India Nuclear News And Discussion

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 06 May 2011 00:01

GuruPrabhu wrote:
Sanku wrote:Let this thread be to discuss E Coli in DJB water now.
Brilliant suggestion!

I am delighted.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 04:07

I would like to paraphrase and quote in details in a sequence from:

Slow and stunted: Plutonium accounting and the growth of fast breeder reactors in India
M.V. Ramana, J.Y. Suchitra. [First author affiliation: Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy & Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA.] Energy Policy, 37, (2009) 5028–5036. Elsevier.

The first author's affiliation is to a "western" institution, so by the previous discussion on this thread, is possibly going to be suspect as to intentions etc. But can we actually discuss or counter or trash the arguments given in the paper, without trying to trash the author? Perhaps we can also do without smooth insertions of personal barbs in an otherwise technical discussion. I promise not to do so if it does not appear from anyone. The content of the paper is for analysis or counter and none of the persons relevant, not the author nor the quoter or any poster should be the target. Whoever breaks this the first time should be fair game.

Plutonium accounting -1

In an earlier era, before the first nuclear weapon test in 1974, the DAE projected 43GW by 2000 (Sethna, 1972). Of this, about 33GW were to be fast breeder reactors. In 1984, as it became painfully obvious that the 43 GW target would not be met, the DAE scaled down its 2000 projections to 10GW (CAG, 1999). This revised projection included no contribution towards the 10 GW from breeder reactors, perhaps reflecting the difficulties they faced in constructing even a small experimental breeder reactor (Fast Breeder Test Reactor), which was already more than eight years behind schedule by then. The 10 GW did not materialise either.
[...]
the DAE started putting up a new set of projections following the 1998 nuclear weapons tests. First was a new target that also had a nice rhythmic ring to it—20GW by 2020 (Joseph, 1999). This included heavy water reactors, imported light water reactors, and 2.5GW of breeder reactors. At this point, the DAE had not even starting constructing a commercial scale breeder reactor, though it had been planning a Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) since the early 1980s. In spite of this, the projected 20GW by 2020 included five such reactors.

Construction of the PFBR, the first commercial scale breeder reactor in India, finally started in 2004.[....]The problem was that the PFBR design had a low breeding ratio of 1.04 (IGCAR, 2003)3; i.e., it would only produce very small quantities of plutonium over and above what it would consume as fuel. Thus it was not conducive to the projection of rapid growth of nuclear power based on fast increases in plutonium stocks.
So when it came to projecting a large nuclear capacity for the future, the DAE simply assumed that it would be able to develop a design for a breeder reactor using a fuel made of just plutonium and uranium metals that has the potential for a higher breeding ratio.4 Since the DAE had no designs for a metallic fuelled breeder reactor of this kind, the breeding ratio of 1.582 and other parameters were taken from studies by the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) group of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (INFCE, 1980).5

Based on these parameters, the DAE projected that, by 2052, it would construct hundreds of breeder reactors; when combined with the other kinds of reactors that it envisioned constructing or importing, the total capacity would amount to 275GW (Grover and Chandra, 2006).6 Table 1 gives the break up of this figure. The different columns refer to installed capacities of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR), Light Water Reactors (LWR), Breeder Reactors using MOX fuel (OFBR), and Metallic Fuel using plutonium obtained by reprocessing spent fuel from PHWRs and LWRs (MFBR-H and MFBR-L).
The methodology employed by the DAE to calculate the MFBR- H and MFBR-L components is based on using the breeding ratio to calculate the doubling time, which is the time that the breeder reactor takes to produce sufficient plutonium to construct the core of an identical breeder reactor. The doubling time assumed for the MFBRs is 8.9 years.
This methodology of doubling times is widely used and is a reasonable approximation to what actual growth rates might be if there were already a large plutonium stockpile and a large flow of plutonium coming from LWRs or PHWRs. However, absent these two conditions, the rate at which breeder capacity can be set up will be strongly constrained by fuelling requirements of existing reactors in the initial years. This is the case in India and therefore the use of simple doubling time methodology leads to exaggerated growth figures.

Table 1:
DAE nuclear capacity projections
Years PWHR OFBR MFBR-H LWR MFBR-L Total
2002 2.4 0 0 0.32 0 2.72
2012 6.06 0.56 0 4.32 0 10.88
2022 9.96 2.5 6 8 3 29.46
2032 9.4 2.5 33 8 10 62.9
2042 7.86 2.5 87 8 26 131.36
2052 4.06 2.5 199 8 61 274.56
Source: Grover and Chandra(2006)

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 04:21

Plutonium accounting -2

[6 Even in the DAE’s projections, the bulk of the generation will continue to be coal based thermal power, which is predicted to go up from about 72 GW in 2002 to 615 GW in 2052. Other fossil fuel based generation capacity is projected to go up from about 33 GW in 2002 to 204 GW in 2052. )

The DAE assumes that in 2022, there will be sufficient plutonium separated from spent fuel produced in PHWRs to set up 6 GW of MFBRs (Table 1). However, this initial capacity of 6 GW does not take into account the plutonium required for setting up and fuelling the five OFBRs.

The amount of plutonium available for constructing MFBRs in 2022 is dictated by the PHWR capacity, the reprocessing capacity, and the plutonium requirements for OFBRs. As of February 2009, there is 3500MW of installed PHWR capacity that is not under IAEA safeguards; together, those reactors have generated 184,880 million kWh as of December 2008 (NPC, 2009). These are the ones whose spent fuel has historically been reprocessed and the resulting plutonium stockpile is likely to be used to make breeder reactors. If plutonium obtained from spent fuel of safeguarded reactors is used to construct a breeder reactor, then the breeder reactor will automatically come under safeguards. The DAE’s policy seems to be to avoid safeguards at breeder reactors.8

There is also 300MW of installed PHWR capacity under safeguards, whose fuel has not been reprocessed so far except for the early pilot runs of the first power reactor fuel reprocessing plant (PREFRE). As per the US–India nuclear deal that was finalized in 2008, 1760MW of PHWR capacity will come under safeguards by 2014. To maximize the amount of plutonium available to make breeder reactors, we do not take this difference into account and consider all PHWRs together after 2009. Thus, our estimates will include safeguarded and unsafeguarded breeder reactors, whereas current policy only envisions unsafeguarded ones.

In addition to the current reactors, based on the DAE’s current construction plans, we assume that: two 220 MW reactors, Kaiga 4 and RAPS 5, are commissioned during 2009; one 220 MW reactor, RAPS 6, is added during 2010; two 700MW PHWRs each are added during each of the following years: 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2020. That would bring the total PHWR capacity to 10,060 MW.9 We assume that all reactors operate at 80% load factor (LF) from hereon.10 Uranium scarcity has forced some of the existing reactors to be run at low LFs in recent years. However, the Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver for India allows the DAE to import uranium to fuel all those reactors that it puts under IAEA safeguards and will help address this shortage.

Currently the DAE has 200t/y of power reactor reprocessing capacity. As of now, no new projects seem to be under construction (DAE, 2007, 2008; MoSPI, 2008). The assumed 10,060 MW of PHWRs will generate over 1500 tons of spent fuel every year if they operate at a LF of 80%. This will require nearly 2000 t/y of reprocessing capacity, assuming that the reprocessing plants operate at a LF of 80%. If the reprocessing plants were to operate at a LF of 60%, then the required capacity would be over 2500 t/y.

