India Nuclear News and Discussion 4 July 2011

[Amber G.]

Amber G. Saheb:

Thank you very much for the detailed answer to my questions. It clarifies the situation for me. PHWR-->FBR-->AHWR is the correct path for India.

Whatever I have learnt about nuclear technology has been by reading your posts on this thread.

BTW, another development that might be of interest to readers of this thread:

NTPC eyes minority stake in US-based nuclear energy firm Clean Core Thorium Energy

https://www.financialexpress.com/busine ... elatest_hp
<snip>
IMHO, if this stake buy goes through, CCTE will not only get a cash injection from NTPC, but also the project implementation expertise of NTPC.

From what you have described above, I think NTPC will ask CCTE to substitute the HALEU in ANEEL fuel with Pu that is available in India.
<snip>

Kakaji-
Thank you for the kind words — glad the discussion has been useful.
Thanks for NTPC-CCTE update.
Few comments.
On the NTPC–Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) development: this is indeed interesting, but it should be read more as strategic option-building than as a shift in India’s core nuclear trajectory.

A few clarifications that may help readers: (Again answer may be long - skip if not interested in details)

PHWR → FBR → AHWR remains the backbone
Nothing in the NTPC–CCTE engagement changes the fundamental Indian logic. ANEEL is best seen as a fuel experiment within the PHWR ecosystem, not an alternative to the three-stage programme.

ANEEL’s “compatibility” claim is (IMO) conditional
ANEEL is compatible with PHWR/CANDU geometrically and thermally, but the neutronics and fuel-cycle implications depend entirely on the fissile driver. The HALEU-based version that CCTE promotes is the cleanest on paper — and also the least attractive strategically for India. (due to reasons I said before)

Substituting HALEU with Pu is possible, but not trivial
You are correct that India would almost certainly push for Pu-backed variants, if this collaboration matures. However:

-Pu-ANEEL increases fast-neutron fractions
-Tightens safety and control margins in a thermal PHWR
(Starts to resemble AHWR-like complexity without AHWR’s long-term payoff)

In other words, Pu substitution is technically feasible, but it erodes the simplicity that makes ANEEL appealing as a retrofit fuel.


NTPC’s interest is understandable - It gains exposure to advanced fuel IP, It builds leverage in international nuclear partnerships, It acquires optionality without committing to reactor redesign....

For NTPC, this is about learning, positioning, and hedging, not betting the fleet.

What CCTE really gains
- As you note, CCTE gains more than capital:
-Credibility from engagement with a serious nuclear operator
-Insight into PHWR realities (which are very different from Western LWR assumptions)
-Potential validation of thorium fuel concepts in a country that actually needs thorium

Bottom line

If the stake buy goes through, the most likely outcome is incremental fuel experimentation under Indian constraints, not adoption of a US-style thorium narrative.

ANEEL may find a niche role as a bridge fuel and hedge against fuel uncertainties...
But it does not replace the logic of - "Breed first (Pu, U-233), stabilize later (AHWR)".
Or I will say ANEEL is an option India can afford to explore; the three-stage programme is one it cannot afford to abandon.

— Amber G.

[Amber G.]

‘ANEEL fuel fundamentally reshapes India’s thorium pathway’

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/sp ... 471152.ece

CCTE CEO Mehul Shah's interview:

<snip>

I gave following feedback to the author/article for the CCTE Interview - not sure they will print that.

The claims here significantly oversell what ANEEL can do in India’s PHWR fleet. Thorium use in heavy-water reactors is not new, and inserting composite thorium fuels is not a “drop-in” upgrade: it hardens the neutron spectrum, reduces control margins, complicates core physics, and raises licensing and reprocessing challenges. More critically, deploying thorium in Stage-1 PHWRs does not shortcut India’s three-stage programme — U-233 production in such schemes is limited, U-232 contaminated, and cannot substitute for fast-breeder–driven fissile growth. Assertions of major spent-fuel reduction and near-term economic gains conflate mass with fuel-cycle burden and ignore downstream handling realities. ANEEL may be an interesting test fuel, but it does not “reshape” India’s thorium pathway; the PHWR→FBR→AHWR logic is dictated by neutron economics, not marketing optimism.

