Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

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Prabu
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Prabu »

Rangudu,

Thanks for flashing the draft agreemnet. You are right. we don't have the full picture yet !
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by RamaY »

My gut feel is that IAEA and NSG drafts will be clean and it is US-123/Hyde that will hold GOI's ball$ (for lack of better analogy)...

Why would US want and GOI would allow every tom/D/H decide what India can/should do? There won’t be any additional leverage for US in that scenario...

The immediate question would be, how about India get a clean IAEA/NSG exemption and trade with JP/France/Russia/Aus?

US made sure that this wouldn’t happen by influencing/controlling Indian politicians and businesses… so everyone looks good...
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by NRao »

sanjaychoudhry wrote:Biraders, don't crucify Mr. Shourie. I have translated his article from Hindi to English, and some things may have got lost in translation, though I have translated the thing precisely word by word taking great care, but one is never sure. I had no idea you would be concentrating on every word and turn of the phrase .... otherwise I would have been double careful.
BR IS brutal.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Vivek_A »

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080711/j ... 533797.jsp

America ‘twists arms’, nuke rivals bristle
US ‘threat’ to quit NSG if it delays nod
K.P. NAYAR

Washington, July 10: The Bush administration is privately threatening to leave the Nuclear Suppliers Group if it does not expeditiously approve the Indo-US nuclear deal by allowing member countries to engage in nuclear commerce with Delhi, a highly respected American arms control expert has alleged.

Henry Sokolski, who worked in the US defence secretary’s office as deputy for non-proliferation policy and was later a member of the CIA’s senior advisory panel, wrote in The Wall Street Journal today that “the US actually has been twisting arms at the NSG... and so dissolve the group if countries critical of the India deal did not fall into line on India”.

Sokolski’s allegation, though sensational, is not entirely fanciful. The US has a history of standing by its friends on nuclear issues.

In autumn 1982, after Israel’s expulsion from the IAEA General Conference, the agency’s highest policymaking body, for its bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, the US withdrew from the IAEA and suspended its contributions to the budget of the UN’s nuclear watch- dog.

The boycott did not last very long. Although Washington returned to the IAEA in early 1983, the episode was today being recalled widely within the strategic community here in the context of Sokolski’s allegation.

Making the NSG defunct is actually easy as pie. It is not even a structured body and has no secretariat.

Besides, the NSG was created in response to India’s nuclear test in 1974 and if the IAEA is integrating India into its “atoms for peace” framework, there could be logical questions about the need to continue with the 45-nation group.

Sokolski’s article about India’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA, appropriately titled ‘Negotiating India’s Next Nuclear Explosion’, is part of a campaign that is being hastily revived against the Indo-US nuclear deal, which non-proliferationists here had taken for dead.

Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert on the US East Coast who started ArmsControlWonk, a blog that put out the “restricted” India-specific safeguards agreement within hours after it was circulated in Vienna yesterday, said the agreement “stinks” because the word “perpetuity” does not appear even once in the draft in connection with placing Indian nuclear installations under IAEA scrutiny.

Speaking for the influential Arms Control Association here, its top official, Daryl Kimball, has appealed to the IAEA governors not to rubber stamp the safeguards pact when they take it up for review shortly.

The recently chosen chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, has not spoken yet about the moves in Vienna, but he has already said any progress on the nuclear deal must be “completely consistent with the Hyde Act” which continues to raise hackles in India.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by NRao »

The recently chosen chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, has not spoken yet about the moves in Vienna, but he has already said any progress on the nuclear deal must be “completely consistent with the Hyde Act” which continues to raise hackles in India.
Oh man. MMS paid a fortune for this? And the CPI made all that ruckus when the US itself seems to have a built-in CPI advocate? :) Strange bed fellows.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Sanjay M »

What I want to know about is the quality of this 'strategic reserve'

We can keep this fuel reserve and use it in the event of a cutoff, although we will still have to allow inspections of it.

And once we return all imported fuel used in any reactor, then that facility is freed from any safeguard inspections.



So how to plan around this, and optimize around this?
Should we seek to build very many small reactors, in order to keep a high reactor-to-fuel ratio?
I presume we are also ahead of Pak in small reactor design, so that it would not be able to follow in our footsteps as easily.


If we were to have to suddenly switch into an intensive thorium breeding program following a cutoff, then what configuration is best suited for this purpose?
Lots of small reactors, or fewer larger ones?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Arun_S »

Sanjay M wrote:What I want to know about is the quality of this 'strategic reserve'

We can keep this fuel reserve and use it in the event of a cutoff, although we will still have to allow inspections of it.

And once we return all imported fuel used in any reactor, then that facility is freed from any safeguard inspections.
Good question.

BJP’s ‘questions’ on IAEA draft
apprehensions on the question of fuel supplies to India’s nuclear reactors although the draft agreement clearly states that “an essential basis for India’s concurrence to accept Agency [IAEA] safeguards” is “international cooperation” in creating conditions that would allow India “to obtain access to the international [nuclear] fuel market, including reliable, uninterrupted and continuous access to fuel supplies from companies in several nations” to support India’s effort to develop “a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel …”

The party felt this would not ensure continuous supply.

Mr. Prasad wanted to know what “corrective measures” India could take if promises of fuel supply for the lifetime of a reactor were violated. The “corrective measures” have not been spelt out in the draft agreement, he said.
Corrective measures in hands of India after disruption of non-guerenteed fuel supply is .... nothing! Unless fuel for all reactors for their lifetime (typical 100 years) is procured and kept in India as and when construction of reactor start in India. But that also takes away the possibility of disruption in the first place.

Now Anil Kakodkar in his IISc presentation lays out a plan that envisages commissioning LWR for total capacity of 50GWe by 2020 (He states construction period is 5-6 years) so construction of the last LWR will start in 2014 (6 years from now). And for 50GWe the lifetime fuel requirement is equivalent to mining 1.513 million tonnes of Natural Uranium and enriching it to medium enrichment. At current price of Uranium @ $68/Lb that is $226.5 Billion cost. Plus the enrichment cost of $77 billion (@$90/SWU). So the minimum cost of avoiding the repeat of TAPS-1 is to buy all that fuel in next 6 years for a cost of $303 billion.

