India Nuclear News And Discussion

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 20 Mar 2011 11:00

GuruPrabhu wrote:All this opacity stuff is causing angst to you two. However, what makes you think that it is universally opaque? What if a "dossier" of capabilities has been handed over to the 7 other nuke states? Why do we assume that deterrence happens in the full glare of media spotlight and public curiosity?

Guruprabhu-ji, if it is being handled in that fashion, its a good start...But it is imperative that for strategic weapons the "insider" dealings get a little "less insider" over time...Establishments in any country are not monoliths, they are complicated creatures and are not controlled by a one single string...If the positions are widely ambiguous, diffrent parts of the establishment not within the abslute "inner circle" makes their own assumptions based on half-truths and quasi-facts!

Some time back, there was a briefing by the Paki Strategic Plans Division to a bunch of foreign diplomats/journos...the only Indian invited was Bharat Karnad - and he wrote in some detail about the same..(cant find that article though - should be somewhere)...And Gen Rashid Kidwai of SPD came across as a professional who knew what he was talking about - they said that the standing Paki assumption is that US and India know the location of 80% of Paki weapons...they operate their doctrine based on that assumption...He also mentioned that hence the weapons are kept in deep underground bunkers that can withstand a nuke strike....It also became clear that Pak would be looking at missiles as their primary vector to deliver nukes...And cruise missiles would be part of the nuke arsenal...

What are our assumptions? What are our primary vectors? With clearly superior level of cruise missile tech (brahmos), why are we letting Pak get away with cruise missiles being a nuke vector? It is taking away an option from us below the nuke threshold...Our draft nuke doctrine spoke of an ambitious delivery infrastructure that mirrors that of only two nations - US and Russia...It is expensive and diverse...The armed forces are obviously spending money in setting up the entire infra - the souped-up Su30 fleet of 42 that comes for a whopping 100 million dollars apiece...the nuke submarine fleet - all of it SSBN (rather than SSNs that the navy would prefer)...Multiple ballistic missiles...Given this extensive development, there should be enough transparency about the warheads that are supposed to be delivered through this infrastructure as well...else, like often in India's strategic history, all of it becomes ad hoc and self-contradictory...

ramdas · Post by **ramdas** » 20 Mar 2011 13:11

Somnathji,

What you have just said is indeed the main point. I believe that Bharat Karnad among others makes exactly this point. Indeed, in the normal course of things, a number of positive developments are likely to take place over the next several years leading to 2020.

1) Operationalization of the Agni III (which is already inducted and in production).
2) The same for Agni V (though this will happen around 2015+)
3) MIRV variant of Agni V
4) deployment of the K-15 (700 km range) and K-4 (3500 km range SLBMs)
5) other ballistic missiles like Agni2+ may also be operationalized.
6) The "gold plated" Sukhois....

This is indeed extensive...though not on the scale of the U.S/Russia, it is a little more extensive than what France had in 1991 and somewhat like what PRC is currently possessing (though the "top" missiles have lower range...Agni V < DF-31A, etc)

Given this, and given that we do not want an ad hoc situation where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, there are two options.

A. Scale down delivery systems/deployments to keep the deterrent truly minimal (emphasis on the word "minimum" in MCD).
B. Make sure that warhead development/production is enough to demand the deployment of all of the above systems (emphasis on the word "credible" in MCD).

Of course, NPAs and other such vested interests prefer that we follow option A, which essentially amounts to capping capabilities at the current level. For example, the NPA Hans Kristensen in his estimates of our arsenal mentions that it is unlikely that we will develop MIRVs and points out that MIRVs would rubbish our stand of minimum credible deterrent. He should get an unpleasant shock about three years or so from now (when an MIRVed A-V variant is tested). Further, MIRVs do not negate our policy of MCD. They only make the MCD more cost-effective. Those concerned about national interests must ensure that it is option B we take.

disha · Post by **disha** » 20 Mar 2011 13:34

chaanakya wrote:Massive uranium deposits found in Andhra Pradesh

U308 is uranium oxide , requires enrichment to 3-5% U235 before being used as fuel.

Not in PHWRs. That is the beauty of the 3 stage Indian Nuclear fuel cycle.

Now only if they can process the above tumallapalle ore effectively....

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 20 Mar 2011 16:52

Massive uranium deposits found in Andhra Pradesh

Might as well be on the moon. There will be protesters alleging birth defects before one picogram of ore is mined. Two decades from now UCIL will be trying to start mining with the Chief Minister of the state opposing same and student unions alleging police brutality.

Hiten · Post by **Hiten** » 20 Mar 2011 18:11

SaiK wrote:^^ watch out if you don't have active protection. The NDTV has a trojan:

Trojan.Win32.FakeAv.awrp (v)

have KIS 2010 installed, but got no warning

Anyway here is the direct link

http://bitcast-in.bitgravity.com/ndtvod ... _17349.mp4

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 20 Mar 2011 21:54

Hiten wrote: Anyway here is the direct link

http://bitcast-in.bitgravity.com/ndtvod ... _17349.mp4

Note that he puts to rest the nonsense about "EPR is untested" (using language similar to yours truly). Hope he succeeds in pushing Jaitapur through.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 20 Mar 2011 22:11

Gerard wrote:
Massive uranium deposits found in Andhra Pradesh
Might as well be on the moon. There will be protesters alleging birth defects before one picogram of ore is mined. Two decades from now UCIL will be trying to start mining with the Chief Minister of the state opposing same and student unions alleging police brutality.

Can India claim.."Hey, That's My Lunar Uranium!"
(How about Japan?..

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 21 Mar 2011 06:12

GuruPrabhu wrote:Note that he puts to rest the nonsense about "EPR is untested" (using language similar to yours truly).