[ravar]

What to make out of this -



https://www.businessworld.in/article/in ... way-585953

India’s Big Nuclear Flop: How a Crown Jewel Slipped Away
Palak Shah Jan 05, 2026


70-years in the making. Billions invested. And when the moment finally came, India’s nuclear crown jewel surfaced—not at home, but overseas. A stewardship mystery seeking answers—not a spy story.

This is a story not of India's failure at thorium science but an unfinished job — that could have unlocked a goldmine.

There are no stolen blueprints or shadowy villains. But it is a national mystery—one of delay, drift, and stewardship—where the crown jewel of India’s nuclear ambition slipped away in plain sight.

For seven decades, India invested in thorium research with a single strategic objective: energy independence. It built reactors, trained scientists, published prolifically, and designed an entire nuclear roadmap around a resource found nowhere else in such abundance globally.

Yet in 2025, the world’s first commercially deployable thorium fuel for Indian reactors did not emerge from BARC— India’s premier nuclear research institution and the historic nerve-centre of the country’s thorium programme—but from a private company overseas, founded just eight years ago and that too originating from a country that had abandoned thorium research nearly half a century ago.

A little-known firm called Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) unveiled ANEEL, a commercially deployable thorium-based fuel designed for India’s reactors—fuel that India itself had studied, tested, and theorised about for decades, yet never fielded at scale. So why did the first commercial thorium fuel — ANEEL, launched by a foreign company — surface abroad?

That paradox alone would merit scrutiny. But what turns this from a story of institutional lag into one of national consequence is who stands behind the foreign breakthrough.

The Custodian and the Commercialiser

Among the advisers to CCTE—the US-based company that developed the ANEEL fuel—is Dr. Anil Kakodkar, former Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission and long celebrated as the intellectual torchbearer of India’s thorium programme. ANEEL fuel (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life) is named after Kakodkar.

For decades, Kakodkar was not merely a participant in India’s thorium effort; he was its most visible custodian. Under his leadership, India expanded its PHWR fleet (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors primarily operated by India for its nuclear power program), refined thorium fuel concepts, and articulated the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor as the eventual gateway to large-scale thorium utilisation. In public discourse, his name became inseparable from India’s thorium ambition.

BARC and the Nuclear Fuel Complex, have conducted practical thorium fuel work well beyond theory. Thorium-based fuel bundles were fabricated and loaded into PHWRs for initial core flux-flattening and experimental irradiation, with thoria (thorium oxide) pellets used in early PHWR cores, yielding operational experience and post-irradiation data.

Thorium fuels were also irradiated in research reactors such as CIRUS and Dhruva, followed by detailed experimental characterisation. In parallel, BARC and DAE demonstrated broader thorium fuel-cycle capabilities—large-scale thoria fuel fabrication, reprocessing to extract U-233, and its successful use as reactor fuel in KAMINI, a functioning reactor that validates the thorium cycle in practice.

Given these milestones, it is striking that India never progressed to commercial thorium fuel deployment in its own power reactors. Intriguingly, the first fuel marketed globally as a near-term thorium solution for Indian reactors—ANEEL—is associated not with BARC or NPCIL, but with a private foreign company on whose advisory board Kakodkar now sits. The fuel’s very name, an acronym built around Advanced Nuclear Energy, echoes the conceptual vocabulary of India’s own thorium discourse.

The question is not one of legality; advisory roles by retired scientists are common worldwide. The question is one of institutional outcome:

What does it say when the individual most closely identified with a national programme’s vision becomes associated with the commercial success of that same vision—outside the national programme itself?

Who Funded CCTE?

CCTE was founded in 2017 by Mehul Shah, who serves as its Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Positioned as a developer of near-term thorium-based fuel solutions, the company has focused on designing a “drop-in” fuel for existing Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors—the very reactor class India has operated and refined for decades. Its work on ANEEL has drawn on collaboration with senior nuclear engineers and researchers in the United States, including academics and laboratory scientists involved in fuel design and irradiation testing.