This assumes from Shri Kakodkar's presentation that India (nay all countries of earth) can build 40 nuclear plant of 1200MWe capacity in next 6 years to be producing 50GWe by 2020. {an astounding rate of building 6.6 nuclear plants each of 1,200 MWe, every year in India}. Frankly I think the power point slides of Kakodkar is selling vapourware to the gullible.

Going by the same power point slides the capital cost of erecting those plants by 2050 is:
  • 1. LWR plants 50 GWe capacity: $100 Billion + $303 Billion for lifetime fuel reserve
    2. FBR using LWR spent fuel, 330 GWe: $1.65 Trillion (for ordinary Abdul that is $1,650 Billion)
    3. FBR using indigenous 3 stage fuel cycle, 275 GWe: $1.03 Trillion (for ordinary Abdul that is $1,030 Billion)
Total capital cost over 42 years : $3.08 Trillion ($3,081 Billion)
Cost per year (assuming even averaging): $73 billion/Year for next 42 years.

Excuse me, what was the investment capital inflow in India last few years?
Or for that sake investment capital inflow in China last few years?

Am I the only one who feels being lost in the mirage?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Sai »

Can someone parse this please:
An essential basis of India’s concurrence to accept Agency safeguards under an
India-specific safeguards agreement (hereinafter referred to as “this Agreement”)
is the conclusion of international cooperation arrangements creating the necessary
conditions for India to obtain access to the international fuel market, including
reliable, uninterrupted and continuous access to fuel supplies from companies in
several nations, as well as support for an Indian effort to develop a strategic
reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime
of India’s reactors
International cooperation agreements between what parties? Members of the NSG? Or between India and members of the NSG? And what if the said agreements do not materialize?

What would "support for an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve" translate to in practice?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Sanjay M »

My understanding is that no safeguards obligations take effect until India makes some formal statement of readiness to commence an undertaking with IAEA.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Arun_S wrote:Going by the same power point slides the capital cost of erecting those plants by 2050 is:
  • 1. LWR plants 50 GWe capacity: $100 Billion + $303 Billion for lifetime fuel reserve
    2. FBR using LWR spent fuel, 330 GWe: $1.65 Trillion (for ordinary Abdul that is $1,650 Billion)
    3. FBR using indigenous 3 stage fuel cycle, 275 GWe: $1.03 Trillion (for ordinary Abdul that is $1,030 Billion)
Total capital cost over 42 years : $3.08 Trillion ($3,081 Billion)
Cost per year (assuming even averaging): $73 billion/Year for next 42 years.

Excuse me, what was the investment capital inflow in India last few years?
Or for that sake investment capital inflow in China last few years?
I can't comment on startup costs and project execution speed, but none of these lifetime costs are particularly insurmountable. As a simple example, Indian GDP in 2050 would be roughly $35 trillion, or $35,000 billion. That is the economic output of a single year, and this lifetime cost is less than 10% of annual economic output. A $3 trillion lifetime cost is rather trivial from that perspective.

Foreign investment doesn't have to be the primary arbiter of funding availability either. Just FYI, total investment inflows for 2007 were $105 billion, for India. We have enormous potential to finance domestically provided effective debt sector reforms are accomplished. That is the means by which a country like Japan invested such massive amounts in infrastructure - their current public debt is roughly 180% of present GDP, but they've been able to service such levels of debt without bankrupting themselves or being unable to invest continuously.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Arun_S »

Capital cost is the first major issue.

I do not dispute that India can bear lifetime cost; although I challenge to say why settle for high lifetime cost when there is option for lower cost!

My issue with Kakodkar's Power point slides is that is not grounded on fiscal reality of balance and proprietary. Kakodkar is harping on Nuclear hammer because his toolbox has only one tool (viz a hammer of nuclear power), and all problems look like nail to him; and he goes out to fix the world with his nuclear hammer. And goes after economic justification of nuclear power plant while totally forgets the cost of massive nuclear reprocessing plants, as well as automated fuel rod fabrication capacities that need exist for these plant to operate. IOW incomplete assessment.

Neither is economic comparison made of competing non-nuclear technologies that will pull the rug under the FBR based nuclear garden he is envisioning for the country. For some reason in his presentation I see picture of a child in the candy store.

I am amazed at the radical change in ratio of FBRs that he is proposing in his power point charts. What breakthrough in DAE's nucleonics or engineering has revolutionized in these few years to change DAE's own vision where major part of the power is not coming from Thorium based AHWR, but on the more expensive FBRs? I am seeking answer to the FBR explosion Kakodkar is proposing. If India gets foreign fuel and technologies, then what is in FBR that it only makes sense for India, while the rest of the world is not going for FBR? And if India has figured out a way for cheaply building FBR and reprocessing plants (there is yet no evidence of latter at all), then the simpler passively cooled AHWR will certainly be even more cheaper.

I am all for 3 stage nuclear fuel cycle, because that is the right thing for India. But what I see in Kakodkar's PPT charts is a garden path of FBRs. If India gets access to imported nuclear fuel why is FBR the work horse for power production and not AHWR that get its deficit neutrons from imported fuel?

What earth shaking nucleonics has changed the basis for DAE and Bhabha's 3 stage fuel cycle, to make it now a 2 stage fuel cycle?

I am not saying what Bhabha has said is God's will written in stone and can never be changed, I am groping for an answer to what has changed in 2 years to make India go for 2 stage fuel cycle?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Sanatanan »

Gerard said (10 Jul 2008, 10:18 am)
I don't see the dreaded "pursuit" and "perpetuity" clauses. They are not mentioned explicitly and don't seem be implied under the referenced INFCIRCs.
sraj said (10 Jul 2008, 08:44 pm)
Gerard, the intrusive pursuit clauses would show up in the Additional Protocol, not in this agreement. . . .
I believe that clauses (II)(A)(11)(f) and (II)(A)(14)(b) in the Agreement text, safeguard IAEA's pursuit principle (I refer to the version of the Agreement text at the MEA site - http://meaindia.nic.in/).