The assumed LF of 80% is high for reprocessing plants in general. The Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing plant (PREFRE) at Tarapur, had an average LF of 25% from 1987, when the plant started reprocessing unsafeguarded PHWR spent fuel, till 1992 (Hibbs, 1995). The British THORP reprocessing plant was reportedly running at 50% LF (Brown, 2003). Similarly the Tokai reprocessing plant in Japan operated at less than 45% LF between 1977 and 2005 (Walker, 2006). Nevertheless, we choose this large LF of 80% for all reprocessing plants (except for PREFRE prior to 1992, where we use the reported value of 25%) in order to be favourable to breeder growth estimates.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 04:34

Plutonium accounting -3

The minimum required reprocessing capacity of 2000 t/y is ten times the current reprocessing capacity in the country. [difficulties of Construction of large reprocessing plants] For example, the THORP facility in the United Kingdom, with a capacity of 800 t/y, received government approval in 1978 but started operating only in 1992 (Forwood, 2008). [....]the most recent commercial reprocessing facility, the Rokkasho plant in Japan, again with a capacity of 800 t/y. Built on the basis of the design already used for the French La Hague reprocessing plant, Rokkasho’s construction started in 1993 (Walker, 2006). Con- struction was completed and tests started in 2006. As of December 2008 it was reported that these were continuing because of numerous technical problems in the last stage of testing (Sawai, 2008).

In India, the Kalpakkam Atomic Reprocessing Plant (KARP), with a much smaller capacity of 100t/y, received financial sanction in 1983 (DAE, 1987, p. 19), but was commissioned only in 1998 (DAE, 2000, p.25). The DAE’s designs for larger reprocessing plants seem to be only for 400 t/y or less (Dey, 2003; Iyengar, 1993). The only way that the DAE could achieve the required reprocessing capability is to simultaneously construct five such reprocessing plants. In order not to have a mismatch between reprocessing capacity and rate of spent fuel generation, this has to be done within the time frame during which PHWR capacity goes up to 10,000 MW. This means that these five plants would have to be constructed in 10 years,[...] and by which time the existing reprocessing plants will have reached the end of their operating lifetimes. Despite these multiple obstacles, we assume that by 2019 the DAE will have a total reprocessing capacity of 2000 t/y.

[estimate of plutonium availability] Following Grover and Chandra (2006), we assume a burnup of 6700MWd/tU and a thermal efficiency of 0.29, which yields a per unit uranium consumption of 0.0214tons/million kWh. Therefore, the generation of 184,880 million kWh would result in a cumulative generation of 3956 tons of spent fuel.11 Assuming that the last batch of spent fuel generated by the reactors was removed in early 2009, and this will have to be cooled for a period of 3 years, and the reprocessing will take several months, the plutonium thus separated will be available only by 2013.

The total amount of spent fuel that could have been reprocessed by 2012 is set by the cumulative reprocessing capacity. Based on the assumptions listed earlier, only 2950 tons of the 3965tons of spent fuel could have been reprocessed by 2012.12 Between 2012 and 2018, before the new reprocessing capacity is built, an additional 960tons of spent fuel could be reprocessed. Each ton of spent fuel from PHWRs contains about 3.5kg of plutonium, of which 75% is fissile, i.e. it is capable of undergoing fission at low energies (Grover and Chandra, 2006). Putting all these figures together, we estimate that by 2019, the DAE could have separated a maximum of 10.16tons of fissile plutonium from PHWRs. In addition, there will be about 0.15 tons of fissile plutonium bred by the first OFBR.

[to be continued, and will wait for any comments]

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 06 May 2011 06:16

A fine update of the Fukushima situation by DAE - dated 19th Apr, not sure if it was posted before..

I mentioned before, the handling of the situation by the nuclear establishment has been absolutely exemplary - in a few year's time, I expect someone in one of the IIMs to convert this into a case study on public policy communication...

http://www.dae.gov.in/daiichi/japan190411.pdf

(specifically, rfer to the section on Radiation monioring)...

UBanerjee · Post by **UBanerjee** » 06 May 2011 06:25

Not even necessary to compare to railways ityadi- coal mining kills orders of magnitude more people each year than nuclear power, and that's just from the mining and industrial accidents, not the carbon emissions.

But nuke power has the evil djinn associated with it.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 06 May 2011 06:49

UBanerjee wrote:Not even necessary to compare to railways ityadi- coal mining kills orders of magnitude more people each year than nuclear power, and that's just from the mining and industrial accidents, not the carbon emissions.

We had discussed that as well erlier..As well as documented evidence (may times over) of the radiation emmissions of coal fired power plants compared to nuke power..Reason typically goes out of the window!

Anyway, re-posting the fine CStep paper on India's nuke roadmap..

http://www.cstep.in/docs/CSTEP%20Nuclear%20Report.pdf

Critical to note that in terms of planning, bulk of the fresh nuke power planned out till 2020 is either under-construction PHWR or imported LWRs...AHWR/FBR are not critical at all (at this stage) - our best case is for 800 MW from them..

Which is what the NPAs ignore (maybe deliberately?)..India is "buying" time for the futuristic FBR programme through imports..Whether it is perfecting the technology or setting up enough reproecessing capacity, we will need time and we will need international cooperation...Specifically on reprocessing, the amount of political capital spent on ensuring that it is part of 123/NSG waiver was humungous..At one stage, we even threatened to walk out unless reprocessing rights were not retained by us...

China's deal with AREVA included reprocessing tech..Expect India's deal to be similar as well..NPAs go on and on about how India's reprocessing capacities are low and cannot support 1000000000000MW of FBR...Stating the obvious! But so what? We are not going to have 10 FBRs operational by 2020, we might have 5 operating realistically by 2030..the 20 years lead time will be used by India to study foreign tech, import and then potentially ramp up our own capacities, which are also going up (we commissioned a new plant recenlty in Tarapur)..

People too pre-occupied with hurling invectives @ nuclear power/Fukushima et al miss the fundamental point..India is retaining its options for the future..It would be criminal to not have that option because someone thought that a 9 scale earthquake hitting a nuke reactor is more dangerous than a 9 scale earthquake hitting Tehri...

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 06 May 2011 09:56

B-ji, can you please also add quick understanding points from the overall write up. What is the overall message?

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 06 May 2011 10:52

Sanku-ji wrote:Thanks Sanatanan Saar, a really helpful and knowledge post. Many thanks.

You're welcome, Sir.
Who doesn't appreciate appreciation?

amit · Post by **amit** » 06 May 2011 11:55

UBanerjee wrote:Not even necessary to compare to railways ityadi- coal mining kills orders of magnitude more people each year than nuclear power, and that's just from the mining and industrial accidents, not the carbon emissions.

But nuke power has the evil djinn associated with it.

Very good point and that's the elephant in the room which some folks choose to ignore.

If we take a step back and look at the situation we'll find that India is an energy deficit country which is looking to grow at near 10 per cent over the next 10-20 years to bring millions out of poverty and take back its rightful place in the comity of nations.