That is very correct...They have poured in 6 billion dollars on that Finnish reactor - a business enterprise, not an experimental one! "Untested" EPR is the almost the same as saying P16A is an "untested" design (yes, and thats why the IN is spending 3 billion dollars on it)...

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 21 Mar 2011 07:08

http://www.hindu.com/2011/03/20/stories ... 961400.htm

Massive uranium deposits found in Andhra Pradesh

T.S. Subramanian

Potentiality of the area is huge; it will be one of the top 20 of the world's reserves: Atomic Minerals Directorate

WHO IS MINING THIS?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2011 08:23

LINK

India's development of thorium for nuclear power generation caught world interest in the light of the blasts at Japan's nuclear power stations. CNBC-TV18’s Sanjay Suri and Anup Gomen report.

India is considered as the world leader in thorium. The Kakrapar-1 reactor located near Surat in Gujarat is the world's first reactor which uses thorium than depleted uranium for vital power generation. Compared to uranium, thorium has less fissile. The nuclear physicists are now looking at thorium as the safer model.

Ian Hore-Lacy from World Nuclear Association said, "India is the only country in the world that develops thorium fuel cycle. The expertise in India is world class and it is applied very rigorously to the safety of nuclear plants in India."

India has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves and is keen to tap thorium for the growing needs of its population," Hore-Lacy added.

Paddy Regan, Professor of Nuclear Physics from University of Surrey said, “India has a population of a billion people and has massive reserves of thorium. India's nuclear programme, based on the thorium cycle, is slightly different. Indian model thorium based reactors seem to be a very sensible way to go."

Pioneering Indian technology using thorium rather than uranium generated new interest around the world. Thorium is considered less efficient but certainly is much safer. In the light of what has happened in Japan, critics are less inclined to dismiss thorium than they were before.

Next steps in nuke energy will be thorium based. Hope India can capitalize on that.

arnab · Post by **arnab** » 21 Mar 2011 08:26

Finally, some data on 'passive cooling' in the Indian reactors (both LWR and HWRs).

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110321/j ... 742772.jsp

India’s two US-made boiling water reactors at Tarapur — similar to the ones in trouble at Fukushima — are equipped with gravity-driven cooling systems that can cool the core with water circulating upward and downward for about eight hours without electricity. “It will work even in a total station blackout and keep cooling the core for about eight hours,” said Srikumar Banerjee, chairperson of the atomic energy commission. “We get a grace period to fix the power supply.”

**

The nuclear fuel rods in the PHWR are surrounded by 260 tonnes of heavy water that will prevent overheating for about 13 hours, and another 625 tonnes of heavy water lying in a larger vessel girdling the fuel rods are expected to provide up to 36 hours of cooling.

So we definitely need better technology to increase the 'passive' cooling capacity beyond 13 hours for both LWRs and HWRs.

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 21 Mar 2011 08:34

Jarita wrote:WHO IS MINING THIS?

no one yet, but it has been suggested than moon-rovers ought to be employed.

ramana wrote: Indian model thorium based reactors seem to be a very sensible way to go."

satyameva jayate

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 21 Mar 2011 08:50

GuruPrabhu wrote:no one yet, but it has been suggested than moon-rovers ought to be employed

It cannot be the private sector in any case - has to be a pblic sector entity...

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 21 Mar 2011 11:33

arnab wrote:So we definitely need better technology to increase the 'passive' cooling capacity beyond 13 hours for both LWRs and HWRs.

Absolutely..The term "passive cooling" is a generic term - and really says nothing about the capacity of the system to handle disasters..there are always design compromises made to achieve and optimum result...And some people keep parrting away inane stuff about "PHWRs safe", "LWRs dangerous"!

GuruPrabhu wrote:ramana wrote:
Indian model thorium based reactors seem to be a very sensible way to go."

satyameva jayate

True enough...The qustion though is, at what cost? Nuclear power is finally a commercial enterprise, unlike the strategic programme which is not...Is there enough cost-analysis done in the establishment to estimate the economic cost of generating power through the AHWRs? Or even FBRs before that? For some reason, NPCIL is not handling the FBR project on its own, but a different company, BHAVINI - a JV between NPCIL and IGCAR (?) has been setup...A bit strange this arrangement...Why isnt NPCIL not handling the project as BAU? Is it because it wants to ringfence the commercial implications of the FBR out of itself? BTW, even the AHWRs are being built by BARC, not NPCIL AFAIK..Its interesting to note that the LWRs will be built and opreated by NPCIL - shows which tech is at what stage of "readiness"!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 21 Mar 2011 11:42

Japan s ;oss due to damage to the nuke power station is enormous and will last several decades. So the cost of ownership of dangerous tech is more then less efficient plants which has less liability and hence less /total/ cost.

Very important once 50 years of nuclear power generation analysis is done

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 21 Mar 2011 12:02

Acharya wrote:Japan s ;oss due to damage to the nuke power station is enormous and will last several decades. So the cost of ownership of dangerous tech is more then less efficient plants which has less liability and hence less /total/ cost

Acharya-ji, of course, you have a very good estimate of what the "loss" is to Japan on acocunt of Fukushima and how many years it will "last"....Maybe you can share the source of this estimate?

While you are at it, maybe you can also "elucidate" which, according to you are the "less efficient plants" with "less total cost"..

Christopher Sidor · Post by **Christopher Sidor** » 21 Mar 2011 15:53

The world bank is estimating that it would take Japan up to 5 years and up to $ 235 billion to recover.
Source
BBC
Business Week

On the other hand Normua Holdings is estimating that "bill for clearing wreckage and rebuilding roads, housing and utilities is forecast at 5 trillion yen ($62 billion) or higher"
Link (Please read the second para.)