Clause (II)(A)(11)(f) reads (after a bit of parsing by me):

The items subject to this Agreement shall be any facility other than a facility identified in paragraph 11(a) {that is facility listed in the Annex} above, or any other location in India, while producing, processing, using, fabricating or storing any nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment or components referred to in paragraph 11(b), (c), (d) or (e) of this Agreement, as notified by India pursuant to paragraph 14(b) of this Agreement.

Clause (II)(A)(14)(b) reads:

14. Notifications
(b) Should India, on the basis of its sole determination, decide to import or transfer any nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment or components subject to this Agreement to any facility or other location in India provided for in paragraph 11(f) of this Agreement, it shall so notify the Agency. Any such facility or location so notified by India pursuant to this sub-paragraph shall become subject to this Agreement as of the date of receipt by the Agency of such written notification from India.

For example, assume that a special purpose valve is imported by DAE under this Agreement. After carrying out some manufacturing operations on it (such as welding, testing, commissioning etc) in an Indian equipment manufacturer's shop, this valve is to be used in the equipment that he is making. The equipment would ultimately be installed in a safeguarded facility. Now, the shop manufacturing the equipment would come under the safeguards agreement at least during the time when the imported valve is in its shop. This intrusion would not be acceptable to many vendors, particularly those who may be manufacturers for defence equipment as well. The situation would become worse if "leak-tight" separation between "civil" and "military" operations are to be maintained within such workshops (while, for example, DAE may be able to do it at NFC, most vendors helping DAE's programme in the area of indigenous manufacture can't afford this luxury). It would not be practical to set up such workshops at DAE's project site(s) either.

I am not sure whether the "perpetuity" principle will also come into play, when once the vendors shop comes under IAEA's intrusive radar.

For me, the chakkani raja margam would be to go all out to indigenise the valve.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by sugriva »

An essential basis of India’s concurrence to accept Agency safeguards under an
India-specific safeguards agreement (hereinafter referred to as “this Agreement”)
is the conclusion of international cooperation arrangements creating the necessary
conditions for India to obtain access to the international fuel market, including
reliable, uninterrupted and continuous access to fuel supplies from companies in
several nations, as well as support for an Indian effort to develop a strategic
reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime
of India’s reactors


International cooperation agreements between what parties? Members of the NSG? Or between India and members of the NSG? And what if the said agreements do not materialize?
Aha... now it occurs to me....
conclusion of international cooperation arrangements before agreeing to accept Agency
safeguards is acceptance by India of India-US 123 (and Hyde) agreements before anything further is done.

So unless US congress signs off on 123 agreement all of these do not come into affect.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Arun_S wrote:Capital cost is the first major issue.

I do not dispute that India can bear lifetime cost; although I challenge to say why settle for high lifetime cost when there is option for lower cost!
Don't your lifetime cost list the combined figure of capital cost and continuous operational costs, rather than just the latter ? What does the $100 billion component for the LWRs constitute, for example ? At present, capital costs themselves are not a primary impediment; it has not been the case for any significant infrastructure effort so far, including the UMPPs.

What would be a concern would be implementation issues related to everything from clear, uncontroversial and expedited bid process, land acquisition to sufficient technically qualified construction and maintenance labour, and supply of componentry, i.e. whether they can scale up their capabilities from the limited set of reactors at present, to the planned numbers. Operational income will address operational/lifetime costs on a continuous basis.

My point is, emphasizing the monetary cause is a weak argument. Efficiency of implementing the projects presents a far greater risk, and yes, it can impose a monetary cause due to cost overruns in the process, and thereby affect the ability to attract more investment. But by itself, monetary concerns, assuming effective implementation, would not be the primary problem.
Arun_S wrote:My issue with Kakodkar's Power point slides is that is not grounded on fiscal reality of balance and proprietary. Kakodkar is harping on Nuclear hammer because his toolbox has only one tool (viz a hammer of nuclear power), and all problems look like nail to him; and he goes out to fix the world with his nuclear hammer. And goes after economic justification of nuclear power plant while totally forgets the cost of massive nuclear reprocessing plants, as well as automated fuel rod fabrication capacities that need exist for these plant to operate. IOW incomplete assessment.
By all means, our energy supplies would have to be from diverse sources. But I don't see the point in claiming Kakodkar's viewpoint is unidimensional. The scope of his presentation is nuclear power - he is the AEC head after all. That does not imply that he argues in favour of just nuclear power as a solution. Of course it is just one part of a larger comprehensive solution to our energy needs.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Sanatanan »

Sanjay M wrote:I think you guys are forgetting one problem with our Thorium program -- it only generates U233 fuel, and not U235 fuel. So the U233 which it generates can't be used for N-weapons, but only for reactors.
This means that any uranium bombs we want to build have to be made using domestic natural uranium supplies.
I am not sure I fully understand the context in which the above view regarding U233 has been indicated.

Nevertheless, Wikipedia says:
It is also possible to use uranium-233 as the fission fuel of a nuclear weapon, although this has been done only occasionally. The United States first tested U-233 as part of a bomb core in Operation Teapot in 1955.[1]

Production of 233U invariably produces small amounts of uranium-232 as an impurity, and the decay chain of 232U quickly yields strong gamma radiation emitters, making manual handling in a glove box with only light shielding (as commonly done with plutonium) too hazardous, (except possibly in a short period immediately following chemical separation of the uranium from thorium-228, radium-224, radon-220, and polonium) and instead requiring remote manipulation for fuel fabrication.
We are here talking of longterm issues. I would tend to believe that the U-232 radioactivity issue would be circumvented satisfactorily, sooner or later.

JMT
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by enqyoob »

Sugriva :idea:
Aha... now it occurs to me....
conclusion of international cooperation arrangements before agreeing to accept Agency
safeguards is acceptance by India of India-US 123 (and Hyde) agreements before anything further is done.