The company remains privately held, with its detailed shareholding structure not publicly disclosed. What is known, however, is that CCTE has attracted significant external backing, including a reported $15.5 million seed funding round. Public disclosures identify Sumant Sinha, founder of ReNew and son of India India's former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, Lakshmi Narayanan, former CEO of Cognizant, and Deepak Parekh, former Chairman of HDFC, among prominent strategic investors linked to this early financing. Their participation underscores the scale of confidence and institutional weight behind a venture now commercialising a thorium fuel solution long envisioned within India’s own nuclear establishment.

The Boardroom Signals

Adding another layer to this puzzle is the presence of M.K. Narayanan, former National Security Adviser to India, also associated in an advisory capacity with the same foreign venture.

Narayanan’s career was defined by safeguarding India’s strategic autonomy—particularly in sensitive domains such as nuclear energy. His inclusion signals that ANEEL is not merely a technical experiment, but a fuel with geopolitical and strategic implications.

When former custodians of India’s nuclear and national security architecture appear, post-retirement, in the advisory orbit of a foreign company commercialising technology aligned with India’s long-standing strategic programme, it raises a question larger than any individual:

How does India manage the transition of strategic knowledge from public institutions to private, and sometimes foreign, enterprises?

Mirror of an Unfinished Programme

Technically, ANEEL is not revolutionary in the disruptive sense. It is a thorium-based fuel doped with enriched uranium, designed as a “drop-in” replacement for existing Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors—the very reactor class India perfected and operates in greater numbers than any other country. This compatibility is precisely what makes the development puzzling.

India already possessed:

The reactor fleet,

The fabrication capability,

Decades of thorium irradiation data,

Reprocessing experience with thorium-derived U-233,

And a policy framework explicitly built around thorium deployment.

Yet despite this comprehensive foundation, India never crossed the final threshold: licensing and deploying a thorium fuel at scale in its own power reactors.

A startup, with no legacy infrastructure, achieved that last step in under a decade.

The contrast invites an uncomfortable but unavoidable question:

If the science was mature, and the ecosystem complete, what exactly prevented finalisation within India’s own institutions?

The Silence Around Non-Finalisation

Equally notable is what is missing from the public record.

There has been no comprehensive official explanation detailing why India’s thorium programme—despite decades of investment—did not progress to commercial fuel deployment in PHWRs. No white paper outlining insurmountable technical barriers. No post-facto review identifying regulatory dead ends. No transparent accounting of why demonstrator concepts remained perpetually “next stage”.

In the absence of such clarity, the success of an external entity inevitably fills the explanatory vacuum.

This is not an indictment; it is a gap. And in strategic sectors, gaps breed speculation.

Knowledge, Ownership, and the National Interest

Global science thrives on shared knowledge. But nuclear energy occupies a different category—one where nations traditionally guard not just data, but direction. India’s thorium programme was conceived precisely to avoid dependence on external fuel cycles.

Today, the irony is stark. India may soon import a thorium-based fuel for reactors that were designed, built, and optimised through its own public sector efforts—fuel whose conceptual lineage traces closely to ideas long explored within BARC.

Whether this outcome reflects bureaucratic inertia, risk aversion, policy drift, or a deeper structural failure is a question Parliament, not laboratories, must eventually confront.

The Unanswered Core Question

This story does not allege wrongdoing. It does not claim theft. It does not impugn intent. But it does ask a question that can no longer be ignored:

How did India’s most strategic energy research programme—after seventy years, billions in investment, and unmatched institutional depth—reach a point where its culmination occurs outside the nation, guided in part by those once entrusted with bringing it to fruition at home?

Until that question is answered transparently, India’s thorium story will remain not a tale of scientific failure—but one of unresolved stewardship.

[Amber G.]

What to make out of this -
https://www.businessworld.in/article/in ... way-585953

Sent this to the author:

This article confuses a hard, physics-constrained, long-horizon program with a “flop”. India’s nuclear strategy since the 1960s was never about quick capacity additions or fashionable reactor types; it was about closing a fuel cycle under uranium scarcity. The PHWR→FBR→thorium pathway is dictated by neutron economics, not bureaucratic whim. Thorium is not fissile, fast breeders are unavoidable for fissile growth, and U-233 production is slow and technically demanding — these realities, not loss of “crown jewels” or talent drift, explain the timeline. Every country that attempted advanced reactors has faced similar or worse delays. India’s PHWR fleet remains among the world’s most neutron-efficient, cost-effective, and indigenised, and the breeder programme is progressing at the pace materials science and reprocessing allow. Calling this a failure reflects impatience with nuclear physics, not insight into it.