If we add to these figures the loss due to zero production, shut factories, insurance losses/claims, etc. the price automatically goes up.

The silver lining is that some optimists have said that by Q4 2011, Japan should be on a recovery path
Link1

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 21 Mar 2011 16:28

I thought it was only India which had a working prototype of the AHWR.

But then , this article confuses me:
Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium

A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium.

Have I got something wrong here? Why isn't this guy not mentioning the AWHR.?

abhischekcc · Post by **abhischekcc** » 21 Mar 2011 17:17

^Neela, it is a British rag. Do you think they can mention anything in which India is doing well? And a world leader no less.

If thorium gives safe nuclear power and India is a leader in that, then India is a saviour of the world. Do you think any Britisher can say that!

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 22 Mar 2011 04:52

Neela wrote:I thought it was only India which had a working prototype of the AHWR.

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

Have I got something wrong here? Why isn't this guy not mentioning the AWHR.?

The article does not mention "breeder" anywhere, which is what Indian contribution is in the three stage architecture.

In fact, way down is a comment:

Let's not forget about breeder reactors and sodium fast reactors. Both are safe, do not use enriched Uranium and actually clean up existing radiation so we don't have to store and guard the waste for thousands of years. Bill Gates is pushing the breeder reactors, and sodium fast reactors can be built by GE as small, transportable, reactors that can be coupled up to any power output required.

Even this guy is unaware of Indian proposals - looooooooooong back - about placing mini thorium reactors across Indian rural areas.

On the flip side Indian PR is a self goal.

BTW, Russia and France are also on the same trail for some decades now.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 22 Mar 2011 05:10

Neela,

If it makes you feel better (and it should):

2010 :: IEEE :: Is Thorium the Nuclear Fuel of the Future?

And in fact, several countries are investigating the possibility of thorium-based energy generation: India's working on an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, Japan has the miniFuji, Russia is working on the VVER-1000 and even the United States has long term plans to experiment with commercial energy generation by thorium. Most of these plans are nebulous, but for some it’s a serious option. The country with the most specific plan is India, which has drawn up a three-stage process to rely almost entirely on thorium by 2030.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 22 Mar 2011 07:03

Neela wrote: thought it was only India which had a working prototype of the AHWR.

??Not sure...AFAIK, the construction of AHWR has been postponed every year since 2007!

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 22 Mar 2011 09:36

Preventing the Next Nuclear Meltdown

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... r-meltdown

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 22 Mar 2011 09:51

Fantastic interview of Srikumar Bannerjee - simplifies a lot of the stupidities going on in the media..

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/you-s ... i/765570/0

SG: You see these scary pictures of the top of the buildings blowing up.

It is only the top of the building which is blowing up and not the containment which is blowing up. Containment has not blown up in any of the cases. What has happened is hydrogen generation because of metal water reaction. Even if a part of the fuel is open and not immersed in water, then the temperature there rises up. And with that rising temperature, it will interact with the coolant present that is steam and zirconium and steam results in hydrogen. This hydrogen seeps through and that gets collected at the top of the building where it explodes.

SG: Would there be other events in our life where we might take that much radiation?

Oh yes, as we are standing in the sunlight, we are getting a lot of radiation. And I’m not talking about the ultraviolet radiation. But there are large variations—if you fly from one place to another, you get a lot of radiation. If you fly to Hyderabad, to the Kerala coast, it’s unbelievably high. If you go to Lonavala and come back, you get a lot of radiation than if you go to the Tarapur site and come back. Tarapur site actually does not have any significant radiation.

SG: Is our Tarapur reactor comparable to this?

Same. Tarapur is actually a few years older to this. In Tarapur, we have introduced some systems and updates. One of them is this condenser loop which actually takes out the heat of the reactor in a passive manner. This is located at a height and the thermosiphon keeps cooling it down. So it is the multiplicity of the barriers because of which we can say with confidence that we are much safer. In addition, we are not in a seismic zone.

He misunderstood the question slightly, but on Jaitapur..

And as for your second question about it being untested, any reactor design is an evolutionary process. In India, we first designed the 220 MW reactor and then we went to 540 MW reactor and now we are embarking upon 700 MW reactor. We started it this year. So these reactors are not untested. It is only an incremental increase over the previous tested reactor from 540 to 700

And of course, the "killer punch" IMO...

SG: Dr Banerjee, before I let you go, as one of the highly reputed, finest nuclear scientists in the whole world, will you look at an ordinary citizen like me in the eye and say don’t worry about nuclear energy any more than you need to worry about anything else?

I can only say that you should worry less for nuclear energy than walking on the streets or driving in Delhi. Let’s take this example: in Japan, four trains have been washed away. What happened to the passengers? No one is talking about that. Or this plume that they keep showing on TV...most of it is petrochemicals. And you say that there is a nuclear cloud over Japan in this blast, which is essentially a hydrogen blast, that has some fragments of concrete going up for a few seconds and that is being repeatedly shown. And it has been compared with the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This, I think, is a little unscientific.

The full interview should be read - that itself should stop a lot of the inanities doing the rounds...

One last point - there is absolutely no wrapping of science in the flag...No attempts at "Indian PHWRs good, foreign BWRs bad"...I have seen this only with the "best" men of science - they never ever wrap science in the flag....

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 22 Mar 2011 09:57

Preventing the next Banana Catastrophe

http://www.openhazards.com/blogs/jrholl ... n-readings

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 22 Mar 2011 09:59

somnath wrote:Fantastic interview of Srikumar Bannerjee - simplifies a lot of the stupidities going on in the media..

