70
years of Independence
Special
Feature – I-Day 2017
India’s
Atomic Energy Programme
*Dr.
M.R. Srinivasan
India
entered the atomic age, more correctly the nuclear age, on 4th August
1956 when Apsara, India’s first nuclear reactor, went into operation. This
reactor was designed and built by India with the nuclear fuel supplied from the
United Kingdom under a lease agreement. Our second reactor for research
purposes, CIRUS, was built with cooperation with Canada and went into operation
in the early 1960’s. The research reactors were platforms for conducting
research in neutron physics, studies in the behaviour of materials under
neutron irradiation and for production of radio isotopes. The latter are very
useful for diagnostics and treatment of various ailments, especially cancer,
and also very useful in industrial applications, especially for the purpose of
non-destructive testing.
Electricity
production using nuclear energy commenced in October 1969 when the two reactors
at Tarapur were put into service. The Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) was
built by General Electric of USA and is now in its forty-eighth year of
service. Tarapur supplies the lowest cost non-hydro electric power in the
country. India’s second nuclear power station came up in Rajasthan, near Kota,
the first unit of which went into operation in August, 1972. The first two
units at Rajasthan were built in collaboration with Canada, who pioneered
reactors that could use natural uranium as fuel. They, however, required heavy
water, present in extremely small quantities in ordinary water and can be
extracted through complex processes.
India’s
third nuclear power station came up at Kalpakkam, near Chennai. This station
was designed and built by India, on its own. All the material and equipment
were produced in the country. This was a huge challenge as Indian industry at
that time, had no experience in making complex equipment required for nuclear
applications. Special materials like nuclear fuel, zirconium components and
heavy water production required extensive work in the laboratories of the
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Pilot plants were built and later scaled
up to industrial plants. Industry had to be trained in special manufacturing
processes and novel quality testing procedures introduced. Thus, when the first
unit of the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) started up in July 1983, India
joined a small group of countries which could design and build nuclear power
units on their own.
Our
fourth nuclear power station came up at Narora, on the banks of river Ganga.
This site has experienced earthquakes in the vicinity. So we evolved designs capable
of withstanding any foreseeable earthquake that could visit the site. We also
standardized the design of a 220 MW unit that could be built at a number of
sites in the country. The first unit of Narora started up in October 1989. In
the next twenty years, India built and commissioned eleven 220 MW units and two
540 MW units, all based on its own technology called ‘Pressurised Heavy Water
Reactors’. To accomplish this task, India also built up a strong heavy water
production capability and fuel production, including mining of uranium in
Jharkhand. Indian industry was mobilized to produce the entire range of
equipment and materials to support the nuclear power programme.
Since
India was keen to augment the nuclear capacity rapidly, it entered into a collaboration
with the former Soviet Union in 1988 to build two 1000 MW reactor power units
using enriched uranium as fuel. Due to the implosion of the Soviet Union in
1990 and the economic difficulties India faced at the time, the Indo-Russian
project was put on the back burner. In 1998, India and Russia decided to embark
on this project, and work at site commenced in 2003. When the commissioning
activities on the first unit were in progress, the accident in Fukushima,
Japan, occurred in March 2011. This triggered a strong opposition to the project
amongst people living in the neighborhood. It took considerable time and
patient explaining to inform the public at large about the safety features at
Kudankulam and also how the site conditions there were completely different
from those at the Japanese site. The first unit at Kudankulam went into
operation in 2014 and the second in 2016.
India
now has twenty-one reactor units in service. The first unit at Rajasthan
supplied by Canada has been out of service due to some equipment deficiencies.
The other units with a total capacity of 6700 MW have been operating reliably. The
plant load factor for the five years from 2011 to 2016 has been about 78%. The
nuclear power units have been supplying power at Rs. 2 to Rs. 3.50 per kwh
(Kilowatt hour). In fact the cost of power from Tarapur has been less than Rs. 1/kwh.
For Kudankulam units 1 and 2, it is about Rs. 4 per kwh.
The
cost of installing Indian designed and built nuclear power unit is about Rs.
16.5 crores/MW. For the Russian reactors, the cost is about Rs. 22 crores/MW.
Since the fuelling cost of the Russian reactors is lower than those of the
Indian reactors, both of them produce power at about Rs. 5/kwh. This cost, when
escalated to the time horizon of 2023-24, will come to about Rs. 6.5 per kwh.
Coal based power in regions far away from coalfields would cost more in the
same time horizon. Solar power for recent projects costs about Rs. 2.5/kwh,
but an expenditure of Rs. 2 /kwh is needed to connect the solar units to the
grid system, taking the total cost to Rs. 4.5/kwh.
India
signed cooperation agreements with the USA and France in 2008 and they provided
for building nuclear power units designed in these countries to be set up in
India. Negotiations have been going on from then on. However, the leading
nuclear power plant builder in the US, namely Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy
a few months ago. AREVA of France lost a lot of money on their nuclear fuel
business following the Fukushima accident. The French government allocated the
nuclear reactor business to their national electric utility, Electricite’ de
France. There is considerable uncertainty, therefore, with regard to
cooperation with USA and France.
Given
this scenario, the Government of India decided to build ten India designed 700
MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors in June 2017. The Nuclear Power Corporation
had scaled up the 540 MW size units to 700 MW and started work, two at
Kakrapara (Units 3 and 4) and two at Rajasthan (Units 7 and 8). This is one of
the biggest single commitments in nuclear power, after the Fukushima accident
of 2011. This programme will provide Indian industry with sustained workload
for a period of a decade and establish India firmly as an important player in
this field.
Work
has commenced on Units 3, 4, 5 and 6 at Kudankulam. Russia has offered to build
six 1200 MW units at a second site to be identified by India. As a parallel
activity, India has designed the ‘Indian Pressurised Water Reactor’ of 900 MW
capacity, using enriched uranium as fuel. Work on two such units may be taken
up soon, to be followed thereafter by series building. At Kalpakkam, the Prototype
Fast Breeder Reactor of 500 MW is in the process of commission. Two reactors of
600 MW of similar design may follow. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has
completed the design of a 300 MW reactor called ‘Advanced Thermal Reactor’
which would use thorium. Our long term plans to use thorium depend on fast
reactors and thorium based systems.
Not
elaborated in this article are activities in the field of research,
reprocessing of spent fuel, development of accelerators and so forth. The
department of Atomic Energy has been actively engaged in supplying radio
isotopes to hospital and industry, in the use of radiation technologies for
preventing spoilage of marine foods, spices and for enhancing the shelf life of
onions, mangoes and other food articles, as well as in sterilization of medical
products.
We
may thus foresee, in the decades ahead, nuclear energy making an important
contribution as carbon-free energy, and nuclear technologies offering benign
solutions in enhancing the quality of life of our people.
*****
*The
author is Former Chairman and presently Member, Atomic Energy Commission.
Views
expressed in the article are author’s personal.
(The
feature has been contributed by PIB Chennai)