Now, as present technology stands, the only two most economic means of generating large amounts amounts of power (1000 MW+) from one location is coal and nuclear with gas coming behind. Assuming both coal and nuclear have their negative aspects, we then have to do a cost benefit analysis on which way to go in terms of investment dollars. We can't as some here have, incredibly, suggested hope and wait for solar to catch up in terms of scale and cost - that may take more than 20 years.

If we can agree that we need to choose between coal and nuclear or in a more practical world choose a combination of coal and nuclear then what do we have in terms of safety?

We've read great stories about radiation in Fukushima and how it's only a matter of time before a Fukushima happens in India.

Interestingly a few pages ago I posted a link where some expert said studies have shown that 300,000 people die in India annually due to diseases caused by breathing the pollution produced by coal-fired thermal plants.

Now I understand a lot of folks here would think he was exaggerating the figure. Since I can't do my own study I'll try to take a figure which would hopefully sound more realistic here. Let's lope off a zero from the number. We then get 30,000. Now to be even more stringent why don't we take 1/3 of that number as the most realistic figure. That would be 10,000. Mind you 10,000 out of 1.2 billion people.

So hypothetically if we can agree that 10,000 people die from pollution emanating from coal-fired thermal plants in India, then the question to then ask is, how many people have died due to nuclear power plants - not in India because nobody has but globally?

People don't die due to nuclear power plant pollution - heck it's been shown that a coal-fired plant release 200 time more radioactivity, apart from other nasty stuff, than nuclear power plants. So folks can potentially die from nuclear power plant accidents.

Till date we've had three major nuclear power plant accidents around the world. Three Mile killed nobody and nobody has died on account of radiation poisoning. Chernobyl the number is less clear. The immediate fall out from the accident resulted in 50-53 people being killed and then things become unclear - all the way from the 953,000 figure some folks here are in love with all the way to few hundreds. In Fukushima, despite what Sanku and others may say (for eg. several weeks ago, Sanku said 17 people were in hospital with serious radiation sickness!) nobody has died and nobody is in hospital - this from what is being described as the Level Seven category accident. And none of the reports that have come out so far, including the fear mongering ones, have conclusively said either that there will be long term health issues in which people may die or that people are sick due to radiation posioning.

Now let's come back to that 10,000 number.

We should remember that it is an estimate for the number of people who would likely die in one year. If you multiply that by 10 and then 20 (remember I mentioned India is trying to grow at near 10 per cent for 20 years) you get very nasty numbers.

So I ask once again, what should we do abandon nuclear power? It's extremely disingenuous to say we should keep our existing nuclear power plants but don't build new ones or to say don't build ones made by Amir Khan or don't build LWRs etc. That's because then one would have to prove why you think PHWRs can survive a perfect Black Swan the type of which hit Fukushima.

Sorry to say apart from this point the rest feels like power grade hot air - certainly convertible into MWs.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 15:59

Sanku ji,
the paper tries to go into technical details and tries to estimate the amount of plutonium available and the capacity of reprocessing, that is apparently built into the projections of DAE. Since this is all about power generation, and we have had claims here that India "knows best", I am simply putting a part of the content out here for the resident nuclear scientists to dissect. These are after all "technical details" being given by the authors and not the supposedly vague "conjectures" about medical/physiological ill-effects. Moreover, we should read up on the "technical papers" - don't we?

Instead of "radiation sickness", I am intrigued by the possibility that the current overtly given out scheme of things - which justifies nuclear power generation as being a core supportive component of our energy plans into the future - is subject to criticism that nuclear power need not after all be able to provide such a core support role. In that case the more compelling reasoning on the forum - that of economic "necessity" and "inevitability" needs to be re-examined.

The paper builds up on the details - so we do need to see them - towards a conclusion that goes against a very high supportive role for nuclear power generation under the given scheme of things.

I do not claim to be a practising nuclear scientist. So I am simply exploring the paper's authors' provided details and methodology. The experts here who probably genuinely have first hand experience with the industry and are also in the know of the inner circles of governmental policy to be confident about what options India really has in mind for the long term - can enlighten us as to how the methods and details of the paper are in error.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 16:02

Plutonium accounting -4

From this stockpile, some plutonium will have to be used to construct OFBRs. The DAE’s OFBR design requires an initial inventory of 1.425tons of fissile plutonium in its core (Grover and Chandra, 2006; IGCAR, 2003). The plutonium for the initial core of the first MOX fuelled breeder reactor naturally has to come from reprocessing PHWR spent fuel. Further, plutonium for cores of the other four MOX breeders will also have to come from the same source because the PFBR will not be producing excess plutonium in significant quantities.13 For the same reason, these reactors will require plutonium from PHWR spent fuel for refuelling during the first three years.14

At 75% LF, each OFBR will require 1012 kg of total plutonium every year for refuelling (Glaser and Ramana, 2007). Taking into account losses at the fuel fabrication stage, which is usually estimated to be 1% (Benedict et al., 1981, p. 150), and for a fissile fraction of 0.75, the total fissile plutonium requirement is 0.765 tonnes per year. This means that the total fissile plutonium requirements for each MOX fuelled breeder reactors will be 3.72tons. Therefore, the plutonium availability of 10.31tons in 2019 is not even sufficient to fuel three MOX fuelled breeder reactors till they are able to fuel themselves.

If one takes into account plutonium availability, the earliest time the second and third OFBRs could come online is 2018; the fourth and fifth could come online only in 2022. This means that the DAE’s planned schedule for OFBRs will have to be delayed. The earliest that there will be sufficient plutonium to be used to set up an MFBR is in 2021. Assuming that the plutonium can be made into metallic fuel for the core of the reactor within 1 year,15 the first of the MFBRs can be commissioned in 2022. Therefore the 2022 MFBR capacity will only be 1 GW, a far cry from the 6 GW the DAE envisions. Once the plutonium is available, if the time taken to fabricate the core of the first MFBR is also 3 years, the same as the PFBR,16 then the first MFBR will come on line only in 2024.

This schedule does not change significantly even if India imports LWRs on a large scale and secures reprocessing rights. For one, India has no reprocessing plants that deal with spent fuel from LWRs. Constructing one or more reprocessing plants could well take beyond 2022. Second, the earliest that a new LWR could come online is around 2016. Assuming that the first load of spent fuel is discharged 3 years after the reactor is commissioned and cooled in a spent fuel pool for 4–5 years because of the higher burnups, the spent fuel will be available for reprocessing only by 2022–2023. This does not allow for the recovered plutonium to contribute to MFBR capacity in 2022.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 16:11

Plutonium accounting 5

4. The DAE scenario: 2022–2032
According to the DAE’s projections, the 6 GW of MFBR capacity in 2022 derived from PHWR spent fuel will lead to 33 GW by 2032, 87 GW by 2042, and 199 GW by 2052 (Grover and Chandra, 2006). Though we have shown that the initial figure itself is impossible, for the sake of argument, we now assume that the DAE somehow gets the plutonium for setting up 6 GW of MFBR capacity by 2022 and examine how fast this can grow.