Sorry, but could you please explain why India cannot get fuel and reactors from Russia or France once the NSG agreement is signed off? AFAIK, they don't have to wait for US Congress approval to trade with India, but they may have to get NSG/ IAEA approval since they are members. This is the point I am trying to understand: once the IAEA Board and the NSG sign off, is COTUS relevant except for US-India bilateral trade? What legal authority does COTUS have over what other P-5 countries do? So, once the IAEA and NSG agreements are done, doesn't the pressure shift to COTUS to approve - or face exclusion of US entities from the Indian market, and a $100B lead for the US' competitors in nuclear plant development?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by rajrang »

Arun_S wrote:Capital cost is the first major issue.

I do not dispute that India can bear lifetime cost; although I challenge to say why settle for high lifetime cost when there is option for lower cost!

My issue with Kakodkar's Power point slides is that is not grounded on fiscal reality of balance and proprietary. Kakodkar is harping on Nuclear hammer because his toolbox has only one tool (viz a hammer of nuclear power), and all problems look like nail to him; and he goes out to fix the world with his nuclear hammer. And goes after economic justification of nuclear power plant while totally forgets the cost of massive nuclear reprocessing plants, as well as automated fuel rod fabrication capacities that need exist for these plant to operate. IOW incomplete assessment.

Neither is economic comparison made of competing non-nuclear technologies that will pull the rug under the FBR based nuclear garden he is envisioning for the country. For some reason in his presentation I see picture of a child in the candy store.

I am amazed at the radical change in ratio of FBRs that he is proposing in his power point charts. What breakthrough in DAE's nucleonics or engineering has revolutionized in these few years to change DAE's own vision where major part of the power is not coming from Thorium based AHWR, but on the more expensive FBRs? I am seeking answer to the FBR explosion Kakodkar is proposing. If India gets foreign fuel and technologies, then what is in FBR that it only makes sense for India, while the rest of the world is not going for FBR? And if India has figured out a way for cheaply building FBR and reprocessing plants (there is yet no evidence of latter at all), then the simpler passively cooled AHWR will certainly be even more cheaper.

I am all for 3 stage nuclear fuel cycle, because that is the right thing for India. But what I see in Kakodkar's PPT charts is a garden path of FBRs. If India gets access to imported nuclear fuel why is FBR the work horse for power production and not AHWR that get its deficit neutrons from imported fuel?

What earth shaking nucleonics has changed the basis for DAE and Bhabha's 3 stage fuel cycle, to make it now a 2 stage fuel cycle?

I am not saying what Bhabha has said is God's will written in stone and can never be changed, I am groping for an answer to what has changed in 2 years to make India go for 2 stage fuel cycle?
I also share some of the misgivings of Arun_S with regard to AK's presentatiuon to IISC. His presentation involves a lot of economic factors - maybe this presentation should have been given by an economist not AK - or at least co-authored by one.

AK's presentation involves economics assumptions compounded over a long time of 40 yrs. Science can be exact not economics. Also unlike science, there are relatively more disagreements among economists.

AK has assumed a 3.5% annual growth rate to take non-nuclear power from 150 GW today to 600 GW in 2050. This is key to his conclusion of 400 GW shortage by 2050 to be met by the nuclear deal. This assumption needs to be challenged and critically reviewed by eminent econmists. There are reasons why AK may be crying wolf here:

1) Betwen 1970 (20 GW) and 2010 (150 GW), India's non-nuclear power grew 8-fold implying a 5.35% growth rate.

2) At 5.35% growth rate (versus 3.5% assumed), India's non-nuclear would be 1000 GW and there should be no deficit.

3) Assuming 4.5 growth rate versus 3,5%) the deficit should be around 150 GW.

4) Assuming 4% (versus 3.5%), the deficit should be 300 GW not 400 GW. This gives a feel for the impact of this assumption.

5) Let us also not forget that the first decades of the 40 yr period 1970 to 2010 were characterized by the famous Indian 3.5% growth rate per annum with a 2+ % populatin growth rate - resulting in a per capita GNP growth rate of < 1.5%. Today India's gworth rate at 8.5% minus population growth of 1.5% yields a per capita rate of 7% nearly 5 times faster (than from 1947 to 1982). Given all these mega economic trends, how can one predict the future electricity consumption with a high degree of scientific clarity and honesty? Not many economists will want (dare to) to make these predcitions.

6) Next, how realistic is it for India to even consider generating 1000 GW from non-nuclear by 2050? For a partial answer, today the US generates more than 800 GW through non-nuclear.

Note also, I am using the word "should" and not "will" in the above becase we are dealing with economics not science.

How can a nation sign major internation agreements, that involve strategic losses, using economics predictions made by a scientist, involving such questionable assumptions?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Gerard »

P K Iyengar ... "there is no escape from the perpetual safeguards of the IAEA unless the IAEA itself gets abrogated.”
Would perpetual safeguards on 14 PHWRs be the end of the world?

Let us say India tests and Canada/Oz/Russia/Kazahk etc cut off fuel.
India either has to find another foreign source of Uranium or use domestic supplies.
So there could be a situation where some domestic Uranium gets caught up in the safeguards system.

What is the pressing need to remove 14 reactors from safeguards if they are burning domestic Uranium?

Their spent fuel will end up exactly where the foreign spent fuel would have (the safeguarded reprocessing plant). That spent fuel is high burnup and not your first choice for weapons work.
India already has ten tons (IIRC) of unsafeguarded reactor grade Pu it could use for any purpose.

Is there an intention to use a portion of the core for low burnup activity? If so, what is so special about those 14 civil PHWRs? What about the 8 unsafeguarded military PHWRs. The PFBR? Or Dhruva? Why not build a few more PHWRs on the military side? Why not build another dedicated Pu production reactor to increase the fissile stockpile? Or another fast breeder?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by mayurav »

Arun_S wrote:
What earth shaking nucleonics has changed the basis for DAE and Bhabha's 3 stage fuel cycle, to make it now a 2 stage fuel cycle?

