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Sufficient Fast Breeders Reactors Required To Leverage Indian Thorium Reserves

2008-06-19 India needs to establish a sufficiently large installed capacity of nuclear power by fast breeders if it has to sustain nuclear power generation for hundreds of years using its large reserve of thorium, a top scientist said.

"The rate at which we can grow in installed capacity is dependent on the availability of uranium as it is used in pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWR) and the spent fuel from these reactors has plutonium which is used in the fast breeder reactor (FBR)," Dr Srikumar Banerjee, Director, Bhabha Atomic Research Center, said.

Thorium itself is not a fuel, it is only a fertile material. It can be converted into Uranium-233 using excess neutrons available from the fast reactors. Thorium fueled reactors cannot give high breeding ratio like that in fast reactors fueled by plutonium, Banerjee said.

"That is why we cannot grow with thorium but once we establish a large capacity with fast breeders we can sustain that capacity with thorium for several centuries," he told PTI.

Uranium is used in PHWR and the spent fuel from them has plutonium which is used in the breeder reactor. India is building a 500 Prototype FBR in Tamil Nadu.

The third-stage of the nuclear power programme envisioned by Homi Bhabha can be a reality only if an inventory of Uranium-233 is generated from thorium. The implementation of this scheme can, therefore, occur only in stages, he said.

"Our immediate effort is to increase the capacity by setting up more nuclear power stations using uranium as fuel. The plutonium from spent fuel will provide plutonium for the growth of our FBR programme, which in turn, will allow building the inventory of Uranium-233 from thorium at a faster rate.

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