Setting up each GW of MFBR capacity requires 3.732tons of fissile plutonium, sufficient for the core and the first reload; subsequently, it requires 1.244 tons of fissile plutonium every year as fuel (INFCE, 1980, pp. 177–179).[DAE assumption of 75% LF] To set up 6 GW, therefore, the DAE will require 22.4 tons of fissile plutonium. To demonstrate the problems with the DAE’s methodology, we assume that in the year 2021, the DAE has 44.8 tons of fissile plutonium, twice the amount required. If the DAE has accounted for its plutonium debits and credits accurately, this should more than suffice for the growth rate that the DAE assumes. At their assumed growth rate, the figures for MFBR capacity in the years 2022–2032 are in column 7 of Table 2.

[growth of breeder capacity linked to the availability of plutonium: PHWRs, OFBRs, and MFBRs themselves]. Once 2000 t/y of reprocessing capacity is set up, and once the OFBRs become self-sustaining, the PHWRs+OFBRs produce 4.27tons of fissile plutonium/year. The MFBRs can add 1.656 tons/GW of capacity.

The DAE assumes that the time involved in the withdrawal of the spent fuel from MFBRs, reprocessing and the separation of plutonium from this spent fuel, and its fabrication into fuel all together take only 1 year. This is called the out of pile time (OP). We follow this assumption even though this is more likely to take 3 years as in the case of the PFBR.
The annual plutonium credits and debits are listed in Table 2. If one assumes the same growth rate as the DAE from 6 GW in 2022 to 33 GW in 2032, we find that the plutonium stockpile, listed in column 2, would actually reduce from 22.4tons to minus 22.48tons. In essence, the reason for this decrease is that if a breeder reactor were to be set up in, say, 2025, the plutonium for its core must be available and set aside at least a year in advance. Once the reactor starts, the first batch of spent fuel can be removed from the reactor only when the reactor is shut down for refuelling. Depending on the performance of the reactor and the design details, this will happen roughly after 8–16 months. In our calculations, we have assumed that one-half of the core will be removed after 1 year.18 It then takes a period of 1 year, the assumed OP, for this to be processed and the extracted plutonium fabricated into fuel. In all, therefore, there is a lag of roughly 3 years between the time a certain amount of plutonium is committed to a breeder reactor and it reappears in the form of separated plutonium for refuelling the same reactor and setting up new breeder reactors. It is this delay that primarily constrains the rate of growth.

In Table 2, we have assumed that the setting up of each MFBR requires 3.732 tons of fissile plutonium, sufficient for the core and the first year refuelling. Our results are not very sensitive to this assumption about the requirement for the first refuelling. Even if MFBRs are set up with just the core requirement of 2.488 tons of fissile plutonium, then the plutonium requirement for fuelling new reactors (entries in Column 5) will go down, but the requirement for fuelling existing reactors (entries in Column 4) will go up. The net effect is small.

The negative balances continue even if the reactors were to function at very high LFs. For example, at a LF of 90%, the initial 22.4 tons reduces to - 19.8 tons. Just assuming that the technology might operate better will not do away with the need for plutonium and offset the constraints posed by the time delay in plutonium availability.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 16:41

Plutonium accounting -5 (a) : Table 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Plutonium PHWR+MOX Fuel req Core req MFBR plu Cumulative MFBR
stockpile FBRproduction for MFBRs (t) for new MFBRs (t) production (t) capacity (GW)

2022 22.39 4.22 - 7.46 0 6
2023 19.15 4.22 7.46 7.46 0 8
2024 8.45 4.22 9.95 7.46 9.94 10
2025 5.19 4.27 12.44 11.20 13.25 12
2026 -0.94 4.27 14.93 7.46 16.56 15
2027 -2.50 4.27 18.66 11.20 19.87 17
2028 -8.23 4.27 21.15 11.20 24.84 20
2029 -11.47 4.27 24.88 11.20 28.15 23
2030 -15.13 4.27 28.61 11.20 33.12 26
2031 -17.56 4.27 32.34 14.93 38.08 29
2032 -22.48 4.27 36.08 14.93 43.05 33

Total - 46.79 206.5 115.69 226.85

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 06 May 2011 17:57

Brihaspati saab,

I fail to see where in that paper that you posted, the authors are advocating a cap, roll back and eliminate of the Indian nuclear programme. Some of the members on this thread are advocating precisely that.

Additionally, it seems that the authors have a problem with the time frames, and not with the feasibility itself. DAE has always had grandiose plans in power generation that were never backed up by action. Is there any alternative technology out there that will provide GWs of power in the 2020-2025 time frame that we require? I dont see one, unless you count on burning coal at high ash content, huge solar fields in a dense land hungry country like India, etc etc.

The insistence on completely disavowing nuclear as an energy source for the future is strange. Even more strange is the complete match of the NPA agenda with such proponents.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 06 May 2011 18:08

Tanaji wrote:I fail to see where in that paper that you posted, the authors are advocating a cap, roll back and eliminate of the Indian nuclear programme. Some of the members on this thread are advocating precisely that

Tanaji, its an old article from a known ideologue, MV Ramana...His point isnt very different from the likes of Praful Bidwai et al, ie, nuke power is dangerous, or expensive, or Indians are basically incompetent at it - preferably all three together...Ergo, we should not be pursuing nuke power....Ramana is a good source of data - but not of the politics and reality of nuclear power...

negi · Post by **negi** » 06 May 2011 19:28

Received this via email. Ramdas showing his true colours.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi ,

I just sent a fax to PM, Manmohan Singh and Maharashtra CM, Prithviraj Chavan asking them to respect public opinion on the Jaitapur issue.

Please read the mail below from Former Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy, Admiral L. Ramdas, and take action. http://greenpeace.in/take-action/stop-d ... -singh.php

Regards,

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,

I am taking the unusual step of sending this direct request because I believe that the announcement by the PMO on the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, to continue with the proposed French-built nuclear power park at Jaitapur is a serious mistake with long term implications for our people.[1]

Along with several others I participated in the “Tarapur to Jaitapur” Yatra (march) in Maharashtra, to protest against the proposed nuclear plant in Jaitapur.[2] We did not reach Jaitapur because many of us were detained/arrested for participating in this peaceful protest.[3]

It is well known that the Jaitapur nuclear plant is on an earthquake-prone zone [4] and the French EPR reactors have not yet been tested anywhere in the world.[5] Surprisingly the government has rejected the demands to cancel the project, which will result in the loss of land and livelihoods for many. Further, the government has shown disregard for the views of the many scientists, academics, military and other citizens from the rest of the country calling for a review of its earlier decisions on nuclear power plants.

Apart from announcing the creation of an independent regulatory board to ensure safety standards, the government has taken no action on the widespread demand for a complete fresh review of nuclear energy policy in the country. We need to tell Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he cannot ignore serious concerns raised by the people of this country. You should send a fax to the PM asking him to stop the Jaitapur nuclear plant.

http://greenpeace.in/take-action/stop-d ... -singh.php

Add your signature to the message and we will fax it to the PM for you. 73,000 petition signatures opposing this plant have already been delivered to the PM.[6] Now a large number of faxes asking him to stop the plant will make it difficult for him ignore the demand.

Safe and clean renewable energy options and energy efficiency can help meet our energy demands, all of which are available and at a much lower cost than nuclear[7]. The government needs to invest in these instead of dangerous nuclear energy. Tell the PM to stop this dangerous plant now!

http://greenpeace.in/take-action/stop-d ... -singh.php

Thank you for taking action!