I am not saying what Bhabha has said is God's will written in stone and can never be changed, I am groping for an answer to what has changed in 2 years to make India go for 2 stage fuel cycle?
I am not an expert. Just a lay-engineer. Is it possible that the entire nuclear deal with the FBRs and reprocessing facilities is to burn the existing nuclear waste for which the Yucca Mountain repository has been proposed? US gets Indian FBR technology, closes its fuel cycle and its waste storage problem is diminished. India gets to process the waste into electricity and fuel for PHWRs, maafi from nuclear trade sanctions and buys time to perfect the 3-stage cycle.

Thorium can remain in the sands for another 50 years. No need for 3-stage and AHWR yet.

Again this is non-expert speculation FWIW.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Baljeet »

Gerard wrote:
P K Iyengar ... "there is no escape from the perpetual safeguards of the IAEA unless the IAEA itself gets abrogated.”
Would perpetual safeguards on 14 PHWRs be the end of the world?

Let us say India tests and Canada/Oz/Russia/Kazahk etc cut off fuel.
India either has to find another foreign source of Uranium or use domestic supplies.
So there could be a situation where some domestic Uranium gets caught up in the safeguards system.

What is the pressing need to remove 14 reactors from safeguards if they are burning domestic Uranium?

Their spent fuel will end up exactly where the foreign spent fuel would have (the safeguarded reprocessing plant). That spent fuel is high burnup and not your first choice for weapons work.
India already has ten tons (IIRC) of unsafeguarded reactor grade Pu it could use for any purpose.

Is there an intention to use a portion of the core for low burnup activity? If so, what is so special about those 14 civil PHWRs? What about the 8 unsafeguarded military PHWRs. The PFBR? Or Dhruva? Why not build a few more PHWRs on the military side? Why not build another dedicated Pu production reactor to increase the fissile stockpile? Or another fast breeder?
Gerard
I agree. Politics in India is the worst. NDA's idea of negotiating this deal with US was carefully orchestrated exercise built upon efforts and political foresight of PV Rao, Gandhi etc. Before NDA decided to explode the weapons there was much debate about the fall out in economic and nuke community. The success of Shakti demonstrated the advancements made by us in this field but we were lacking the investment to capitalize on experience. One thing I understand, all the newest technology and equipment means nothing if the operators are not skilled in maintaining and operating them. In this agreement there is no clause that says, scientists from safeguarded facilities cannot work on indian facilities or vice versa. This in my opinion is the tangible benefit. In 10 years or so we will have a force of people who will be trained in most advanced technology available, we can start mining Uranium from Meghalya, Orrisa, Andhra, thorium from Kerala. Once all these pieces of puzzle are in place and we have enough stockpile to sustain all the nuke plants for 30-50 years, we can do whatever we want. Not sure if we will be stuck in using Nukes at that time or we may have moved on to more deadlier weapons technology.

Just my Chavvani.
Gerard
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Gerard »

India has benefited in the past by "piggybacking" its military programme on the civil programme. It has operated reactors to produce electricity but apparently dedicated a portion of some cores for low burnup (weapons grade Pu production). This has kept costs down and allowed continued siphoning of small amounts of weapons grade material to slowly build up the arsenal.

Isn't India beyond this now? The Agni-3 is being inducted, the K-15 SLBM is almost ready, the ATV is almost complete, the Agni-5 is being developed. With the islanding of the military facilities, there is certainly no need to siphon off material. Not if India is really serious about an arsenal. It should be ramping up Pu and HEU production and those PHWRs are far from the ideal for Pu production. Dedicated reactors - gas cooled, graphite cored like Unkil's - or pool type like Dhruva are needed.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Gerard »

We are here talking of longterm issues. I would tend to believe that the U-232 radioactivity issue would be circumvented satisfactorily, sooner or later.
Let us assume that laser enrichment (AVLIS/MLIS/SILEX) technology doesn't develop and allow cleanup of the U232.

U232 has a half-life of 69 years. Its daughter Th-228 has a half life of 1.9 years to Tl-208 which emits 2.6 MeV hard gamma radiation.

Kang and Von Hippel point out that just as it is possible to produce weapons grade Pu using low burnup, you can produce U233 with very low ppm of U232 if you discharge the Thorium breeder blankets frequently. Minimizing U232 production requires separate breeder blankets using natural Thorium 232 that is minimally contaminated from Th230 (from nearby or intermixed natural U238).

In the breeder reactor, it is possible to produce clean U233 (1 ppm U232). This is good bomb making material (a critical mass close to Plutonium 239).

Now as it ages, its gamma emissions will rise as U232 decays and more Tl208 forms. Decades old pits are undesirable from a weapons handling point of view. But Tl208 can be removed by chemical separation. So continued storage of clean U233 with periodic separation will result, over decades, in a stockpile of excellent fissile material for weapons use. The longer the U233 is kept in storage, the better it will be for pit production, minimizing the additional weapon design changes (to deal with heat production and gamma radiation from the pit).

Of course if you're willing to discharge the Th232 blankets frequently, you might as well be irradiating U238 instead and making Pu239.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by rocky »

Suraj, you are assuming as sustained 7.5% annual rate of growth of GDP over 50 years!!! Isn't that completely unrealistic? Is there any country in the world that has managed to do that? And if yes, can it be so easily extrapolated over to the case of India?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by rajrang »

rocky wrote:Suraj, you are assuming as sustained 7.5% annual rate of growth of GDP over 50 years!!! Isn't that completely unrealistic? Is there any country in the world that has managed to do that? And if yes, can it be so easily extrapolated over to the case of India?

If the 2008 Indian GDP is 3 trillion (PPP terms), then, 35 trillion by 2050 would mean 6% average annual growth rate. For a country with such a low level of per capita GNP, this is absolutely possible. For instance the growth could be 8% for 20 years followed by 4% for the next 20 - giving an average of 6%. Again, for the prsent low per capita status, it is likely to be higher.

For W Europe after WWII, in the period till 1970, the growth rates were equal or higher. Same for Japana, Korea, Taiwan, Hingkong, Singapore. Thailand during the 1960 to 1990 period.

China is probably higher since the 1980s - but with China the statistics are often unrelaiable in the past.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by NRao »

No matter what the growth rate is, the investments (of some $100 Billion) are a stand-alone investment - in addition to the normal FDI. That is the expectation or assumption.