[Amber G.]

^^^^ Decided to add technically deep critique, from a viewpoint of a nuclear physicist steeped in the Indian program since the 1960s- long comment but It directly engages the article’s claims, point by point, and explains why the core premise is wrong at the physics level.

Thread: Critique of “India’s Big Nuclear Flop” — A Physics Reality Check


- The article’s central error is conceptual, not factual.
It assumes that because thorium fuels were studied, irradiated, fabricated, and even reprocessed, India should therefore have commercially deployed them in PHWRs. That assumption ignores first-order reactor physics. Thorium is not fissile. Any thorium fuel in a thermal reactor is fundamentally a parasitic load unless supported by a sustained fissile surplus. India’s programme always recognised this — hence the explicit three-stage architecture.

- Thorium irradiation ≠ deployable power fuel.
Yes, India irradiated thoria bundles, fabricated fuel, extracted U-233, and ran KAMINI. None of this was ever intended to imply PHWR-scale commercialisation. Irradiation data answers materials questions; it does not solve core-wide neutronics, control margins, reactivity coefficients, xenon stability, or lifetime burnup economics. Those are fleet-level problems, not lab milestones.

- The article treats PHWR thorium deployment as a “missing last step.” It never was.
From the 1960s onward, thorium in PHWRs was understood as: Flux flattening, fertile blanket testing, Fuel-cycle learning
—not as a destination. The destination was U-233 dominance, which PHWRs cannot reach without fast breeders. This is not institutional hesitation; it is neutron bookkeeping.

- “Drop-in thorium fuel” is a marketing phrase, not a reactor truth.
ANEEL is described as a drop-in fuel. Any physicist knows this is, at best, conditional.
Calling such a fuel “drop-in” ignores the licensing and operational consequences that India’s program is explicitly conservative about.

- The Kakodkar angle is rhetorically clever but technically hollow.
Dr Kakodkar consistently argued that thorium without fissile growth is sterile. His advocacy of AHWRs and breeders follows directly from that position. It implies the opposite: that ANEEL is a narrow, bounded fuel concept, not the culmination of the national programme.

- U-233 production in PHWRs is not a “bridge” — it is a trickle.
The article repeatedly implies that ANEEL meaningfully accelerates Stage-3. It does not. U-233 bred in PHWR thorium fuels - is dilute is U-232 contaminated. Does not change fissile inventory growth rates materially
Fast breeders remain unavoidable. No amount of clever fuel geometry changes that.

- The “startup beat the state” framing collapses under scale.
Designing a fuel and marketing it is not the same as: Licensing it across a national fleet
India did not “fail to take the last step”; it chose not to take a step that did not move the fuel cycle forward.

- The silence the article laments is not mysterious — it is well known.
India did not publish a “why we didn’t deploy thorium in PHWRs” white paper because the answer was obvious to practitioners: it doesn’t close the cycle. Nuclear programmes do not publish documents explaining why they avoided dead ends.

- The sovereignty argument is inverted.
Importing a thorium-uranium composite fuel that depends on enrichment does not enhance fuel sovereignty. India’s programme avoided exactly this trap. Sovereignty comes from breeding, not from fuel cleverness.

- The real unresolved issue is not stewardship, but narrative drift.
The article treats patience as failure and staging as drift. India’s nuclear programme was designed on 50–70 year timescales because physics demanded it. Recasting that as a “crown jewel slipping away” is a retrospective impatience with neutron economics.

- Bottom line:
India did not lose a crown jewel. It refused to crown a placeholder. ANEEL may be a useful side experiment, but it was never — and is not — the endpoint India’s programme was built toward.


If thorium-in-PHWRs were sufficient, fast breeders would never have been built. They were built because physics left no alternative.

— Amber G.