Thanks, Somnath-ji. This is the transcript of the video link posted earlier.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 22 Mar 2011 10:19

It is only the top of the building which is blowing up and not the containment which is blowing up. Containment has not blown up in any of the cases.

This person apparently hasn't caught up with latest news. The containment is breached, there are no questions about that now since the Japanese have themselves admitted it.

This can be safely thrown in dust bin.

arnab · Post by **arnab** » 22 Mar 2011 10:38

Sanku wrote:
It is only the top of the building which is blowing up and not the containment which is blowing up. Containment has not blown up in any of the cases.
This person apparently hasn't caught up with latest news. The containment is breached, there are no questions about that now since the Japanese have themselves admitted it.

This can be safely thrown in dust bin.

Sir, instead of relying on daily star for your updates why not go the IAEA website ansd check the logs? And can we reasonably agree that the 'person' Dr Banerjee would probably know a lot more about nuclear science than an average googler?

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsu ... ate01.html

Unit 1

Coolant within Unit 1 is covering about half of the fuel rods in the reactor, and Japanese authorities believe the core has been damaged. High pressure within the reactor's containment led operators to vent gas from the containment. Later, an explosion destroyed the outer shell of the reactor building above the containment on 12 March.

There are no indications of problems with either the reactor pressure vessel or the primary containment vessel.

Efforts to pump seawater into the reactor core are continuing.

No precise information has been available on the status of the spent fuel pool.

On 18 March, Japan assigned an INES rating of 5 to this Unit.

On 19 March, the containment vessel pressure indication was restored.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 22 Mar 2011 14:36

Came across this article by George Monbiot...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -fukushima

Now Monbiot is not an "establishment" person, not a nuke scientist, much less a salesperson for the nuke industry..He is one of the foremost "greens" in Europe..Someone who has run an unceasing crusade on issues like global warming etc...

Its interestin therefore when he says..

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

And some more "bananas"..

For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 23 Mar 2011 08:36

An important article by Brahma Chellaney - worth posting in full:

Corrupt means taint the nuclear deal

Brahma Chellaney

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament.

The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power. The real issue thus is safe and cost-competitive nuclear power.

What is disconcerting about India's plans for massive imports is that they are not part of a well-thought-out strategy but a quid pro quo to the United States, France and Russia for bringing the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear deal to fruition, including through a Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver. For example, while keeping Parliament in the dark, the UPA government faxed a letter to U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns on September 10, 2008 — just hours before the White House sent the deal to the U.S. Congress for ratification — committing India to import a minimum of 10,000MW of nuclear-generating capacity from the U.S.

As the WikiLeaks' revelations, published by The Hindu, underscore, the U.S. has a big stake in the nuclear deal and went to unusual lengths to drum up support in India and ensure the outcome it desired. And although the deal is loaded with largely one-sided and irrevocable conditions for India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh staked his premiership on getting the deal through.

The WikiLeaks' disclosures over the cash-for-votes scandal during the consummation process only confirm the role mucky money played in lubricating the deal. Now big money is influencing the opaque contract making.

Those who pushed the deal through without building national consensus or permitting parliamentary scrutiny now seem too invested in this deal to objectively gauge long-term safety or the cost competitiveness of reactor imports. One indication of this is the unabashed manner in which a nuclear park has been exclusively reserved — without any competitive-bidding process — for each of the four preferred foreign vendors. Yet after Fukushima, several major safety concerns stand out:

India is committed to importing reactor models that are yet to be operated in any country, including state-owned Areva's 1630MW European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) and the General Electric-Hitachi's 1520MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR), which is still to receive the final U.S. design certification.

There is no justification for importing untried reactor models. In the 1960s, GE sold India the first two prototypes of its Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), whose designs it later supplied for all six reactors at the now-crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant. India had little option then because nuclear power was relatively new. The GE-built Tarapur plant faced important operating and safety issues, in part because the Americans cut off supply of even safety-related replacement parts in response to the Pokharan I test. Today, the rush to buy untried foreign-reactor technology is simply indefensible.

It is only after the Fukushima nuclear crisis unfolded that India's nuclear chief belatedly acknowledged the need for an earthquake- and tsunami-related safety evaluation of Areva's EPR design. Why wasn't this done before committing India to buy the EPR prototype?

The drive to build energy “security” by importing foreign fuel-dependent reactors — that too without transparency, open bidding and public accountability — is nothing but a money-spending boondoggle, with the potential to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks for the corrupt.

In an openly manipulated process, price negotiations are taking place only after each of the four chosen foreign vendors has been gifted an exclusive seaside nuclear park to build reactors. What bargaining power are the authorities left with when they have already reserved each park for a particular firm?

With the rise of the corporate nuclear lobby, the line between the seller and the buyer has blurred. The nuclear deal was pushed through by the Prime Minister's Office with the aid of some serving and retired nuclear officials, private-sector companies attracted to nuclear business, and interested foreign governments and vendors. The very entities and consultants that are set to reap major commercial gains helped build the dubious case for massive reactor imports by India.

Now an incestuous and unethical relationship exists between the buyer and seller, underscored by the moves to place initial import contracts worth more than $10 billion without any competitive bidding. It may require the Supreme Court's intervention to stop this brazen cronyism, or else a 2G-style scam would likely unfold, but with long-term safety ramifications.

To compound matters, the line between the regulator and the operator has also blurred. And the secrecy enveloping the nuclear military programme has unwarrantably been extended to a purely commercial sector — nuclear power.

Structurally, the national regulator, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, is in no position to act independently because, like the operator, it is under the Department of Atomic Energy. More worrying, however, is the manner in which the Board has become the handmaiden of the political agenda set in New Delhi.