I would expect the number of reactors or electricity production to decline if the projected economy declines.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Rupak »

NRao wrote:No matter what the growth rate is, the investments (of some $100 Billion) are a stand-alone investment - in addition to the normal FDI. That is the expectation or assumption.

I would expect the number of reactors or electricity production to decline if the projected economy declines.
Not necessarily, they would go a long way in decreasing dependence on fossil fuels...and a lot depends on the cost of the latter.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by JE Menon »

Indeed. There is always an argument in favour of diversifying away from fossil fuels to reduce cash outflows and strategic over-dependence on any one or any one set of suppliers. And if there's a time to do it, now is as good as any - when the cost of fossil fuels is so high that other energy sources are becoming far more attractive bets financially.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Suraj »

rocky wrote:Suraj, you are assuming as sustained 7.5% annual rate of growth of GDP over 50 years!!! Isn't that completely unrealistic? Is there any country in the world that has managed to do that? And if yes, can it be so easily extrapolated over to the case of India?
It's a fundamental mistake to presume growth comes merely from the real GDP growth rate. Real GDP growth rate is just a statistical metric that discounts inflationary effects; it does not mean that because GDP is N trillions today and is projected at M trillion in 40 years, you can simply solve for rate and view that real GDP growth for that period will be the rate. There's the effect of inflation and currency appreciation, for starters.

Compounded nominal growth does interesting things; it is difficult to grasp because progression is not linear as our minds are accustomed to. For example the ratio of 2007-08 GDP to 1991-92 GDP is 4:1 - our economy is four times larger now than it was then, despite real GDP growth alone implying much less growth.

As I stated previously, lifetime costs of $3 trillion are not a big hurdle. It's merely a matter of the number appearing large today. As a perspective into the past, total investments in the Indian economy last year were larger than the size of India's entire GDP just under 15 years ago. Nor are capital costs insurmountable. I would rate ability to execute, both in terms of addressing administrative and eminent domain concerns, and the technical ability to scale up numbers, a more legitimate concern.

Rajrang: it is just as impossible to predict lifetime energy costs as it is to predict economic growth rate in the long term. However, that does not mean one cannot or should not extrapolate, just that they will need to take various unpredictable future possibilities into account in some manner.

It is generally easier to quantify costs where fuel supplies are within our control (domestic U & Th supplies) than the wild cards of external supplies, particularly in the case of hydrocarbons. That is, unless we find our own Ghawar field...
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Arun_S »

Suraj wrote:
Arun_S wrote:Capital cost is the first major issue.

I do not dispute that India can bear lifetime cost; although I challenge to say why settle for high lifetime cost when there is option for lower cost!
Don't your lifetime cost list the combined figure of capital cost and continuous operational costs, rather than just the latter ? What does the $100 billion component for the LWRs constitute, for example ?
Two separate things:
  • 1) When I said ">>although I challenge to say why settle for high lifetime cost when there is option for lower cost!" I am mentioning only the cost of running and maintain the facilities to operate the reactor I.e. reactor + spent fuel yard for cooling, reprocessing plant and fuel rod fabrication. I am not including the cost of acquiring these infrastructure in the first place that per std project planning are catagorized as Capital Cost.

    2) The $100 billion component is just the capital cost of acquiring the LWR reactor. It is based on internationally accepted (and reported by AK in his PPT) $2000/KWe capital cost per KW electricity generation times the 50GWe that AK's graphs it on page 13 of his PPT presentation for teh year 2020.
    50GWe X $2000/KWe = $100 Billion
Let me also show the basis and breakup of other numbers:

3). 100 year reactor operating life is the norm for new reactors including AHWR (one can easily find reference in DAE/BARC website).

4). To operate 50GWe over the assumed 100 year life time will need from first order approximation ~1,513,000 tonnes natural Uranium. of that :
  • i) 1MWe-Year generation in LWR or HWR requires completely fissioning 1.21Kg of fissile material but since Natural U has only 0.7% of fissile U235, that corresponds to needing to buy 173kg of Nat-U (for simplicity let us keep out second order effect like discharge enrichment, that will make the number even worse).
    ii) Now LWR need enriched fuel. So assuming from the 0.7% U235 available in in Nat-U, enrichment process leave a depleted Uranium tail with U235 enrichment of 0.3%, the amount of Nat U required for running 1MWe of LWR is thus = 173 Kg/((0.7-0.3)/0.7) =>303 kg Nat-U to run a year LWR at 1MWe.
    iii) So for 50GWe that AK envisages involves buying and enriching 50,000MWe*303kg = 15,150 tonnes of Nat-U per year, so for 100 year one will need to buy 1.515 million tonne nat U.
    iv) Cost of natural uranium in metal market is $68/Lb assuming it holds for next 6 years and not go down (forget about upside for the time being) so it will cost at current prices $226.5 Billion. Enrichment cost for to LWR level enrichment will cost 77 billion. The net total, assuming no profit for the commercial enterprise and middle man that is = $303 billion.
5). Cost of building FBR is definitely higher than a LWR or PHWR. The conventional wisdom is 2 to 3 times. So I assume it will be $5,000/KWe compared to $2000/KWe for non FBR reactors. AFAIK this does not include the cost of building backend facilities required to run the reactor liek cooling yard, re-processing and fuel fabrication.

So 330 GWe for LWR based FBR capacity that AK perprots (on slide# 13)for 2050 will cost 330,000 MWe X $5,000,000/MWe = $1650 Billion.

6). Indian 3 stage fuel cycle envisages feeding the deficit neutrons of multiple AHWR (based on Thorium) reactors from a FBR. For Wattage to Wattage the ratio IIRC 1:1 or 1:2 (I.e. 100 MWe FBR able to excess fuel to drive 200MWe AHWR) depending on when they reach FBR with metallic fuel rod rather then Oxide or Carbide based fuel element. In the first few decades of technology improvement that ratio will be lower. Assuming an average of slightly lower than 1:1 ratio between FBR and AHWR the average capital cost comes to ~$3750/KWe. Again I am not including the cost of building back-end facilities required to run the reactor like spent fuel cooling yard, re-processing and fuel fabrication.