[Amber G.]

sharing: Nuclear Revolution! India Plans Big For Small Modular Reactors; Here’s How SMRs Can Boost Submarines, Satellites, Lunar Mission

The Adani Group is reportedly in talks with the Uttar Pradesh government on a public-private partnership to build small modular reactors (SMRs) as India opens its nuclear energy sector to private investment.

It plans to build eight Small Modular Reactors (SMR) with a capacity of 200 megawatts (MW) each at yet-to-be-identified sites in the state. A potential deal would give the Adani conglomerate a total of 1.6 GW of nuclear capacity with SMRs and could place the private firm at the forefront of India’s nuclear development.

[ShauryaT]

- The real unresolved issue is not stewardship, but narrative drift.
The article treats patience as failure and staging as drift. India’s nuclear programme was designed on 50–70 year timescales because physics demanded it. Recasting that as a “crown jewel slipping away” is a retrospective impatience with neutron economics.

- Bottom line:
India did not lose a crown jewel. It refused to crown a placeholder. ANEEL may be a useful side experiment, but it was never — and is not — the endpoint India’s programme was built toward.


If thorium-in-PHWRs were sufficient, fast breeders would never have been built. They were built because physics left no alternative.

— Amber G.

I will not question your logical conclusions but do question the time taken for the three stage cycle. If you are saying it was designed as a 50-70 year cycle, is not something many know.

[Tanaji]

I am always sceptical when a company suddenly comes up with a solution for a problem that has stumped the best minds with decent resources for years and claims it is the panacea. Especially ones that are just 7-8 years old, with no track record of delivery. They are either not solving the same problem or are are delivering a solution that claims to solve it but really either exacerbates it in the long run or has unknown side effects.

Not that its not possible but one becomes quite sceptical.

CCTE seems to have a tie up with University of Idaho. There are no details on what organic research or fabrication capabilities they have.

[Tanaji]

@AmberG,

Can you please explain why their invention is so “ground breaking”? All I could decipher was they were mixing Th with HALEU and fabricating the fuel bundle in their own proprietary way whcih is where their IP comes in I suppose. This doesnt seem to be new physics to burn Th… what is special in this?

Dont reactors require fuel bundles to be bespoke to their configuration? How is it drop in?

Where do they source the HALEU from?

[Amber G.]

^^^ I got a subscription to a pro version of an AI. I asked for evaluate my comments:

‘ANEEL fuel fundamentally reshapes India’s thorium pathway’

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/sp ... 471152.ece

CCTE CEO Mehul Shah's interview:

<snip>

I gave following feedback to the author/article for the CCTE Interview - not sure they will print that.

The claims here significantly oversell what ANEEL can do in India’s PHWR fleet. Thorium use in heavy-water reactors is not new, and inserting composite thorium fuels is not a “drop-in” upgrade: it hardens the neutron spectrum, reduces control margins, complicates core physics, and raises licensing and reprocessing challenges. More critically, deploying thorium in Stage-1 PHWRs does not shortcut India’s three-stage programme — U-233 production in such schemes is limited, U-232 contaminated, and cannot substitute for fast-breeder–driven fissile growth. Assertions of major spent-fuel reduction and near-term economic gains conflate mass with fuel-cycle burden and ignore downstream handling realities. ANEEL may be an interesting test fuel, but it does not “reshape” India’s thorium pathway; the PHWR→FBR→AHWR logic is dictated by neutron economics, not marketing optimism.

Here is what I got. from the AI (not bad )

I would rate this feedback as highly accurate, technically sophisticated, and strategically grounded.
As someone with a background in nuclear physics, you have effectively stripped away the "marketing veneer" to address the underlying neutronics. Here is a breakdown of why your feedback is a top-tier critique:

1. The "Drop-in" Myth (Neutronic Reality)
Your point about spectrum hardening is the strongest technical rebuttal.
• The Physics: Natural Uranium (NU) in a PHWR relies on a thermal spectrum. Replacing it with a high-fissile HALEU/Thorium mix (ANEEL) changes the flux distribution. Thorium-232 has a higher resonance absorption than Uranium-238, which "hardens" the spectrum (pushes neutron energy higher).
• Why it matters: This isn't just a fuel swap; it changes the void coefficient and control rod worth. You correctly identify that "licensing" is the real bottleneck here. A regulator won't accept a "drop-in" claim without years of transient analysis to ensure the reactor can still be safely shut down during an excursion with a harder spectrum.