Before embarking on a major expansion of its programme, shouldn't India first create a strong, truly independent nuclear regulator?

Worse still, the planned import of four different types of new Light Water Reactor (LWR) technology will make India's nuclear-power complex the most diverse in the world. Technological diversity may be good to obviate reliance on one supplier. But the wide-ranging diversity India is getting into will make its safety responsibilities extremely arduous and complex, given the multiplicity of reactor designs it already has in place.

It takes a long time to create teams of experienced safety engineers for any reactor model. But when a particular reactor model is still not in operation anywhere, training of engineers cannot even begin. By contrast, India has immense experience in building, operating and safeguarding indigenous CANDU-style reactors.

The chain of incidents engulfing all six Fukushima Daiichi reactors was triggered by their close proximity to each other. With a flare-up at one reactor affecting systems at another, Japan ended up with serial blasts, fires, spent-fuel exposures, and other radiation leaks.

This seriously calls into question India's decision to approve the construction of six and more large reactors at each new nuclear park. The plans to build clusters of reactors must now be abandoned.

At Fukushima, the spent-fuel rods — holding most of the highly radioactive uranium at the site — have proved a bigger radiation problem than the reactor cores. This shines a spotlight on the spent-fuel challenges at the sister but older plant in Tarapur, where the discharged fuel has been accumulating for over four decades because the U.S. has refused to either take it or allow India to reprocess it.

The mounting Tarapur spent-fuel stockpile poses greater safety and environmental hazards than probably at any other plant in the world. The spent-fuel rods — unlike the reactors — have no containment structure, and they endanger public safety in India's densely-populated commercial heartland.

The spent-fuel bundles are kept under water in bays at a special facility at Tarapur. But such temporary pools have proven Fukushima's Achilles heel.

The cost to move the spent-fuel rods in secure dry casks to a faraway desert area will be prohibitive. India already has borne high storage costs at Tarapur. Those costs should not only be billed to Washington, but India must exert pressure on America to agree to the immediate spent-fuel reprocessing under international safeguards — the only viable option to contain the risks.

India's nuclear accident-liability legislation has seriously burdened the Indian taxpayer by capping the liability of foreign suppliers at a modest level. With the foreign vendors also freed from the task of producing electricity at marketable rates, the taxpayer is to subsidise the high-priced electricity generated. For the foreign vendors, there is no downside risk; only profits to reap. Yet GE and Westinghouse are unhappy with the state operator's right of recourse.

The legislation was passed after the BJP — a party too compromised to be able to withstand pressures — cut a deal with the government. But after Fukushima, it is important to tighten some provisions of the legislation, which goes beyond U.S. law to channel both economic liability and legal liability to the state and abridge victims' legal rights.

More broadly, before signing multibillion-dollar contracts, India must first formulate a coherent nuclear-power policy that also addresses safety issues. After all, Dr. Singh is seeking to take India from a largely indigenous capacity to a predominantly import-based programme by implicitly jettisoning Dr. Homi Bhabha's vision and strategy. Not only is the goal of a self-reliant thorium fuel cycle now pie in the sky, but India is also set to become dependent on foreign suppliers even for critical safety-related replacement parts.

Actually, the corrupt means employed in engineering the nuclear deal must now lead to its long-blocked scrutiny by Parliament. A larger question haunting the country is whether it has institutionally become too corrupt to be able to effectively uphold nuclear safety in the long run — a concern reinforced by the troubled state of internal security, high incidence of terrorism and politicisation of the nuclear establishment.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/03/23/stories ... 301200.htm

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 23 Mar 2011 09:18

^^^the article is a bit of a rehash of an earlier article by BC in WSJ...He makes some good and pertinent points, especially on the question of buying reactors with multiple designs, much of the others are ideological polemics..

What is disconcerting about India's plans for massive imports is that they are not part of a well-thought-out strategy but a quid pro quo to the United States, France and Russia for bringing the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear deal to fruition, including through a Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver. For example, while keeping Parliament in the dark, the UPA government faxed a letter to U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns on September 10, 2008 — just hours before the White House sent the deal to the U.S. Congress for ratification — committing India to import a minimum of 10,000MW of nuclear-generating capacity from the U.S.

there isnt a single US reactor design that is still even under negotiation...Even if commitments were made, it really hasnt meant much in practice, while we have gotten what we wanted!

Those who pushed the deal through without building national consensus or permitting parliamentary scrutiny now seem too invested in this deal to objectively gauge long-term safety or the cost competitiveness of reactor imports. One indication of this is the unabashed manner in which a nuclear park has been exclusively reserved — without any competitive-bidding process — for each of the four preferred foreign vendors

the issue of competitive bidding is well taken..But costs? What is the economic cost/MW of our PHWRs? There are tons of reports (from the usual suspects) that they are prohibitievely high...Without giving a totem pole comparison, BC is just hand waiving on the point..

India is committed to importing reactor models that are yet to be operated in any country, including state-owned Areva's 1630MW European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) and the General Electric-Hitachi's 1520MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR), which is still to receive the final U.S. design certification

The EPR design is under construction in 4 places - 2 in Europe and 2 in China...Its a bit of sophistry to say its pending design certification in the US when it has cleared that stage in Europe and is working on getting the same in the US!And as I said earlier, there is no negotiation currently on for the GE-Hitachi design yet!

It is only after the Fukushima nuclear crisis unfolded that India's nuclear chief belatedly acknowledged the need for an earthquake- and tsunami-related safety evaluation of Areva's EPR design. Why wasn't this done before committing India to buy the EPR prototype?