So 275GWe for LWR based FBR capacity that AK purports (on slide# 13)for 2050 will cost 275,000 MWe X $3,750,000/MWe = $1031 Billion.

That should be enough to start to think about weakness of Shri Kakodkar's power point presentation.

That was a rather long post and given the paucity of time I have fulfilled 7 good deeds quota for the week.

Thanks for listening.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by enqyoob »

I have fulfilled 7 good deeds quota for the week.

Leaving you with a terrible lack of good deeds for next week.

A write-up for SRR with charts and equations and all? Something like "Cost Implications of Civilian Nuclear Energy"?
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Arun_S »

Yes, using the big information database I earlier built from last 1 year, the original post took just 20 minutes; to do the calculation and write up the gaping holes in AK's power point presentation.

I need a partner coz dont have time to a quality job of writing articles. I can provide data and some time on telephone to whoever wants to partner and run with this for SRR.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Arun_S: Thanks - I appreciate all the additional details that you've taken the effort to clarify on. From your posts though, I'm still more inclined to see implementation effectiveness as a much more pressing concern in the civilian nuclear program expansion (or for that matter, expansion of any other energy source).

I really do not see money as the hurdle, and think it would be a mistake to emphasize it as such. They're high in absolute terms from a present day perspective, but from a lifetime or 40-50 year perspective, compared to cumulative economic output during the same period, and the economic benefits arising from the energy supplies (which will pay the operating costs), their capital and operating costs are not a significant concern.

Recent economic events underline that there's significant domestic and foreign capital chasing stable long gestation infrastructure projects - the available supply of capital exceeds current demand. For example, I see articles like 'XYZ IPO oversubscribed 20x' as a significant negative, not a positive, because it reflects a demand-supply imbalance and underscores that there's a lot of capital chasing returns. The primary impediment is ineffective administrative execution, cost overruns and inability to expand technical capabilities.

narayanan: I thought you were only trawling for BRM authors in the poll thread ? Have you now started invading other threads and appropriating innocent bystanders ? :)
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Arun_S »

Suraj wrote:Arun_S: Thanks - I appreciate all the additional details that you've taken the effort to clarify on. From your posts though, I'm still more inclined to see implementation effectiveness as a much more pressing concern in the civilian nuclear program expansion (or for that matter, expansion of any other energy source).
Like Kakodkar's power point vision of being in the midst of simultaneously building 35 LWR nuclear reactors (not counting the fuel fabrication plants) each of 1200 Mwe in 5 years from now! And for credible guarantee of lifetime fuel stockpiling nuclear fuel worth > $250 billion dollars in 5 years from now.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Muppalla »

Perpetuity of safeguards only with perpetuity of fuel supply

New Delhi: Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said here on Saturday that the safeguards agreement India had negotiated with the International Atomic Energy Agency created a basis for opening up the Indian civilian nuclear sector for international cooperation and provided “layers” of protection for its reactors from the disruption of fuel supplies.

He was addressing a press conference alongside his colleague from the Department of Atomic Energy, R.B. Grover, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.

Explaining how the fuel supply assurances India insists on would work, Dr. Grover — who, along with Dr. K. Ramakumar of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and Dr. D.B. Venkatesh Varma of the Ministry of External Affairs, negotiated the draft text with the IAEA — pointed out that the Agency itself did not supply fuel. “Through this particular safeguards agreement, you have to create those conditions which help us to proceed further in importing fuel and using it in our reactors. Fuel supply assurances have to be embedded when we go in for imported reactors at that stage, such as with Russia, where we are setting up two reactors with Kudankulam.” In addition, the agreement provided a strategic fuel reserve to be used for the lifetime operation of those reactors, he said.

Dr. Kakodkar added that any supply agreement “has to be between the supplier and us so we will have to build in, as we have been doing always, a strong commitment on the part of suppliers to continue, whether it is fuel or spares or whatever.” He said that with foreign supplies, “it has been our policy from day one that whatever comes from outside we have been putting under IAEA safeguards.” He noted that in the India-specific safeguards agreement, India has “very strongly connected such cooperation agreements with other countries and supply agreements with supplier countries with our going in for safeguards with IAEA. So there is this linking which says we are going in for IAEA safeguards because we are also talking about the supply agreements where continuity is built and then we can develop legally from that point onwards.”

Asked whether India could ever withdraw its reactors from safeguards, Dr. Grover expressed the hope that the whole process would move in a way that “there will not be any requirement where there is a fuel supply disruption” and that India did not have to go in for any such step. But if such a situation arose, Article 52c provided for India to first raise this as a material violation of the agreement and that this itself might act as a deterrent. “If still a danger of disruption arises, we have here [in the Agreement] the combination of [Articles] 29, 30f, 10, 4 and the preamble, this will help us with whatever steps we want to take further.”
Dr. Kakodkar said the agreement talked about sustained fuel supply, a fuel stockpile for the lifetime of a reactor, and then, in case of difficulties, corrective measures as well. “The point to notice is that the discontinuity of operation of reactors cannot happen suddenly because we have several layers, so we will have enough time to force correction on part of the suppliers themselves, because we will have stockpiles and we can carry on. There is no question of disruption of the reactors. We have always been saying we are talking about permanent safeguards on the basis of permanent supplies, and the question of corrective measures which have been built in essentially arises if this understanding is breached.”

Asked whether a safeguarded reactor could be withdrawn, he said the response to any situation had to be calibrated. “Corrective measures or actions that India would take would depend on what is the disturbance, what is the threat to continued operation of the reactor. It is a thing that India can decide at respective points of time. I describe corrective measures as unspecified sovereign actions.”

In response to a question about “corrective measures” being mentioned only in the preamble of the agreement, Mr. Menon said Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties made it clear that preambles and annexes were a part of the text. “So when you come to general principles and rules of interpretation of a treaty, these are actually part of the treaty. In this particular case, he added, this was made more clear since the preamble says, “Now therefore, taking into account the above, India and the Agency have agreed” to whatever follows after that.

