Now, India can look to thorium as future fuel -- Kumar Chellappan

Thorium Power Canada, a Toronto-based company, is in a state of advanced discussions with countries like Indonesia and Chile for setting up thorium-fuelled nuclear reactors, Mark Halper, a thorium evangelist, announced in his newsletter recently.

He quoted David Kerr, chief executive officer of TPC as saying that world’s first thorium-fuelled nuclear power reactor would come up on Kalimantan island in Indonesia in two years. The estimated cost of the reactor is $50 million (approximately `300 crore).

Kerr also said the Government of Chile has asked TPC to set up a 10 MW thorium powered nuclear reactor in the desert city of Copiapo in north Chile to power a water desalination plant. Even the oil-rich Saudi Arabia is in discussion with TPC for a thorium-powered reactor.

All 435 nuclear reactors operating in different parts of the world are powered enriched uranium, a fast depleting nuclear fuel. India’s nuclear reactors are functioning much below their installed capacity because of uranium shortage. Though countries like USA, Australia and France have vast uranium deposits, they are not open to sell uranium to India for geo-political reasons.

Our reactor is a gas cooled, graphite-moderated thorium breeder reactor. It will cost $1,800 - $2,000 per Kw to build, operate, maintain and fuel. It will take 18 months to 24 months to complete the manufacturing and construction of the power plant. We will and do comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards, Paul Hardy, vice president, Thorium Power Canada, told The Pioneer. This means that a 10 MW plant could be built in two years at a cost of `116 crore.

It will cost more than $2500 per Kw power in a conventional nuclear reactor powered by uranium. The reactor could take minimum 10 years for construction and commissioning. It is more than 25 years since the deal for building the 1,000 MW reactor at Kudankulam was signed with the then USSR. But the reactor is still far away from commissioning.

Hardy said his company was willing to do business with India and all other countries facing power crisis. We hope to target India, along with other countries desperately needing low cost energy, for commercial production after our demonstration reactor is operational in 2 years. We are very familiar with India’s three-stage nuclear programme using Th232. We are following the progress very closely. We do have partners in India which I am not at liberty to speak of at this stage, he said.

What makes thorium reactors unique is their safety. The thorium-fuelled reactors do not generate hazardous radio active wastes.

The wastes generated in thorium reactors could be handled easily. They do not require vast stretches of land, said a nuclear scientist in Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research. The reactor being offered by TPC was designed and developed by Hector D’Auvergne, a Chilean-born scientist who works for DBI Ceramics in California, USA in January 2012.

Though scientists in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, are working on a Advanced High Temperature Reactor fuelled by thorium, insiders say it would take decades for completion. A 500 MW Fast Breeder Reactor using thorium as blanket being built at Kalpakkam near Chennai is also getting delayed. The reactor works were launched in 2004 with the management claiming that it would be commissioned in 2009.

Though we are halfway through in 2013, there is no sign of the Fast Breeder Reactor coming alive. Senior nuclear scientists in DAE feel that the delay is part of a move to sabotage Dr Homi Bhabha’s dream of three-stage nuclear programme, which would have seen India making use of its thorium resources long ago.

Interestingly, CBS Venkataramana, additional secretary, DAE, in a letter dated April 10, 2013, told Hans Raj Ahir, a BJP MP, that there was no indication that thorium is used in reactors currently under operation or that is being considered for deployment in reactors in the near future other than in India.

The Central Electricity Authority in its latest report has said that, to meet increased energy demands, India has to add 2,41,000 MW to its installed capacity of 2,23, 626 MW in the next seven years. All power projects in the country are getting delayed due to factors like coal shortage, environmental clearance and issues related to land acquisition formalities. Nuclear power plants to be built at Jaitapur in Maharashtra and Gorakhpur in Haryana have hit roadblocks due to agitations by environmentalists and opposition to the acquiring of lush fertile land for building power plants.

Since India has vast deposits of thorium and it may not require hectares and hectares of land, thorium powered reactors, even if they are of 100 MW capacity, sound an interesting proposition for the country.