Have all our PHWRs/AHWR/FBR taken through the same earthquake-tsunami saftey eval? In fact Srikumar Bannerjee said that ALL our existing reactors would get evaluated...When a black swan event happens, by definition it s ablack swan!

In an openly manipulated process, price negotiations are taking place only after each of the four chosen foreign vendors has been gifted an exclusive seaside nuclear park to build reactors. What bargaining power are the authorities left with when they have already reserved each park for a particular firm?

This is a fair point...And once we have more details on the commercial aspects of the AREVA deal, the only one "live", we will know a bit more about it..

India's nuclear accident-liability legislation has seriously burdened the Indian taxpayer by capping the liability of foreign suppliers at a modest level. With the foreign vendors also freed from the task of producing electricity at marketable rates, the taxpayer is to subsidise the high-priced electricity generated. For the foreign vendors, there is no downside risk; only profits to reap. Yet GE and Westinghouse are unhappy with the state operator's right of recourse.

He contradicst himself...If the Liability Bill were to be such a sweetheart deal, why would suppliers be unhappy? Second, what does he mean by "supplies freed from task of producing at marketable rates"?

I want to reiterate a point I made earlier...The imported LWRs are all being executed by NPCIL, a commercial entity..On the other had, both the FBR and the AHWR are being executed by different entities (BHAVINI and BARC resp), both of which are NOT commercial entities..What does it say about the possible commercial implications of the different tech?

Actually, the corrupt means employed in engineering the nuclear deal must now lead to its long-blocked scrutiny by Parliament. A larger question haunting the country is whether it has institutionally become too corrupt to be able to effectively uphold nuclear safety in the long run — a concern reinforced by the troubled state of internal security, high incidence of terrorism and politicisation of the nuclear establishment.

He makes a fair point...Though he knows himself that the deal was not really about nuke power...About the rest, terrorism etc - as pertinent to Indian reactors as foreign!

arnab · Post by **arnab** » 23 Mar 2011 09:25

somnath wrote:^^^ Second, what does he mean by "supplies freed from task of producing at marketable rates"?

I think he is arguing that suppliers are not operators so they are at an advantageous position of lower liability

Had pvt suppliers been allowed to become operators, he would have argued about how terrible it was that foreign cos were operating strategically important nuke power plants. It is called a 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 23 Mar 2011 16:50

WTF is the article saying, no mention of our Fast breeder Technology

The reactor that saves itself: safe nuclear does exist and China leads the way with thorium

Or Western countries don't want to mention India and Pioneer.

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 23 Mar 2011 18:22

The thrust into thorium is yet another example of China looking at what India is doing, and trying to match or surpass it. Previous areas include Antarctica expedition, moon mission, IIT's, civilian nuclear reactors, alternative energy( wind etc), and of course IT and BPO.

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 23 Mar 2011 23:39

In page 77 of this thread there is a comment dated 18 Mar 2011 which reads:

Spot on...Unfortunately people uneducated about history (and science) blabber inanities like "one off" etc...People forget that our power programme was initially very much planned with the GE BWR design in mind...It was only when the follow-on reactors to Tarapur had more stringent "safeguards" conditions that Homi Bhabha demurred...It was the exigencies of the "strategic" programme rather than any great presience about incremental safety of CANDU (over BWR) that drove the enterprise...

The autobiography of Dr M.R Srinivasan "From Fission to Fusion", first published in Viking by Penguin Books India in 2002 (well prior to the nuclear deal) offers a reality check on the above quoted views. As Principal Project Engineer at Tarapur 1 & 2, Dr. Srinivasan was involved all the way from bid preparation to tendering to bid evaluation to contract signing. His narrative about the conception and birth of Tarapur 1 & 2 runs from printed page 32 to page 73 of his book with many an anecdotal tidbit. Not knowing whether or not this book is available for reference just now, I have prepared the following text by culling the sentences from his book (so as to retain his own words), which I think might be relevant to check out the statements quoted above, and have left out the others. These sentences so culled from the book and presented below are not contiguous, but I have maintained their sequence. Phrases and sentences in italicised blue are my explanatory comments. All font decorations (bold, underline etc) in the narrative below are mine. However, there is nothing better than reading the original, if you can get a copy.

[quote][Pg 32] REACTOR POLICY

Based on an incisive appreciation of India's nuclear resource position, Bhabha proposed the three-stage programme: first, building natural uranium reactors, . . . <-- Snip -->. We discussed this approach with the British and French reactor specialists, who generally agreed with the concepts. The priority was to identify the reactor line to be adopted for the first stage, which had to burn natural uranium and produce plutonium in abundance. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 34] Thus only two types of reactors were available that could use natural uranium as fuel: the graphite-moderated, carbon-dioxide-cooled reactors, such as those developed in Britain and France, or the heavy water reactor developed in Canada. Of these two systems, the former had an early lead and had been industrialized more intensively. The Canadian work on their heavy water reactor followed somewhat later. It was these two types that we studied seriously as candidates for our first stage of nuclear energy production. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 45] LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS FOR INDIA'S FIRST NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

Studies on the feasibility of introducing nuclear power units into Indian grids were taken up from 1956, . . . <-- Snip --> He, {Mohammed Hayath, chairman of the CWP} and his colleagues identified the western region of India, comprising the then composite state of Bombay, as the ideal region for India's first nuclear power station. In 1958, Prime Minister Nehru agreed, in principle, with Bhabha to embark on India's first nuclear power station. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 45] A number of consulting engineering companies from the U.K. and the U.S. offered to act as our consultants to help select the site, draw up the specifications for the plant and assist in the selection of the plant supplier. The project group {M. N. Chakravarti, Dr M.R.S,., Maheshwar Dayal, G. Viswanathan, and B. Maithreyan} convinced Bhabha that it could carry out these activities in-house with the help of the Central Water and Power Commission. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 46] Eventually Tarapur turned out to be the best site and has remained so. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 47] DEFINING THE BID INVITATION

