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| India-Pakistan |
| India to double uranium production in 2007 |
| 2007-04-09 |
| Indian scientists Monday said that in 2007 uranium production in the country would double. According to the officials of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), only four imported reactors - two at Tarapore in Maharashtra and two in Rajasthan - are actually under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 'As for the other reactors, there is a proposal to classify them as civilian, but until an agreement takes place we are continuing as usual,' Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) director S. Banerjee said here Monday. Asked to clarify, he said: 'We in India have never looked at reactors as military or civilian. We are not going to do any classification until there is a specific agreement and will continue operating them as we have been doing' for the last two decades. The country is preparing to set up 12 new reactors for nuclear power in the next two years, so that by 2012 India could get at least 10,000 MW. Banerjee, along with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) chairman S.K. Jain, was speaking to the media here on the sidelines of an international steel conference. India's own mines at Jaduguda (Jharkhand) have 1,000 MTPD (metric tonne per day) processing capacity and India owns only 0.8 percent of the world's uranium reserve. 'The plan is to step up power production by next year, starting with eight 700-MW PHWR (pressurised heavy water reactors) rea,' said S.K. Jain, chairman and MD, NPCIL and BHAVINI (Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd). India is also looking at setting up one light water reactor and three fast breeder reactors, he said. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India is operating 14 (two boiling water reactors and 12 PHWRs) reactors, with a total capacity of 2,720 MWe and the eight reactors it is building will up its power production by another 5,600 MWe (totalling more than 8,000 MWe). It also has two test reactors and the first indigenous fast breeder reactor is expected to start production by next year. 'The sites for four PHWRs has already been found, we are now looking among our basket of sites to find the most suitable, for the other four,' Jain said. The first four are to be at Rajasthan and at Kakrapara (Gujarat). Of the three fast breeder reactors, two 500 MW ones will be at DAE's Kalpakkam campus. Designing for one advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) too has begun, Jain said. This will be a thorium reactor of about 300 MWe. The safety appraisal for this is over, officials said. 'We do not want to begin setting up all the reactors at the same time. Our uranium production will double next year and we want to link the reactors to uranium availability,' Jain said. Therefore, NPCIL is going to set up the reactors in a phased manner over the next two years, the first four new PHWRs and then the next ones after 10 months or so. He said that NPCIL has been constructing its power plants on a commercial basis 'without any foreign investment' so far. India is planning its reactors to work for at least 60 to a hundred years, officials here said. 'The prototype fast breeder reactor has a life time of 40 years, the FBRs have 60 year life, we want to ensure that they give us power for the next 100 years,' BARC director S. Banerjee said. He said India is looking for deep-seated uranium reserves now. |
| Posted by:John Frum |