Admiral L. Ramdas,
Former Chief of Naval Staff,
Indian Navy.

Sources:

1. Jaitapur plant to go ahead with greater compensation, Times of India, April 27, 2011
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 095503.cms

2. Tarapur-to-Jaitapur march against n-plant planned, DNA, April 11, 2011
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_t ... ed_1530544

3. Activists of anti-nuclear plant yatra detained, The Hindu, April 24, 2011
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... 761935.ece

4. 20 years, 92 quakes: Ground trembles beneath Jaitapur's feet, Times of India, March 16, 2011
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 714776.cms

5. Why should Jaitapur be made a guinea pig for untested reactors, DNA, March 17, 2011
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/comment_ ... 520843-all

6. Anti-nuclear protesters march in Indian capital, news.yahoo.com, March 25, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110325/ap_ ... _protest_2

7. Energy Revolution, Greenpeace, March 23, 2009
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/ ... lution.pdf

Greenpeace provides an alternate energy vision for India, Greenpeace, March 24, 2009
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/news ... @gmail.com

amit · Post by **amit** » 06 May 2011 19:47

^^^^^
Some folks around these parts would love to sign up and I am sure have signed. But how BRF has changed. There used to be a time when articles from know NPA Ayatollah chamchas like MV Ramana used to be taken apart and ridiculed. Now MV along with folks like Bidwai Purefool are quoted as experts by folks whose cap, eliminate and roll back agenda is now propaged without any pretense. Of course I will be branded a "pesudo secularist" for pointing this out.

amit · Post by **amit** » 06 May 2011 19:52

Meanwhile it's interesting to note articles/references to deaths due to burning of high ash coal are given a wide berth.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 06 May 2011 19:53

^^^The most amusing thing is how the issue has brought together (in India) characters from the extreme Left to the extreme Right...The extreme Left one can still understand (the reasons for) - it is part of their normal ideological agenda..What one cannot is the reaction of our "nationalists"!

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 06 May 2011 20:01

The article even provides a link to Greenpeace as reference for alternative energy. This is like someone giving a reference of Shiney Ahuja when employing a maid.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 20:03

Sanatanan wrote:This is a brief flashback into the Fukushima Thread.

About two and a half weeks ago, there was a discussion on the status of spent fuel transport flasks and spent fuel storage facilities in India.

[quote]Got some additional {information about spent fuel rods and dry storage facilities in India} from a nice paper from Argonne National Lab's library (written by P.K. Dey, Fuel Reprocessing Division in BARC).. pretty nicely written.
. . .

- Picture of a Dry casket being moved on an open bed of a truck gave the impression of lack (IMO) of a security.. I am sure things are more secure now. (Before 9/11 it was comparatively easy to get access inside an US reactor).

Subsequent comment said:

[quote]One picture I saw (older pic), with cask tied on the truck platform (with something like "Buri nazar ka muh kala" sign in the back of truck for extra security) did not look that secure..[/quote]
The highlighted parts of the above quotes were intriguing for me and so I did some literature survey. Based on that, I have put down my thoughts on these issues as follows.

I could access a paper titled "An Indian Perspective for Transportation and Storage of Spent Fuel". From the URL of the document I feel this also-well-written-paper by P.K. Dey, might have been presented or submitted to the IAEA. The paper has several figures and photos including one of a PHWR Spent Fuel Cask (Flask) mounted on a trailer. ...
<snip>
Policies adopted for spent fuel storage, transportation and reprocessing have strong linkages. I do have some queries / doubts on these aspects, in the Indian context. Hope to revert to this at some time in the future.[/quote]
Sanatanan - As you know, the above post was mine. I actually gave the reference of the Dey's paper , the result of your literature survey. The paper contains all the photos which you presented. In fact, the url ("ww.iaea.org") confirms that (not "might have been") it was submitted to IAEA

(I was mildly amused to see all that ooh's and ahh's given by Sankuji - normally he just calls any references I give as pro-nuke-anti-india-tratior or something like that..

)

In any case, if you have queries /doubts on some of the aspects (you don't mention what these queries are) , Ramana said that he worked with these kind of designs.. there may be resources right here in BRF.. and, of course, you can point the query to the people like Dey.

One thing I will like to suggest. Older pictures and old papers are okay but current details about spent fuel rods, and their transportation methods, IMO, ought not be discussed in open forum like this.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 06 May 2011 20:09

Amber G. wrote:Older pictures and old papers are okay but current details about spent fuel rods, and their transportation methods, IMO, ought not be discussed in open forum like this.

Amber-ji, why is that? These are not really "strategic" in nature are they?

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 20:11

Sanatanan wrote:
Sanku-ji wrote:Thanks Sanatanan Saar, a really helpful and knowledge post. Many thanks.
You're welcome, Sir.
Who doesn't appreciate appreciation?

Sankuji - you do know, don't you that the Dey's paper (which its pictures etc) was already posted in the other thread by me.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 20:21

somnath wrote:
Amber G. wrote:Older pictures and old papers are okay but current details about spent fuel rods, and their transportation methods, IMO, ought not be discussed in open forum like this.
Amber-ji, why is that? These are not really "strategic" in nature are they?

Somnath - Simply because spent fuel rods are known to be "interesting" to terrorists. In USA, before 9/11 almost anyone can walk or take a tour of a reactor. and fuel rods did not have enough security..

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 06 May 2011 20:51

amit wrote:Meanwhile it's interesting to note articles/references to deaths due to burning of high ash coal are given a wide berth.

Amit,

This is a strawman conjecture. You are unable to defend nuclear power on its merits so you drag another topic in that you think can defend nuclear better. This a constant nuclear industry talking point. Very weak.
-------------------------------

Also as far as I know no one is advocating eliminating the nuclear program. It is the out of control expansion that I oppose. Esp. with technologies and designs we don't understand. This sodium reactor thing in particular is crazy, esp. as Thorium is no longer the fuel. Sodium reactors have a long history of severe accidents, shutting them down for years at a time. Yet here we are playing Russian Roulette to see if we can avoid the really really bad one.

Another odd thing about Sodium reactors is that if it every shuts down the heat to keep the Sodium melted has to be supplied by the electrical grid. So the reactor, in case of a shut down, becomes a energy hole draining power from the grid. Some of the larger Sodium reactors have needed 100 MW/hr+ to keep all the Sodium melted long term. Wouldn't surprise me at all is the PFBR actually turns into a longer term energy negative.
-------------------------------

WRT coal remember whether we like it or not all of it is going to be burnt anyway. Nuclear can not stop this process.

Solar, Wind and other renewable are extremely challenging as a power source but are the only long term viable options. We have to make them work. All this futzing about, is to try and avoid this brutally hard task as long as we can. IMHO fairly silly. We need to start now with all the resources we can muster.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 21:22

Theoji - Just curious if you understood the 'full body equivalent dose' concept which I explained in detail to you (and others). This was, if you don't remember, after you were (repeatedly) talking about "dead men walking" because their feet got a few Sv dose of radiation. I explained, that is there is no basis to for that.