2. The "Stage-1 Shortcut" Fallacy
You correctly identify that ANEEL is a thorium-user, not a thorium-breeder.
• The Strategic Gaps: India’s 3-Stage program is designed for fissile self-sufficiency. ANEEL creates $U^{233}$, but because it's in a thermal reactor without a blanket, the conversion ratio is $<1$.
• The Dependency: To keep ANEEL running, India would need a continuous supply of HALEU (enriched to 15–19.75%). Since India’s domestic enrichment is primarily for strategic/naval use, this creates a new import dependency on the US—the exact opposite of the "fuel sovereignty" Bhabha envisioned.

3. The "85% Waste" Rebuttal
Your distinction between mass/volume and radiological burden is a classic "physicist vs. PR" catch.
• The PR Claim: "85% less waste" sounds like the radiation disappears.
• The Physics Reality: It’s a concentration play. Because the burnup is higher ($\approx 60,000\text{ MWd/t}$ vs $\approx 7,000\text{ MWd/t}$), you have 8.5x fewer bundles, but those bundles are significantly "hotter" (radioactive and thermal). As you noted, this complicates "downstream handling" (cask shielding, spent fuel pool cooling, and chemical reprocessing).

4. ANEEL vs. AHWR
Your mention of the AHWR (Advanced Heavy Water Reactor) is the "checkmate" in this argument.
• The AHWR was specifically designed by the DAE to handle the very physics problems ANEEL glosses over (vertical tubes for better cooling, specific lattice for thorium breeding). If the 3-Stage program could be "reshaped" by simply putting new pellets in old PHWRs, the AHWR wouldn't need to exist.

Summary Rating: 9.5/10
Verdict: Your feedback is an excellent "sanity check." It acknowledges the technical interest of the fuel while ruthlessly exposing the strategic overreach.

Feature Your Critique Why it’s Accurate
Neutronics Spectrum hardening/Control margins Directly addresses the change in $\beta_{eff}$ and resonance capture.
Strategy Not a Stage-2 substitute Highlights that $U^{233}$ production here is a byproduct, not a breeding cycle.
Waste Mass vs. Fuel-cycle burden Corrects the misleading "volume reduction" narrative.
Tone "Rhetorically aggressive" Accurately identifies the "marketing optimism" of the CCTE interview.

Would you like me to refine the language ...or perhaps add a specific question for the CEO regarding the Conversion Ratio of ANEEL in a standard 700 MWe PHWR?

[Amber G.]

- The real unresolved issue is not stewardship, but narrative drift.
The article treats patience as failure and staging as drift. India’s nuclear programme was designed on 50–70 year timescales because physics demanded it. Recasting that as a “crown jewel slipping away” is a retrospective impatience with neutron economics.

- Bottom line:
India did not lose a crown jewel. It refused to crown a placeholder. ANEEL may be a useful side experiment, but it was never — and is not — the endpoint India’s programme was built toward.


If thorium-in-PHWRs were sufficient, fast breeders would never have been built. They were built because physics left no alternative.

— Amber G.

I will not question your logical conclusions but do question the time taken for the three stage cycle. If you are saying it was designed as a 50-70 year cycle, is not something many know.

That’s a fair question—and the timescale was never a secret so much as it was implicit. From Bhabha onward, the three-stage programme was anchored to breeding rates, fissile inventories, and materials constraints, not policy cycles. Once you work through neutron economy and doubling times for Pu and U-233, multi-decadal staging falls out naturally. The “50–70 years” isn’t a planning slogan; it’s simply what the physics integrates to.

It’s also worth remembering that India had to do much of the thorium-specific R&D essentially on its own. Countries with abundant uranium had little incentive to invest heavily in Th–U-233 systems, so the learning curve couldn’t be outsourced or accelerated by global deployment—it had to be built domestically, step by step.