India signals energy self-reliance
Royden D'Souza
Friday, April 28, 2006 (Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu):
India's fast breeder nuclear reactor promises energy self-reliance and make the nation a nuclear superpower.
India supplying nuclear fuel and nuclear technology to the world is an idea whose time has arrived.
Over the past few decades, behind a wall of secrecy and unaided by the world, India has developed pioneering fast breeder technology that will secure its future energy needs and give it the capacity to sell precious nuclear fuel and technology to the world.
In a few years the Department of Atomic Energy has taken India from nuclear pariah to a respected nuclear guru.
In an exclusive report, NDTV has found that the secretly developed technology would give the capability to sell nuclear fuel to the world.
The prototype unveiled for the first time includes a family of super efficient machines that convert reserves of thorium to nuclear energy.
"India has abundant amount of thorium. We have to have a plan where uranium can be used very effectively and then we can switch on to thorium," said Project Director Prabhat Kumar.
"We are making one fast breeder reactor here and we will build two more fast breeder reactors at the same site. Then by the year 2020 at least two more fast breeder reactors will come up in the country," he added.
Nuclear superpower
But more importantly, this is the birth of India the nuclear superpower, the nuclear exporter.
"I am very confident that in 50 years from now, when the global scenario with regard to the energy availability will change, all those countries will look back with regard to alternatives," said SK Jain, CMD, BHAVINI.
"They will find that the fast breeder or the plutonium route is the only alternative available and they will look at us and there will be reverse flow of technology," he added.
At ground zero in Kalpakkam in the heart of nuclear India is a reactor prestigious enough for India to stand up and be counted.
Employing a technology so fascinating it looks like science fiction come alive, the complex nuclear reactor will produce more fuel than it burns.
The core of the fast breeder nuclear reactor comprises concentric rings of fuel sub-assemblies, 181 in all, swimming in a pool of very hot liquid sodium.
Each of these fuel sub-assemblies is made up of 217 fuel pins about a meter long and 6.6 millimeter in diameter.
Fast breeder
Each pin contains a mixture of plutonium and uranium used as fuel in the reactor core. When neutrons are used to bombard the nuclear fuel contained in these fuel pins, fission takes place.
With the breakup of each atom of nuclear fuel three additional neutrons are given off along with a great amount of energy in the form of heat.
A great amount of heat energy is released in the reactor core. This heat is absorbed by the liquid sodium surrounding the fuel assembly and is transported to a system where it is transferred to a steam cycle.
This steam is then used to run generators to produce electricity.
The fast breeder has a doubling time of eight to ten years. It means if it starts with 10 tones of Plutonium, in the next eight years it will generate another 10 tons of plutonium to start off another reactor - that is why it is called a fast breeder.
In 2009 when the reactor is starts running India would have launched itself into a new era of strategic and energy security.
ndtv.com |