Theo_Fidel wrote:
amit wrote:Meanwhile it's interesting to note articles/references to deaths due to burning of high ash coal are given a wide berth.
Amit,

This is a strawman conjecture. You are unable to defend nuclear power on its merits so you drag another topic in that you think can defend nuclear better. This a constant nuclear industry talking point. Very weak.

No, it is not strawman conjecture, it is a scientific data point to put the things in perspective. Do you doubt that deaths due to coal ash are order of magnitude more serious?

What is weak and beyond pale are demonstrably false assertions made repeatedly by you like "amount of radioactive waste reprocessing produces" (which was pointed out by GP)

What is straw-man type nonsense is this quote:

Theo_Fidel wrote:Sanku,

Don't forget ICF Chennai explosion. Also Solar PV 'explosion' causing 1000 times the contamination.

out

It is beyond silly that, instead of understanding toxicity of Cd (where that was discussed) etc, one resorting to a technique which is not even original.

JMT

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 06 May 2011 21:24

Tanaji saab,

I have clearly stated that I am not entirely against nuclear power. But that I do not believe it should be touted as the backbone of our energy needs in the future and single largest component. So far I have not made any extreme claims on this issue, and it is not justified to raise questions that you raise -about "capping/roll-back" in the context of that article - because none of these are issues I raised in connection with this particular paper.

You can ask these to people who you think are proponents of those procedures.

The following is not directed at you: but in general,

As for the author, I clearly stated in my starting post - that I am not going to bring in personal barbs if others do not do so about persons involved - as author, or me as the quoter, or posters who respond to the article. The first one who breaks this unilateral declaration is fair-game to be paid back in kind. I stressed out that all criticism or "trashing" should be directed at the content and not on the people. We already have one instance of the author of the paper being dubbed a "known ideologue". Whether the author is an ideologue or not should not matter as to the technical content of what is being written by the author in the paper. [It is not an op-ed style paper which may bring in relevance of ideology of the author].

Who says that the paper [and not the author] cannot be logically, and informationally dissected here on BR? if there was such a "golden period" on BR why not again? If the agenda from the beginning is to "ridicule" or "target the person" that only shows a certain character trait that always nurses a personal grudge when intellectually contradicted or countered. That is an infantile disorder, and should better be controlled in an adult. I am sure BRFites are all adults.

Once again if you can dissect and show the error of the papers contents, do so. If you cannot do so, with information or seriously - and only have personal hatred issues to play around, please do pick on a different topic.

The paper looks like a serious criticism about projected capacities - and hence the possible constraints on the role nuclear power can play in meeting energy demands, which I genuinely hope the nuclear scientists on the forum can clear up. Calling someone an ideologue on technical content is unacceptable.

negi · Post by **negi** » 06 May 2011 21:40

Theo_Fidel wrote:WRT coal remember whether we like it or not all of it is going to be burnt anyway. Nuclear can not stop this process.

NP is not meant to do that in any case; the idea is to increase the percentage contribution of the NP towards India's total installed capacity.
NP will not be able to match the coal powered plants in terms of cost per unit of energy generated but it will defintely help reduce the rate at which coal is being burnt to meet our demand. So yes net carbon emissions after having burnt all our coal reserves are not going to change however what NP can help us is distributing those emissions over a longer period of time.

Solar, Wind and other renewable are extremely challenging as a power source but are the only long term viable options. We have to make them work. All this futzing about, is to try and avoid this brutally hard task as long as we can. IMHO fairly silly. We need to start now with all the resources we can muster.

Yes but then those can be promoted without having to discourage the use of NP just on the basis of a worst case scenario analysis.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 21:43

Sorry if this is xpost or posted already:
From: MITNSE:

The green dots represent all commercial nuclear plants in the world that are currently operating, under construction, or officially on order. There are 222. The only plant omitted is Russia’s portable floating power station Akademik Lomonosov (due for deployment in Kamchatka), for which the siting issue is not particularly pertinent.

The red dots represent all earthquakes of magnitude at least 7.0 that occurred from 1973 through 2010. There were 520 such earthquakes. These data points were provided by USGS, which has collected standardized worldwide earthquake data since 1973.
As you can see, an overwhelming majority of the world’s nuclear plants are located quite far from regions in which large earthquakes typically occur. The main exception is eastern Asia and especially northern Japan.

In fact, the mean distance* from a nuclear plant to the nearest earthquake shown is 785 miles. The mean distance from a large set of random points on the (land only) surface of the earth to the nearest such earthquake is 741 miles. The median distance from a nuclear plant to the nearest such earthquake is 809 miles. The median distance from the same large set of random points to the nearest such earthquake is 682 miles.

*Here we used the “great circle” distance, which is the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 21:46

Hamaoka asked to shut down
(CEPC is considering to shut down its Hamaoka nuclear power plant on predictions of a major earthquake)

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 06 May 2011 22:43

xpost:
Let me also put for the record (Sorry if already posted)

Position Paper statement from , Health Physics Society, certainly not a pro-nuke/anti-India lobby.

This is about validity of LNT, a hypothesis repeated ad absurdum by Bidwai and certain posters in BRF ...

Link: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/hprisk.htm

Health Physics Society Position Statement

March, 1996

Kenneth L. Mossman, Marvin Goldman, Frank Masse, William A. Mills, Keith J. Schiager, Richard L. Vetter

In accordance with current knowledge of radiation health risks, the Health Physics Society recommends against quantitative estimation of health risk below an individual dose of 5 rem(1){50 mSV} in one year, or a lifetime dose of 10 rem {100 mSV} in addition to background radiation. Risk estimation in this dose range should be strictly qualitative accentuating a range of hypothetical health outcomes with an emphasis on the likely possibility of zero adverse health effects. The current philosophy of radiation protection is based on the assumption that any radiation dose, no matter how small, may result in human health effects, such as cancer and hereditary genetic damage. There is substantial and convincing scientific evidence for health risks at high dose. Below 10 rem (which includes occupational and environmental exposures) risks of health effects are either too small to be observed or are non-existent.
Current radiation protection standards and practices are based on the premise that any radiation dose, no matter how small, can result in detrimental health effects, such as cancer and genetic damage. Further, it is assumed that these effects are produced in direct proportion to the dose received, i. e., doubling the radiation dose results in a doubling of the effect. These two assumptions lead to a dose-response relationship, often referred to as the linear no-threshold model, for estimating health effects at doses of interest. There is, however, substantial scientific evidence that this model is an oversimplification of the dose-response relationship and results in an overestimation of health risks in the low dose range. Biological mechanisms including cellular repair of radiation injury, which are not accounted for by the linear, no-threshold model, reduce the likelihood of cancers and genetic effects.

Radiogenic Health Effects Have Not Been Observed Below 10 Rem {100 mSV}
<snip>

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 06 May 2011 23:19

Amber G. wrote: Sankuji - you do know, don't you that the Dey's paper (which its pictures etc) was already posted in the other thread by me.

Good for you.

Perhaps the way the information is presented makes it easier for dumb ".net" programmers like me to read it.