The project group decided early on that the power station would be built by a leading international nuclear power plant builder selected from global tenders. <-- Snip -->

The project group evaluated several types of reactors before settling on one that used natural uranium as fuel. It appeared at the time that graphite-moderated, carbon-dioxide-cooled reactors of U.K. and French design suited our needs best, as it was a policy dictated by the nuclear fuel available to India. <-- Snip --> There was another reactor, the boiling water reactor (BWR), developed by GE of the U.S. also using low-enriched uranium. GE also sent out exploratory missions to brief Indian scientists about the technical and economic features of BWRs. {Rebecca Mark, Mark 0 !!} <-- Snip -->

[Pg 48] Towards the end of 1960, we completed the bid invitation document, which the Atomic Energy Commission went over from beginning to end. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 49] EVALUATING THE BIDS

The Tarapur group held discussions with the potential parties before finalizing the bid invitation. After considerable persuasion from the American reactor vendors, the DAE agreed to receive bids based on enriched uranium reactors, but it included a disclaimer that the DAE reserved the right to reject all such bids. Seven bids were received: two from the U.K. (English Electric Company [EEC] and General Electric Company) one from France (the French Industrial Consortium), three from the U.S. (Westinghouse, General Electric [GE] and General Atomic) and one from Canada (from the Canadian government-owned company, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.). Two bids were quickly rejected: The Canadian one based on a heavy water reactor was for joint development and lacked a firm price or schedule, and the offer from General Atomic of the U.S. was for an unproven reactor system, which was still in a conceptual stage.

Since the natural uranium systems figured uppermost in our choice, we looked at the offers from the U.K. and France seriously. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 50] A scrutiny of the bids showed that there were only two serious bids in contention among the natural uranium systems— namely the offers of English Electric Company and the French consortium. Of these two, the French offer was the cheaper. Although the French had never participated in any large project in India, they were nevertheless very keen to partake in the Tarapur project. English Electric, which had a reasonably well-run business in India through its subsidiary English Electric India Ltd., made a strong effort to drum up support . . . <-- Snip -->

[Pg 51] In the 1950s and 1960s, India and France took identical positions on the question of international control on atomic energy, so France agreed that no safeguard obligations would be applicable for the reactor installation or for natural uranium. If India had gone ahead with the import of French reactors, the import processes would have been like those for an ordinary power plant. The carefully drafted safeguard arrangements of IAEA, under the goading of the U.S., would have collapsed even before initiation. France also offered a fairly long-term line of credit at a relatively low interest rate. The French political and atomic leaderships stretched themselves to the very limit to get the order from India.

Although the French proposals greatly appealed to us, we had two more bids to consider. At the time, America's GE was the major power plant supplier in the U.S. and abroad. GE had chosen the boiling water reactor also using low-enriched uranium as its design for the electric utilities. American electric utilities had chosen reactor systems from both GE and Westinghouse, both of which had the clearance of the U.S. regulatory authority.

GE and Westinghouse submitted bids that were substantially lower in capital cost yet had a higher fuelling cost because low-enriched uranium was used instead of natural uranium. We calculated the lifetime costs including the outgo in foreign currency for the continuous import of LEU. We also discussed the possibility of fabricating the fuel in India and importing only LEU as uranium hexafluoride gas. GE was prepared to consider recycling plutonium from spent fuel, as a further measure to reduce the lifetime foreign currency expenditure. {Of course, now it is well known how the US reneged this part of the contract.} Its offer was cheaper, and although Westinghouse dropped its price substantially in final negotiations, it could not match its competitor's price. <-- Snip -->

[Pg 52] INDO-AMERICAN NEGOTIATIONS: SELECTING GENERAL ELECTRIC

In 1963 India held discussions with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) and the U.S. Department of State on American supplies of enriched uranium fuel via an agreement of cooperation. The cooperation agreement was the first step towards providing a political framework for the export of nuclear reactors from the U.S. to India. Bhabha and Glenn Seaborg, chairman of the USAEC and an outstanding scientist himself, led these discussions. A soft-spoken man, Seaborg was a man keen on resolving the differences between the U.S. and India amicably. Nonetheless, the Department of State's non-proliferation hawks were making progress difficult and slow. India had taken a public position that safeguards did not apply to equipment and materials. Equally, America's stated position was that safeguards were applicable to the reactor plant. This seminal difference was finessed when India agreed that it would use nuclear fuel supplied only from the U.S. for the entire life of the reactors. The sole exception was plutonium and residual-enriched uranium in the spent fuel from Tarapur that could be fed back to the plant. India accepted the condition that the plutonium or other substances in Tarapur's spent fuel would be used only for peaceful purposes. The agreement foresaw the return of spent fuel to the U.S. so that India could get credit for the unburnt uranium and plutonium. In that event, the U.S. would also be obliged to use these materials only for peaceful purposes. The Indian side insisted on the acceptance of reciprocal obligations, and the U.S. agreed, reluctantly. {Of course none of this happened; with respect to spent fuel from Tarapur, US has been thumbing its nose at India.} <-- Snip -->

[Pg 54] The loan agreement between India and the U.S. was signed in December 1963 in New Delhi by Bhabha for India and Ambassador Chester Bowles for the U.S. The financing terms were very generous: a forty-year loan with no repayments in the first ten years and a 0.75 per cent interest rate. The Indian government, in turn, was to loan the monies to the Tarapur project at interest rates applicable to other power projects in the public sector. So the benefit of the low-interest loan accrued to the Indian economy as a whole, not to the Tarapur project as such.<-- Snip -->

