshiba Corp.'s Westinghouse Electric Co. and Russia's atomic energy agency Rosatom will probably also win contracts to each build two 1,000 megawatt reactors, said Nuclear Power Corp. of India Chairman S. K. Jain. India will be able to purchase equipment after an Aug. 3 accord with the U.S. is approved by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.

``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.

The orders will form the first phase of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plan to build 40,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity by 2020, equivalent to a third of current generation. India needs to add to the 3 percent of electricity that comes from Russian-designed reactors to meet soaring energy needs and reduce its reliance on coal-fired power plants.

``India will try to diversify its suppliers and it's highly likely all four will win the contracts,'' said Mikhail Stiskin, a nuclear industry analyst with Moscow-based brokerage Troika Dialog. ``The question is how much more will one or the other get, and Russia seems to be in a strong position.''

Nuclear energy projects in India and China to sustain economic growth that's more than five times the pace of the U.S. may lead to shortages of manpower and equipment and push up costs. Global capacity will rise to 519,000 megawatts by 2030 from 370,000 megawatts last year, according to International Energy Agency forecasts.

Initial Contracts

General Electric, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, Paris- based Areva, Westinghouse and Rosatom may each win contracts valued at $3.5 billion, part of a $40 billion reactor-building program, Jain said.

Nuclear Power Corp., India's monopoly atomic energy generator, plans to set up plants at four sites in the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal, he said.

The company plans to build ``nuclear parks'' housing reactors capable of generating as much as 8,000 megawatts at a single location.

``To begin with, we will give out orders for two reactors of 1,000 megawatts at each of the locations,'' Jain said in an Aug. 3 interview. The four suppliers will not be permitted to own equity in the projects under Indian law, he said.

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.

U.S. and Russia

The state-owned company will award contracts after India's civilian nuclear deal is cleared by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Jain said.

The U.S. deal was held up by differences over whether India would get a perennial supply of nuclear fuel, be allowed to reprocess spent fuel and have the right to conduct nuclear tests.

India signed a similar civilian nuclear agreement with Russia in January. Russia is helping India build the two 1,000- megawatt light water reactors at the Kudankulam nuclear power station in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

International sanctions against India were prompted by the nation's testing of a nuclear weapon in 1974. The explosion conducted in a desert in western India prompted the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Another round of tests by India in 1998 led to the U.S. choking trade with India by blocking the Export-Import Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corp. from guarantee loans to projects in India.

The U.S. removed the economic sanctions in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks to bolster support for its campaign against terrorism. The U.S. decision to give India access to civilian nuclear technology was based on talks initiated during Prime Minister Singh's visit to Washington in July 2005 and concluded during President Bush's visit to India seven months later.
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Post by Philip »

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.
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Re: AHWR

Post by Arun_S »

ldev wrote:
mayurav wrote:Arun_S wrote: Arun saar, the pdf below says AHWR fuel cycle needs Pu only for AHWR I and II. Can you provide some gyan as to what that means wrt your quote above.

Page 14 of www.dae.gov.in/publ/3rdstage.pdf

Dhanyavad
I am sure that Arun_S, the guru, will respond. But let me take a stab at it.

Thorium which is the basic fuel for the AHWR is not a fissile material i.e it cannot sustain a critical chain reaction. It needs a driver and the driver that was planned was Pu because Pu would be produced from the FBRs.

In the critical chain reaction induced in the AHWR, Th-232 is converted into U-233. However, fresh Pu as driver material is needed until enough of the Thorium has been converted into U-233. Thereafter the U-233 produced is adequate to sustain the chain reaction (albeit after reprocessing) and no further inputs of Pu are necesary.

The reference to only AHWR 1 and 2 needing Pu may mean that there was some thought of using some other fissile material as a driver after the first 2 AHWRs, maybe a Uranium based MOX.
The paper refers to AHWR I & II as two designs of AHWR and not the reactor build numbers. Pls see pg 11 (Pdf page 18) where AHWR II is mentioned.

Other AHWR concept that is gather traction is Step-4 of page 8 (Pdf 18) involving subcritical Th core with a ADS:

AHWR.Stage 4 : Accelerator driven system with a fast reactor sub-critical core together with a mainly thorium fuelled thermal core somewhat similar to that present in AHWR.

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.
SSridhar
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Post by SSridhar »

Acharya wrote:
samuel wrote:

You can ask him by following this linK:
Tellis' postcard
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/ ... chpt08.pdf
This is a must read
A really well analyzed and written paper. It cogently argues from a US PoV why it should have a good relationship with India and links it with the civilian nuclear deal.
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