In addition Sanatanan added substantial content of his own, in terms of context, perspective and interpretation of the article. All of which were solid, logical and well founded.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 07 May 2011 01:50

Plutonium accounting 5(b) [Table 3]
Breeder capacity growth accounting for plutonium constraints

Plu PHWR+MOX FBR Fuel req Core req MFBR plu Cumulative
stockpile production for MFBRs for new MFBRs production capacity (GW)
2022 1.41 4.22 - 3.73 - 1
2023 0.37 4.22 1.24 0.00 - 2
2024 1.82 4.22 2.49 0.00 1.66 2
2025 3.68 4.27 2.49 7.46 3.31 2
2026 1.31 4.27 2.49 3.73 3.31 4
2027 2.66 4.27 4.98 3.73 3.31 5
2028 1.53 4.27 6.22 3.73 6.62 6
2029 2.47 4.27 7.46 7.46 8.28 7
2030 0.09 4.27 8.71 3.73 9.94 9
2031 1.85 4.27 11.20 3.73 11.59 10
2032 2.77 4.27 12.44 7.46 14.90 11
Total 46.79 59.71 44.78 62.92

The model used in the paper :
Even assuming the same optimistic LFs and OPs as the DAE, a more careful accounting of plutonium, so as to ensure that there are no negative plutonium balances, yields very different results for breeder capacity growth. [They replace continuous differential equations, with discrete difference equations - arguing that real process variables are discrete]

The plutonium balance (P(Y)) at the beginning of a given year Y is described by
P(Y)=P(Y-1)+HM(Y-1)+B(Y-1)-F(Y-1)-C(Y-1)...(1)
HM(Y)=PHWR(Y-3) X LFHXf + OFBR(Y-3) X LFO X g...(2)
B(Y)=(FR+BR) X MFBR(Y-1-OP) X LFM...(3)
F(Y)=FR X MFBR(Y+1) X LFM...(4)
C(Y)=3.732 X MFBR(Y +CCT)...(5)
f = 0.488 t/y/GW....(6)
g = 0.056 t/y/GW...(7)
FR = 1.659 t/y/GW...(8)
BR = 0.549 t/y/GW...(9)
CCT = 1y.. (10)

HM(Y) = net amount of plutonium recovered from reprocessing spent fuel from PHWRs and OFBRs; PHWR(Y) and OFBR(Y) are the heavy water and MOX fuelled breeder reactor capacity in GW; LFH, LFO, and LFM are the load factors for PHWRs, OFBRs, and MFBRs respectively; B(Y) is the net amount of plutonium recovered from reprocessing spent fuel from MFBRs; F(Y) is the amount of plutonium used to fuel existing MFBRs; C(Y) is the amount of plutonium used to set up new MFBRs; OP is the out of pile time; CCT is time it takes to construct a reactor once the plutonium is available.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 07 May 2011 02:25

Plutonium accounting 6:

[MFBR capacity up till 2052]. As shown earlier the maximum MFBR capacity that can be set up in 2022 is 1 GW. Table 3 shows how this could grow during the first ten years at a LF of 75% for the MFBRs and an OP of 1 year. This can be contrasted with the figures in Table 2 and shows how much slower the rate of growth is if breeder construction is contingent upon the availability of 3.732 tons of fissile plutonium, after all fuelling requirements for operating breeder reactors have been met.19 The plutonium stockpile is always within the range between zero and 3.732 tons, showing that the rate of setting up new MFBRs has been optimized.

[extended up to 2052] and instead of the 199 GW that results from the DAE’s methodology, we find that at best 78 GW of MFBRs can be set up. This assumes that all PHWRs stop operating 40 years after commissioning. The PHWR capacity comes down from 10,060 MW in 2020 to 6340 MW in 2052 with a corresponding reduction in plutonium production.[20 This is higher than the DAE scenario of 2052 with the PHWR capacity is only 4060 MW.] Over the period 2022–2052, the total fissile plutonium produced by PHWRs and the OFBRs amounts to about 120tons, sufficient to set up about 32 GW of MFBR capacity. This is a significant fraction of the breeder capacity projected for 2052.

The DAE has not published any figures on the sensitivity of their results to their assumptions for LF and OP. Both of these are important variables and there are good reasons to expect that they may not be as optimistic as the DAE has assumed. Therefore we look at the dependence of the MFBR capacity on these two variables (Table 5).

Sensitivity to fuel cycle and reactor performance.
MFBR out of MFBR load pile time (y) factor (%)
MFBR capacity (GW) in year
2022 2032 2042 2052
One
50 1 11 30 60
75 1 11 34 78
90 1 12 36 89
Two
50 1 10 23 43
75 1 9 24 48
90 1 9 24 50
Three
50 1 8 19 34
75 1 7 17 34
90 1 7 17 33

The LF can be expected to be much lower than the 75% that the DAE has assumed, and which we have adopted as our base case. Breeder reactors across the world have been plagued with small accidents and other problems, in part due to the use of liquid sodium as coolant. It is not surprising that they have had relatively low lifetime LFs (Table 4). In India, the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) has operated for only 36,000 h over the first 20 years of its life, implying that it operated only during 20% of the time (DAE, 2006, p. 16). If MFBRs were to chart a similar course, a LF of 50% or less might be more plausible. We also allow for the possibility of highly improved performance by using a LF of 90%.

The assumption about OP is also optimistic. [technical reasons for why the OP may be much more than one year given]. There have been no commercial scale facilities that have dealt with large quantities of FBR spent fuel. All of this implies that as with the PFBR an OP of 3 years might be more realistically achievable.

[Table above] shows that the most important determinant of breeder capacity is the out of pile time. If this is increased from the base case of 1–2 years, the 2052 breeder capacity decreases to 48 GW (at a LF of 75%), and to 34GW if OP is 3 years. There is a similar reduction from 60 to 44 to 34 GW for the 50% LF case. If one looks at the 2052 figures, for a 1 year OP, the LF makes a significant difference to installed capacity. The importance of the LF diminishes with increasing OP. For an OP of 3 years, we see that the 2052 capacity is practically independent of LF.

[behaviour of installed capacity in the year 2032 as a function of LF]. For the 2 and 3 year OPs, the MFBR capacity at higher LFs is smaller than for the lowest LF. This seems anomalous but shows that the rate of growth of MFBR capacity is determined through a complex interplay between plutonium flows from PHWRs and OFBRs, and MFBR breeding. During the early years, the growth of MFBR capacity is primarily sustained by PHWR plutonium. Although the contribution of plutonium bred in MFBRs increases with the LF, the fuelling requirements of MFBRs already installed also goes up concomi- tantly. Therefore, a larger share of PHWR plutonium is used to fuel installed MFBRs, leaving less plutonium to set up more reactors. The importance of PHWR plutonium is greater for high OP because the plutonium bred in MFBRs takes longer to come back as fuel into the system. A higher installed capacity of reactors might seem desirable, but if this is because of a low LF, then each reactor is producing less energy than it is designed for and hence the cost of electricity will be much higher.

All of these results assume adequate reprocessing capacity of PHWRs. [They assume] that 2000 t/y is built by 2019, in time for handling the spent fuel from 10,000MW of PHWR capacity. As an alternative scenario, they consider - if only 1000t/y is built by 2019, and the 2000 t/y is reached only a decade later. In this scenario, even the construction of the last two OFBRs will have to be delayed, with the first MFBR coming online only in 2024. The resulting MFBR capacity in 2052 is only 54 GW in the base case (75% LF, 1 year OP).