Dr. Kakodkar said India was not looking for formal recognition as a nuclear weapon state but for opening up to civil nuclear cooperation. “We are a nuclear weapon state, we know that and the world knows that. The definitions of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states are embedded in the NPT and we are not a party to [it]. Certainly, we don’t need to be so attracted to NPT definitions.” He added that the military part of India’s nuclear programme was completely out of the purview of the agreement with the IAEA.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by enqyoob »

narayanan: I thought you were only trawling for BRM authors in the poll thread ? Have you now started invading other threads and appropriating innocent bystanders ? :)


The term you are looking for is "conveying awareness of rapidly-closing windows of opportunity". Our Talent Spotters are everywhere, but we pick only the best. Like IPL.

July 18 deadline for tabular point-by-point comparison of India, US and China IAEA agreements... 5 days left, for the Well-Organized. International Fame and National Gratitude await the lucky winner. As you can see, even Ambassadors are using BRF to stay informed.

If Aishwarya Rai-Bacchan-Baccha, Madhuri Dixit, Mandira Bedi or Mohterma Hasina AtimBum wants to know whether India got as good a deal* as China, where does she turn? TOI? Hundi? Hundistan Crimes? Bah! :P

BRM - SRR! Where else?

* I hear that Big B, Little B, Honey B, Ma B, Madhuri are all going on 26-nation tour to get support for the Nuclear Deal. So they will surely be in need for accurate info.
NSN reporter Abdul: "Ms. Rai, what do you think of the India-IAEA Draft Agreement?"

"Glad you asked the question Abdul. I believe in Peace, Happiness, Wealth, Revlon lipstick and VIP briefs. I think everyone should visit http://www.bharat-rakshak.com and check out the new issue of BRM-SRR, where Sooraj has written such a fantastic comparison between the India, US and China IATA agreements. I have always wanted to meet Mr. Sooraj, and it is my dream now to meet him!"
Sanatanan
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Sanatanan »

Of course if you're willing to discharge the Th232 blankets frequently, you might as well be irradiating U238 instead and making Pu239.
I have floated my futuristic view as below regarding the point about frequently discharging U233 from the blanket region of a fast reactor: (I sincerely hope there are no fatal flaws in my thought process).

Thermal reactor:
Analogous to U238+U235 HWRs, could we have thermal converter-breeder (conversion ratio >= 1) reactor mainly for production of high quality U233 from Th232 ? We assume that the initial quantity of fissile material (U233, U235 or Pu239) to start off the cycle with Th232 as the fertile material is available. To get CR >= 1 this thermal-breeder may have to be designed to be highly neutron-economic having D2O as moderator, reflector; D2O or may be even a gas such as He or CO2 as coolant; aluminium clad over metallic fuel (which means electricity generation from this plant may not be a requirement). I do not know whether there may be any concerns pertaining to various reactivity coefficients peculiar to this fuel-moderator-coolant cocktail. If there indeed are such issues, then we would need to circumvent them and I am optimistic that ways can be found.

But why do I talk of a thermal converter-breeder for making U233 ? Because, one can then meet the requirement, namely, for getting high quality U233, one would need to frequently remove the Th from the core. With today's technology, one can relatively easily achieve this by arranging for removal and replacement of the fuel rods from the thermal-spectrum reactor without shutting it down for this purpose. {May be AHWR does precisely this ?}.

Fast reactors:
Now, regarding frequent removal of U233 (or U235) from the blanket region of a Fast Breeder reactor. In view of the high success achieved since the 1970s in the evolution of PHWRs and FBRs in India, I am convinced that DAE has the technical ability to successfully utilise its experience-bank in order to conceptualise, design and construct an FBR in which the fuel movements in the blanket region could be achieved without shutting down the plant - no matter that it might be a power generating reactor, with the difficult Na coolant operating at high temperature. Are there such fast reactors already constructed elsewhere in the world with fuel shuffling capability while at power? Any way, if the idea is not gobbledygook, then perhaps DAE should start with a low power (consequently low temperature) fast-spectrum test reactor with this specific objective.

I learnt, a few weeks ago, from one of the threads in BRF, that the PrototypeFBR (PFBR) is required to be shutdown once in about 8 months to facilitate fuel rod movements within the reactor vessel. I feel that the loss of revenue from a 500 MWe plant due to such "frequent" shutdowns would perhaps, in the long run, prove uneconomical and one may have to think of alternative ideas for future ProductionFBRs.

One of the issues associated with frequent removal of Th from the reactor core would be that, in the fuel cycle, reprocessing frequency to extract the U233 from the irradiated fuel, might increase. Obviously any increase in cost, due to this, must be allocated to the cost of the clean U233 that we wish to have.

In view of its large Th deposits, curtailing India's capability with regard to U233 (particularly clean U233) may be one of the long-range goals of US. I feel this must be countered. Besides, everybody and their friends and relatives say, "in our country, we do not have enough U238 (Nat U)" !! So developing clean U233 from Th is an option that we may need to pursue as an alternative to clean Pu.
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by Raj Malhotra »

I dont think we need to stock pile 100 years of fuel, stockpile of around 20 years should be adequate. During that time we will get adequte opportunities to break the logjam
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by vsudhir »

Silly questions only:

1. How much (in physical dimensions like weight and storage volume) does 1 year's fuel supply for a say 750 MWe LWR reactor take? If there's gonna be one facility to hoiuse the estimated few dozen reactors, can it handle, physically, the storage of so much fuel for 50 yrs supply?
/Again, silly question from a total N-dummy onlee

2. Anyone anywhere heard about what might happen to the tarapur fuel stocks? Have we gotten reproc permission yet or is it at least on the cards?
John Snow
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by John Snow »

Suraj garu>>

You could have in nutshell said

"Past performance does not guarantee future results"


"Extrapolating past growth linearly and believing it, leads to sub prime results"

Spinster uvacha
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Re: Draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement Discussion

Post by enqyoob »

Managerial "MILKMAID" Strategic Planning Algorithm:

Always use exponential projection from today's data. 8) Positive exponent for good things and negative for bad things.
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