India's 17th Nuclear Reactor Goes Critical

India's indigenous nuclear reactor, Kaiga 3, achieved criticality earlier this week (10:10 am IST on Feb 26th). The 220 MWe pressurized heavy water reactor in Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka will start supplying electricity to the grid by the end of March. For the scientists and engineers working on the project it was a time for celebration.

At a press conference following a celebratory ceremony, Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said the construction technique had been perfected: "Five years is the international benchmark for completing nuclear power plants and along with the project completion costs for this unit, there is going to be a new benchmark."

NPCIL claim that the new reactor was constructed domestically for just Rs 984 ($22.33) per installed kW. NPCIL estimate it could do the same job in certain countries for Rs 1200 ($27.24) per kW. Compared to a global average price of new nuclear construction of $1500 per kW, Indian contractors could occupy a unique place in the world reactor market. >> World Nuclear News

The numbers do look too good to be true (feedback on corrections is welcome). However, if they are true, then they represent a huge cost advantage for the Indian nuclear reactor industry. So while the US is looking for huge business opportunities in the domestic Indian nuclear power market, India is looking for opportunities in countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, which have smaller electricity grids where the 220 MW reactors would be ideal.

Of course India will have to break into the NSG first, which despite US enthusiasm might be more difficult than building the breakthrough technology. Well the scientists and engineers have delivered - it is largely up to the politicians and diplomats now.

Revolutionary Reactor Design by BARC

Scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay, have designed what they claim is the safest and most economical nuclear reactor in the world. BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the design, which has been in the making for seven years, in their paper presented at the week-long 12th International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems (ICENES 2005) in Brussels.

There are some nice and unique things about this reactor. The design presented was for a reactor that can produce, "600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.'" Most accidents are because of human error. So automation would mean minimal chances of accident - plus reduction in cost. Importantly for India, the reactor does not need uranium, and runs of thorium instead (which India has in plenty). I have doubts about that being an advantage. Though it does not need uranium, it still needs plutonium (800 kg a year), and in comparable quantities to the thorium (1100 kg a year).

The design is called ATBR (A Thorium Breeder Reactor). It uses plutonium as the seed to start the reaction cycle, which then carries on with thorium getting converted to fissionable uranium-233. It is a thorium breeder of sorts (a first with thorium in the world - fast breeding is normally done with plutonium), so it produces as much fissile material as it depletes, extending a single cycle over a period of two years. Thus the minimal human interference required.

World reserves of thorium are about three times that of uranium, and India has 32 per cent of the world's thorium. Thus India is rather anxious to start exploiting this huge resource, which incidentally also cannot be used to create nuclear weapons.

India has a so-called "three-stage nuclear program". In the first stage, plutonium is created in its pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) and extracted by reprocessing. In the second stage, fast breeder reactors (FBRs) use this plutonium in 70-percent MOX-fuel to breed uranium-233 in a thorium blanket around the core. In the final stage, the FBR's use thorium-232 and produce uranium-233 for other reactors.

The first stage has been realized with India's 10 nuclear power plants. The second stage is only realized by a small experimental fast breeder reactor (13 MW), at Kalpakkam.

- Bellona