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 07 May 2011 02:36

Plutonium accounting - 7.

[I am skipping their part on "lack of experience" from DAE. I am dropping it on the hypothetical basis that DAE has gamed all scenarios, and that India has kept all its options open -as claimed by certain posters. Here is the their conclusion]

[the DAE has claimed about being able to meet 20–35% of the country’s electricity requirements by the middle of the century.]

They conclude that they have demonstrated that the DAE’s projections are based on faulty methodology and will have inadequate quantities of plutonium to set up its proposed 6 GW from PHWR spent fuel in 2022. Further, even if the DAE were to somehow obtain sufficient plutonium to set up 6 MFBRs, adding new MFBRs at the rate at which it envisions will result in negative plutonium balances.

For a breeder programme based on plutonium from PHWR spent fuel, a methodologically consistent projection for breeder capacity in 2052 will result in only 40% of the DAE’s projections, even with optimistic assumptions. More cautious assumptions about load factors and out of pile times would result in a breeder capacity of only 34 GW, 17% and 3% of the DAE’s projections of MFBR and total electricity generation capacity respectively. Even if a similar breeder construction effort is mounted using plutonium from imported LWRs, the contribution to electricity generation will be similarly small.

They stress that the problems with the DAE’s methodology has implications not for breeder capacity per se, but for the breeder capacity that can be built up on the basis of a given fixed capacity of LWR or PHWRs. In other words, what plutonium accounting constrains is the ratio of breeder capacity to LWR or PHWR capacity.

They suggest that their projections over estimate breeder growth rates because they combine the stockpiles of plutonium coming from both safe-guarded and unsafeguarded reactors. Implicitly, therefore, all the breeder reactors would have to be under safeguards. This is against current policy. Should the DAE insist on keeping even some breeder reactors outside of safeguards, the growth rate will be further reduced.

The only constraint assumed here is fissile material availability. It assumes that there will be large scale construction of breeder reactors with no delays because of infrastructural and manufacturing problems, economic disincentives due to the high cost of electricity, or accidents. They conclude that nuclear power based on breeder reactors will never constitute a major source of electricity in India for several decades at the very least.

NOTE: this is a rephrasing of their conclusions, and these are not mine. I have only put this up for analysis. If the author is correct, 40% of DAE projections of 35% = 14%, and if 40% then 16%. That does not lead to NP becoming a backbone for the energy needs scenario for 2050's.

Do demolish these arguments with reason and facts, those who are experts on the field, and no personal barbs please - even against the authors of the paper.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 07 May 2011 06:23

Interesting article about a new technology - uses nuclear 'fingerprints' to scan cargo ships.. (Less false alarms due to truck load of banana..)
Physics for Safer Ports

While 700 million travelers undergo TSA's intrusive scans and pat-downs each year, 11 million cargo containers enter American ports with little screening at all. And the volume of those containers, roughly equivalent to 590 Empire State Buildings of cargo, could contain something even worse than box knives or exploding shoes, namely nuclear weapons.

Two teams of North Carolina physicists are mapping the intricacies of the atomic nucleus, which could provide better security at the ports. The scientists have identified new "fingerprints" of nuclear materials, such as uranium and plutonium. The fingerprints would be used in new cargo scanners to accurately and efficiently identify suspicious materials. The physics might also be used to improve analysis of spent nuclear fuel rods, which are a potential source of bomb-making materials.

The problem starts at ports, where terrorists may try to smuggle an entire dirty bomb or even smaller amounts of plutonium or uranium by hiding it within the mountains of cargo that pass into the country each day. Cargo scanners using the new nuclear fingerprints would be sensitive enough to spot an entire bomb or the smaller parts to build one, according to Mohammad Ahmed, a nuclear physicist at Duke University.

Ahmed and his colleagues are developing the fingerprints for the next-generation detectors with HIGS, the High Intensity Gamma-Ray Source. It is the world's most intense and tunable source of polarized gamma rays and is located on Duke's campus as part of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory. HIGS produces gamma rays that are guided to collide with target materials, causing a variety of nuclear reactions.

<snip > (Read the original article if interested)

The HIGS data show, for example, that a precisely tuned gamma beam at 6 MeV causes weapons-grade uranium, U-235, to emit one neutron parallel to the polarization plane for each neutron emitted perpendicular to the plane, giving the material a neutron fingerprint of one....

Naturally occurring uranium, U-238, emits three parallel neutrons for every one emitted perpendicular to the polarization plane of the beam, giving it a neutron fingerprint of three...

Beryllium, which can also be a neutron source in nuclear weapons, has a neutron fingerprint of 10. ....

Ahmed and Howell said that engineers at one private security company and scientists at U.S. national laboratories have already begun using the database to design new port security scanners.

esign sounds complex, but in some ways it resembles medical scanning equipment and appears promising to pursue, he said.

Currently, the spent fuel rods must be opened and tested to assess what materials remain in them. The process is expensive, but critical for the International Atomic Energy Agency to accurately calculate the amount of leftover fissile and nuclear materials. McNabb and Tonchev said that a new technique to distinguish the leftover U-235, U-238 and plutonium in the spent rods without opening them could substantially lower the costs to manage and account for nuclear waste to prevent nuclear proliferation by terrorists....

...

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 07 May 2011 10:18

amit wrote:There used to be a time when articles from know NPA Ayatollah chamchas like MV Ramana used to be taken apart and ridiculed. Now MV along with folks like Bidwai Purefool are quoted as experts by folks whose cap, eliminate and roll back agenda is now propaged without any pretense

Amit, there is no issue with MV's data or science..I at least find him quite useful for his data (adjusting of course, in certain cases for his NPA backgrounds

)..

Issue here is different..He is making an arcane point on whether FBR plans can be supported by India's current reprocessing capcities..Its a valid point, but again quite lost in the context of the current discussion (on nuclear power)...As I pointed out earlier, our nuke power plans for the next 10 years are peripherally based on the FBR (500 out of 20k)...So to somehow quote that as an example of India's unpreparedness for large capacity addition is "motivated"...

The fact is that India through the nuke deal has bought time, at least two decades, for us to perfect the famed "3 stage cycle"...Till then, our plans are almost completely based on PHWRs and imported LWRs...

the science of FBR is germane, not the economics of it (or the same of the nuclear power programme per se), not right now - therefore to start quoting that in the context of the latter is a huge red hering and waste of time...

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 07 May 2011 10:55

Amber G. wrote: Somnath - Simply because spent fuel rods are known to be "interesting" to terrorists. In USA, before 9/11 almost anyone can walk or take a tour of a reactor. and fuel rods did not have enough security..

Well, just havign access to a couple of spent fuel rods isnt going to help Ayman Al Zawahari, is it?

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 07 May 2011 12:29

somnath wrote:Amit, there is no issue with MV's data or science..I at least find him quite useful for his data (adjusting of course, in certain cases for his NPA backgrounds )..

Issue here is different..He is making an arcane point on whether FBR plans can be supported by India's current reprocessing capcities..

somnath, thanks for reading through the MVR rant and pulling out his issue. Clearly, he is pretending to be unaware of the details of the nuke deal which included the construction of a new reprocessing facility by India. I am not surprised.