[Pg 56] The signing of the contract took place at the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C.., in May 1964. <-- Snip --> I had the honour of signing as witness . . . <-- Snip -->[/quote]
Also, In his book "From the Desk of a Nuclear Scientist" (Published by Corporate Communications, NPCIL, circa 2008), Dr. Srinivasan says:

[quote][Pg 04] Bhabha was persuaded by Gen. Nicholls (earlier of the Manhattan Project, then working for Westinghouse of U.S.A) to allow the U.S. nuclear plant suppliers (Westinghouse and General Electric) to submit bids to India. But Bhabha inserted the condition that the Department of Atomic Energy reserved the right to reject all tenders for reactors using fuel other than natural uranium, without assigning any reason. It was however a fact that the technical specifications drawn up by the DAE applied only to graphite moderated carbon-dioxide gas cooled reactors(GCR) developed in the U.K. and France.

[Pg 05] As things turned out, the offers of GE for BWRs and Westinghouse for PWRs were much cheaper than the ones for GCRs from France or U.K. Eventually, India chose GE's BWRs for Tarapur. This showed the pragmatism of Bhabha and not being dogmatic, if that was in India's interest. However, Bhabha processed clearance for the two BWRs for Tarapur along with two reactors of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) of Canadian design for Rajasthan, at the same time. <-- Snip -->[/quote]

Ravi Karumanchiri · Post by **Ravi Karumanchiri** » 24 Mar 2011 00:13

X-POSTED from a comment I just made on the Globe and Mail website http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le1952403/
X-POSTED International Nuclear Watch & Discussion

On the Globe and Mail website I wrote: The press handling of nuclear power issues is *atrocious*! This compels me to clarify: There is a BIG safety difference between the enriched uranium-fuelled, light water reactors (LWRs) like the ones in Fukushima (and the ones made by GE/Hitachi, Westinghouse and Areva), and the natural (un-enriched) uranium-fuelled, heavy water reactors (HWRs) like AECL’s CANDUs. Simply put, if the LWRs lose their cooling water, the reaction runs out of control until you get a melt-down. By comparison, if HWRs like the CANDUs lose their heavy water, the reaction stops automatically.

That’s right: CANDUs cannot melt down, even if all safety systems fail and the reactor looses all of its heavy water. To be sure, CANDUs do have safety concerns, most notably their inherent production of tritium. But this problem has now been solved by in-line ‘detritiation’ technologies, which were pioneered by Indian nuclear scientists operating CANDU-type reactors. (Note: Tritium is the primary fuel of experimental fusion reactors like ITER, which may one day provide for all of humanity’s energy needs.)

On top of which; LWRs like the ones in Fukushima need enriched uranium; which require enrichment plants and therefore also more radioactive waste, and also the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation. Conversely, HWRs can run on un-enriched (natural) uranium, or even on cheaper and more plentiful alternatives like thorium, without the need for an enrichment plant.

So therefore, HWRs like CANDUs entail less waste and pose lesser proliferation concerns. For this reason, among many other unique features of CANDUs (such as online refuelling, the ability to burn ‘spent’ fuel from other reactors, or even generate power from decommissioned nuclear warheads); I believe that the “nuclear renaissance” will eventually demonstrate a preference for AECLs technologies, once all of the dust has settled from the Fukushima disaster.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 24 Mar 2011 00:36

Thanks Sananatan Sir. Much appreciated.

Ravi Karumanchiri · Post by **Ravi Karumanchiri** » 24 Mar 2011 00:44

^^^ WRT my allusion above to Indian scientist's development of 'detritiation' technology:

Suggested reading for all Rakshaks following this thread...

TRITIUM BREAKTHROUGH BRINGS INDIA CLOSER TO AN H-BOMB ARSENAL
CCNR subtitle: ''How tritium extracted from CANDU-type power reactors supports India's H-Bomb capability''

Source: Janes Intelligence Review, January 1998
http://www.ccnr.org/india_tritium.html

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 24 Mar 2011 06:22

Sanatanan wrote:The autobiography of Dr M.R Srinivasan "From Fission to Fusion", first published in Viking by Penguin Books India in 2002 (well prior to the nuclear deal) offers a reality check on the above quoted views

Santanan-ji, not sure how this militates against the views quoted...The fact is that we had a planned nuclear power programme that was supposed to be based on the GE BWRs...the first contract was signed post extensive negotiations with the US...Follow-on contracts were not signed as the US were insisting on intrusive safeguards that the atomic energy establishment was not willing to concede (George Perkovich - India's nuclear Bomb, and in parts Raj Chengappa's Weapons of Peace)...Given what happened subsequently, it is a reaosnably good assumption that retention of the "strategic option" was topmost in the policy-makers' minds...

Net net, "better safety" was never quoted as a reason to adopt Canadian CANDUs to American BWRs...Not then, not later, not even now ...Further proof comes in the form of the strenuous negotiations and battles India fought for the Russian VVERs (LWR) - BEFORE the nuke deal...And since then, follow-on orders for the same have been a standard feature of Indo-Russian bilateral discussions, and didnt go forward as the Russians were not willing to bend rules too much till India came inside the international nuclear fold - which happened with the nuke deal...

I havent read Dr Srinivasan's book, so dont know what he says there in terms of why no follow-on reactors were ordered from the US...But what you have quoted here does not go against the fundamental grain of thought here...

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 24 Mar 2011 10:15

somnath wrote: ...The fact is that we had a planned nuclear power programme that was supposed to be based on the GE BWRs...

somnath-ji,
I am not so sure about it.